Path to Liberty

Sept 18, 1850 – Pres. Millard Fillmore signed the 2nd Federal Fugitive Slave Act into law. An attempt to implement the Fugitive Slave Clause of the Constitution, the act, at best, had serious constit…

Despite writing on the Constitution for decades – few people today seem to even know the name Lysander Spooner. And most who do, rarely know more than one quote. Time to turn that around.

Path to Lib…

All the founders agreed that standing armies were a great threat to liberty. The only debate was really the best way to prevent those dangers. But they didn’t come up with this view on their own – it…

Forgotten long ago: Essential principles underlying the Constitution and liberty – right from the Founders. It’s time to turn that around.

Path to Liberty: September 11, 2023

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Despite the fact that it proved to be mostly a false alarm, the “Powder Alarm” of 1774 showed the colonists that the British were serious – and willing to use gun control efforts to keep them in thei…

Many people hold the false and dangerous view that the federal court system is not only the final say on the meaning of the Constitution – but take it even further – the courts represent the “last bu…

Ignorance of liberty, of the constitution, of the powers delegated to the government – and so much more – are just what tyrants absolutely love. And we’re literally surrounded by people who are willf…

To many people today, liberty is little more than choosing new people to rule over them every few years. And even in the founding generation, there was a wide range of viewpoints on just what constit…

A culture of obedience and compliance guarantees that government will never stop growing – and defiance and nullification represent the “rightful remedy” to usurpations of power. But today, many peop…

Even when states end civil asset forfeiture, a federal program called “equitable sharing” encourages them to participate in a federal version anyway. But the states can opt-out and nullify the federa…

The founders warned us – over and over and over again – about the dangers to liberty from war. As James Madison put it, war gives us armies, which lead to debts and taxes. This trifecta makes up the …

Applying Thomas Jefferson’s strategy for advancing liberty to the massive and ever-growing surveillance state we live under today. One state is following it well, and all other states should copy the…

In his series of 18 letters, Federal Farmer repeatedly warned about the dangers of centralized power, predicting that the proposed government would end in “the destruction of freedom.”

Path to Libert…

In his last major speech during the Virginia Ratifying Convention, Patrick Henry warned against the potential for “ten thousand implied powers,” and called for a number of amendments prior to ratific…

Everywhere you turn, it seems like people are at each other’s throats. Everything has gotten political – and it’s only going to keep getting worse. Unless, of course, the people see the source of the…

If you want to understand the Constitution – its original, legal meaning – don’t rely exclusively, or even primarily on the Federalist Papers. You’ll want to read other federalists like James Wilson,…

To support the constitution and liberty, these four big federal monstrosities absolutely need to go. But that doesn’t mean we should ever expect the people with power to voluntarily give up that powe…

Most efforts to stop federal programs miss the mark in a big way. Instead of striking the root, they hack at branches, often setting the stage for more of the same in the future.

Path to Liberty: Aug…

If we truly want to build a real “land of the free,” it’s essential to understand the source of our problems. Using the wisdom and warnings of leading founders and old revolutionaries – we can point …

In a series of speeches during the Virginia Ratifying Convention, Patrick Henry warned against a combination of the treaty, the judicial power and – the supremacy clause – that it would lead to gover…