original understanding Archives - Independence Institute

The Electoral College: The target of politicians who would make things worse 0
- May 14, 2020
If we were to cut the presidency down to constitutional size, it wouldn’t matter so much that on rare occasions the position’s occupant was not the popular vote winner.
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The “right to travel”0
- May 10, 2020
Most people would recognize the right to travel as an inherent, natural right of free people, and the courts say that it is the Constitution. But is it really there?
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Civics 101: How to understand the Constitution 0
- May 3, 2020
“Here’s an important, but widely overlooked, feature: The document doesn’t grant power only to federal officials. It also confers power on persons and entities who are not part of the U.S. government at all.”
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A defense of the Electoral College 0
- April 5, 2020
“… when Hamilton stated . . . that he believed electors would use “information and discernment,” that is not very good evidence that future electors did in fact use information and discernment. But it is quite good evidence that Hamilton and his readers believed the Constitution empowered electors to do so.”
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City destroys home without paying: Will the Supreme Court take the case?0
- March 26, 2020
The Takings Clause in the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution . . . reads in part, “nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.”
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Underselling Originalism 0
- March 16, 2020
Originalism is not a modern invention “[T]he ‘intent of the makers’ had been the lodestar of documentary construction since at least the 1500s.”
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