This weekend we mark the 250th anniversary of American independence. On July 2, 1776, the delegates of the thirteen colonies declared them to be “free and independent states,” and two days later signaled their reasons for doing so. Just how free and independent those states are in 2026 is an open question. 　　What is clear is that the anniversary comes...

　　During this 250th anniversary of independence, Americans are presented with a familiar narrative—one grounded more in national myth than historical reality. It goes something like this: the Declaration of Independence cast aside the British origins and institutions of the colonies and created a propositional nation based on equality and individual liberty. To secure these principles, the document birthed a unitary...

　　The Supreme Court’s decision in Trump v. Barbara extended birthright citizenship to almost any person born in the United States—including the children of undocumented immigrants and of mothers who enter the country for the sole purpose of giving birth here. In so ruling, the court made some serious legal and historical mistakes. 　　But miscalculations by the Trump administration contributed to...

　　Modern political philosophy and modern politics brought “the State” to the fore in novel and contentious ways. Leo Strauss argued that Machiavelli’s concept of “lo stato” was an essential component of a revolution in human thought and aspiration. The Treaty of Westphalia is rightly said to have inaugurated a new international order in Europe, precisely with its legitimatization of absolute...

　　This weekend, Americans will celebrate the 250th anniversary of our country’s independence in nationwide celebrations featuring backyard barbecues, fireworks displays, and concerts. President Donald Trump echoed the sentiments of many patriotic revelers and underscored the Declarations centrality to America’s political identity when he described the event. “With a single sheet of parchment and 56 signatures, America began the greatest political...

　　Nearly six years ago, in the terrible summer of 2020, I published an article titled “A Declaration of Independence by a Princeton Professor.” In the first paragraph, I wrote that my family and I had “sat around the festive table” a few days before, on the Fourth of July, and “read the Declaration [of Independence] aloud in celebration.” Hardly the...

　　In the end, it wasn’t even close. Andy Burnham, popular mayor of Greater Manchester, won the Wigan-based constituency of Makerfield in a landslide, taking 55 percent of the vote and—crucially—outpolling Reform, Restore, and Tory combined (along with everyone else). Conservatives, LibDems, and Greens all lost their deposits. He not only increased Labour’s vote but increased its vote share by dint...

　　On August 20, 2001, I arrived in the United States with my family after leaving Brazil, the country in which I had been born, educated, and built my professional life. Three weeks later, I watched in horror as terrorists attacked New York and Washington on September 11. Like millions of Americans, I experienced a mixture of grief, shock, and disbelief....

　　Historical illiteracy has become a real problem in our time. The downsides of this have become rather glaring lately, as for instance in Tucker Carlson’s 2024 interview with Daryl Cooper, whom Carlson called “the most honest popular historian in the United States.” Cooper claimed that Americans’ understanding of WWII was deeply flawed and that the true villain was Winston Churchill....

　　It has become received wisdom by the legal intelligentsia that the Supreme Court is illegitimate. They charge that the conservative justices are engaging in politicized decisions that advance Republican causes, which have no grounding in law. Critics blast the Court for not following procedural regularity and deciding important issues on the so-called “shadow” docket. This mantra is repeated so often...

　　In daily personal market transactions, the dynamics of mutual gain were once readily apparent. A buyer of meat from a butcher could readily see that he valued the meat more than the money he paid for it. The seller earned his living from the transaction. Each could recognize the other as a partner in mutual advantage. 　　Contrast this process with...

　　The Presidential Records Act (PRA) has lately been a source of controversy. The Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) published an opinion at the beginning of April that concluded the PRA is unconstitutional because it “exceeds Congress’s enumerated and implied powers” and “aggrandizes the Legislative Branch at the expense of the constitutional independence and autonomy of the Executive.”...