Loyalist № 17. The machinery of a republic must be carefully regulated. When the energy of government rises unchecked, it risks surging into tyranny; when it declines too far, it stalls into gridlock or chaos. The role of institutions, as the Founders envisioned, is to maintain this equilibrium – preserving a government vigorous enough to act decisively yet restrained enough to protect liberty.
Loyalist № 12. What began with Lincoln as a reluctant claim of necessity has become a near-permanent feature of executive power in the United States. In the name of liberty, Americans have surrendered many of the very safeguards meant to protect it – and in doing so, invited the rise of presidential power without restraint.
Loyalist № 11. The U.S. Presidency, once a modest office constrained by law, has swelled into an entity with near-monarchical power – issuing thousands of executive orders, waging undeclared wars, and reshaping global treaties without Congress. The very safeguards that Hamilton extolled now seem weakened, raising the question: has the Republic strayed too far from its founding principles?
Loyalist № 10. In the hands of one who wears not the Crown but lusts after it, the noble prerogatives of mercy and pardon turn to malignancy. Not unlike the failure of Reconstruction following the end of the Civil War, the pardoning of the January 6th insurrectionists who sought to overturn the constitutional order of the United States foreshadows a long and terrible night ahead.
Loyalist № 8. The Electoral College was meant to shield the presidency from partisanship and populism – but quickly became their tool. Federalist No. 68 offers a window into the original design and its failure, raising deeper questions: What can Westminster democracy teach us about balancing local and national interests? And have Canadians unknowingly created an Electoral College of Our own?
Loyalist № 6. What if the Framers had chosen a plural executive instead of a President? Revisiting a pivotal debate that sparked Federalist No. 70, We imagine the consequences of a very different choice – one that might have left the young United States of America fractured, its capital in ruins, and its future uncertain.
Loyalist № 5. The United States has long imagined itself the “indispensable nation,” a force for a rational global democratic order. Yet from Wounded Knee to Iraq, history shows a different pattern – one of unrestrained power, failed principles, and abandoned allies. Whether the myth was ever a force for good, the world may now be better off without it.