Commentary The leak of a draft Supreme Court opinion potentially overruling Roe v. Wade is unprecedented. To understand the likely motives behind the leak, let’s go back in time and place. Bear with me as I review a similar case (pdf) from a half-century ago. It’s the summer of 1972. The place is the state…

Commentary Some schools are teaching children that the formation of the American Union, and specifically the Constitution, were influenced heavily by the pre-existing federation of the Iroquois Indians. There are many websites making the same claim. As someone with native ancestry, I’d be glad if it were true. But it’s demonstrably false. Parents who find…

Commentary The other day on “The View,” a gentleman named Elie Mystal attacked the Constitution with an argument so astute it only could have come from the mind of a Harvard educated lawyer. From the comfort of a multimillion-dollar TV show, Mystal declared that the Constitution is “kind of trash.” “It was written by slavers and…

Commentary The first installment in this series explained that the Constitution created a small and frugal federal government. This didn’t change materially until the 1930s and 1940s. The second installment profiled the Supreme Court justices serving in the period 1934–1937, when the court, under the leadership of Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes, attempted to balance…

Commentary The first installment in this series described America’s limited and frugal federal government from 1789 until the 1930s. This second installment explains how the stage was set for radical change. Crisis and Depression In October 1929, a financial bubble broke. As always happens when financial bubbles break, people lost a great deal and hardship…

Commentary Reporters and opinion writers often classify Supreme Court justices as “originalists,” “textualists,” or “strict constructionists.” And they often misuse those terms. For example, a Dec. 9 column in Slate treated all three terms as synonymous. That’s entirely wrong. This essay clarifies the three terms and how they interact. Strict Construction Strict construction is this:…