Why the District of Columbia should not be a state

In presidential contests D.C. voters do not seriously weigh the merits or demerits of presidential candidates. The District is a dependency of the federal government, and its electorate invariably votes for the party that offers more government

Defending the Constitution: The ‘Three-Fifths Compromise’ was not based on racism

If you assume that counting persons is the proper basis for congressional representation, it’s easy to see how one could misread the reduction for slaves and the exclusion of non-tax-paying Indians as expressions of racism. However, many, probably most, of the framers did not think counting persons was the proper basis for representation.

How a ‘Convention of States’ really works

Frantic claims that it’s a “constitutional convention” … or that it can issue a new document or “radically re-write” the existing one … or change the ratification procedure—none of these have any legal or historical basis.