I’ve heard it said that the price of liberty is eternal vigilance. I’ve also heard that people these days are pretty stressed out, and I have to wonder if that’s because we’re all being so damned vigilant.

As we mark the 249th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, we reflect on its interesting use of “necessary.”

After archivists at the Library of Congress thanked me for helping locate a lost video archive about the fall of Saigon, I wrote to several government officials requesting a review of all archives in the Veterans History Project. When I received no replies, I turned to Vietnam-era journalist Marvin Kalb.

In his 1796 farewell address, George Washington famously cautioned about the dangers to liberty of the United States entering into entangling alliances.

Among the issues that Donald Trump successfully campaigned on in 2024, the most influential one, along with putting a stop to rampant illegal immigration, was undoubtedly improving the American people’s standard of living, following  years of high inflation under the Biden administration.

Artificial Intelligence is both celebrated and feared. But what is it, and what does it portend? A brief reflection.

Critics of the populism that put Donald Trump in the White House (again) often point to what they assume is a contradiction between the “average Joe” of populist imagination and the decidedly above-average wealth of the people’s chosen tribunes.

The next five essays, all written by Madison, may be thought of as the hinge on which the collection rests. Prior to these five essays Publius largely deals with the most consequential powers of the federal government under the Constitution, constantly stressing union as the solution to existing problems, and after these essays focuses more on the different branches of government.

As spring finally and fitfully makes itself known here in God’s country, our author reflects on how the rhythm of language reflects the rhythm of the world. Why do beautiful things haunt us so?

It would be difficult to find a better personification of political imagination in the second half of the 20^th century than President Gerald R. Ford’s ambassador to Great Britain and Secretary of Commerce Elliot Richardson (1920-1999).

Politicians often operate with a different set of values and virtues than other people do, but must they be able to keep promises? Why is promise-keeping so important in political life?

The understandable decision of Attorney General Pam Bondi to seek the death penalty in the murder trial of Luigi Mangione, charged with killing 50-year-old health care executive Brian Thompson by shooting him in the back just because Mangione saw Thompson as exemplary of the supposed callous greed of his industry, was perhaps surprisingly met with the news that donations to Mangione’s defense fund have already exceeded $1 million.

Publius often blurred the line between hortatory and argument. Thinking he had slam-dunked the Anti-federalists on the “necessary and proper” and “supremacy” clauses, Publius crowed about how the Constitution satisfied the passions and interests expressed in the Revolution.

Capture of the SS Mayaguez

On May 12, 1975, a military swift boat commanded by the Khmer Rouge captured the U.S. container ship Mayaguez off the Cambodian coast.

In Federalist #44 Madison reviewed Congressional powers and suggested most of them were non-controversial.

The 2014 documentary “The Last Days of Vietnam” puts viewers amid the chaos of the final days of the South Vietnamese government and the fall of Saigon in 1975. News footage of North Vietnam’s assault on Saigon and the heroic response of U.S. military and embassy officials to evacuate South Vietnamese gives a realistic view of Black April, as the South Vietnamese refer to the collapse of their country.

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC, consists of two black granite walls bearing the names of service members who died or remained missing as a result of their service in the war.

Reviewing the Constitutional debates impresses one with the level of argument engaged by both sides. Members of both parties were serious students of history and political theory, demonstrating that a common education doesn’t necessarily produce agreement. What’s most striking about the arguments of that day is how comprehensive, detailed, and thorough they were.

Peter Berger in his classic essay “On the Obsolescence of the Concept of Honor,” demonstrated how societies where honor matters have a thick sociology while those with a thin social sphere are dominated by ideas of human “dignity.”

Many Americans of Generation X and older will recall the red, white, and blue American Freedom Train that was a centerpiece of America’s glorious Bicentennial celebration.

In Federalist #43 Madison continued the themes of the prior essays: an examination of the detailed powers given Congress in Article I, section 8, while also addressing some additional powers.

The most famous photo of the fall of Saigon appears to show a long line of people perched on a ladder atop the US embassy, waiting to be evacuated by a US military helicopter.