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Celebrate Liberty Month - Debate, Discuss and Decide
The Federalist Society and The Washington Times celebrate Liberty Month with a collection of essays every day covering principles to preserve freedom, the separation of governmental powers and the Constitution.
Recent Stories
Celebrate Liberty Month: The Courts as Guardians of Liberty
Our nation was founded on the fundamental democratic principle, proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence, that the only legitimate form of government is one that derives its "just powers from the consent of the governed."
Celebrate Liberty Month: Judges Must Protect Individual Liberty from Legislative Abuse
Our Constitution is a "republican" constitution, designed to protect individual liberty, rather than a "democratic" one that privileges the will of the majority.
Celebrate Liberty Month: Federal Protection Of Private Property: A Cure Worse Than The Disease?
When governments regulate private property, there is always a risk of abuse and corruption.
Celebrate Liberty Month: It's Time To End The Poor Relation Status Of Constitutional Property Rights
The protection of private property rights was one of the Founding Fathers' main goals in establishing the Constitution.
Celebrate Liberty Month: The Supreme Court should leave well enough alone
The Supreme Court recently decided to hear Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, a case that asks the Court to overrule its 1977 decision in Abood v. Detroit Board of Education.
Celebrate Liberty Month: Friedrichs v. Calif. Teachers' Association
Next fall, the Supreme Court will hear oral argument in Friedrichs v. California Teachers' Ass'n.
Celebrate Liberty Month: ICANN needs to return to its Root(s)
In a little-noticed corner at the intersection of technology and policy, big changes are underway that could have a profound impact on the Internet as we know it.
Celebrate Liberty Month: Can Congress save the internet?
As the list of candidates entering the 2016 presidential ring continues to grow, so does the "to do" list of policy priorities for pro-growth conservatives.
Celebrate Liberty Month: Law and innovation
In this age of accelerating technology, there is no more important policy than to encourage innovation. Innovation is the primary source of economic growth.
Celebrate Liberty Month: The 5 W's regarding the need for H.R. 9 and patent reform
As Congress appears to be rushing towards a massive "patent reform" bill, inventors, entrepreneurs and defenders of Intellectual Property are becoming increasingly concerned about the direction of the debate.
CELEBRATE LIBERTY MONTH: The government needs prayers
At 10:00 a.m. on every day when the Supreme Court is in session, the Justices proceed to their chairs while the Court's Marshal proclaims:
Celebrate Liberty Month: Religion and the public square
Religion and politics are not a good mix. As history repeatedly teaches us, combining the two spheres harms religion and endangers politics.
Celebrate Liberty Month: The Tweeter Laureate of Texas--@JusticeWillett--discusses judges' use of
We inhabit an age of staggering civic illiteracy. Exhibit A: Just 36% of Americans can name all three branches of government. Exhibit B: 35% can't name a single one. As George Washington famously tweeted, "I can't even."
Celebrate Liberty Month: Speech restrictions in judicial elections: Good idea or incumbent protectio
The Constitution guarantees us the right to choose our own rulers. For our choice to be meaningful, we need free access to all types of speech: information, debate, and argument.
Celebrate Liberty Month: Campaign finance reform can't punish free speech
Although the First Amendment unequivocally states that "Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech" it has long been understood that compelling interests sometimes allow the government to restrict speech.
Celebrate Liberty Month: It's Buckley, not Citizens United, that created massive spending
Among those who decry the levels of money being spent on elections, the villain is almost always Citizens United, which unleashed corporations and permitted them to make unlimited independent expenditures in support of or in opposition to candidates for elected office.
Celebrate Liberty Month: But what about the bakers?
Same-sex marriage is now the law of the land—and that's a good thing.
Celebrate Liberty Month: Religious exemptions and the conscientious objector
What should the government do about people who have strong and sincere conscientious scruples against obeying generally applicable and democratically enacted laws?
Celebrate Liberty Month: The Roberts Court and the First Amendment
In its first decade, the Roberts Court has been very protective of freedom of speech, except when the institutional interests of the government are at stake.
Celebrate Liberty Month: The Roberts Court's B+ grade in protecting free speech
Chief Justice Roberts' recent words for a unanimous bench reflect his Court's protective regard for free speech rights.
Celebrate Liberty Month: A duty to fight for federalism
What has your state attorney general done for you recently? If he or she isn't keeping an eye on whether the federal government is overstepping its bounds, you may want to start paying closer attention to what your AG is doing.
CELEBRATE LIBERTY MONTH: Regulation by litigation
In 1998, coordinated Medicaid recoupment litigation against the tobacco industry by over forty state attorneys general, working with private contingency fee law firms, resulted in a landmark $246 billion Master Settlement Agreement with marketing restrictions on tobacco products.
Celebrate Liberty Month: Defining a legitimate scope for the federalization of business crime
Having repeatedly criticized the "over-criminalization" of otherwise legitimate business activity at the hands of Congress and national-level enforcement agencies, I may seem an unlikely choice for defending an important role for the federal government in addressing crime.
Celebrate Liberty Month: Federalism and criminal law
Police power is necessarily political, but should not be partisan. "Police" and "politics" derive from the Greek word "polis," a body of citizens constituting a city-state.
Celebrate Liberty Month: Federalism and the fracking revolution
The United States is in the midst of an energy revolution caused by a new technology for extracting oil and gas from shale deposits called "fracking."
Celebrate Liberty Month: National standards are essential to the success of U.S. Environmental law
Choking on life-threatening pollution, hundreds of millions of Chinese long for effective environmental laws like we enjoy in the United States.
Celebrate Liberty Month: National Elections: Who Makes the Rules?
Who has the power to set the ground-rules for national elections, such as how congressional districts are designed each decade, whether you have to provide documentation proving your citizenship before registering to vote?
Celebrate Liberty Month: The Freedom to Speak and Participate in Elections
One of the rights we should celebrate (and cherish) during Liberty Month is freedom of speech.
Celebrate Liberty Month: Federalism and the administrative state
Forget the familiar refrain "Washington is broken! We must fix the gridlock." Past fixes to gridlock have broken Washington.
Celebrate Liberty Month: Federalism: striking the balance
Our Constitution was drafted in 1787 "in Order to form a more perfect Union" -- both more perfect than the British tyranny and more perfect than the flawed Articles of Confederation.
Celebrate Liberty Month: ISIL, war powers, and the Constitution
On July 11, 2014, Representative Jim McGovern rose on the House floor in support of a resolution to prohibit President Obama from going to war against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant absent specific authorization from Congress.
Celebrate Liberty Month: Congress and the struggle against ISIL: new authorization not constitutiona
If Congress could produce a bipartisan resolution expressing strong support for U.S. participation in an effective effort by the world community to bring an end to the barbarity of the so-called "Islamic State," that could prove helpful in several ways.
Celebrate Liberty Month: Out of control: separation of powers and encroaching delegations
Separation of powers as a tool for limiting discretionary official power is the foundation stone of our Constitution and the rule of law.
Celebrate Liberty Month: Immigration and the separation of powers
On July 4, many Americans turn their thoughts to the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution, looking for wisdom to guide today's great political controversies.
Celebrate Liberty Month: Separation of powers, essential to liberty, is under attack
"All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives."
Celebrate Liberty Month: Why an aggressive Supreme Court is good for the separation of powers
In two opinions handed down minutes apart last month, Justice Antonin Scalia first dissented "to call attention to [the Supreme] Court's threat to American democracy" in its invalidation of state bans on same-sex marriage.
Celebrate Liberty Month: Obergefell: Supreme Court's opinion, not the Constitution's final word
In Obergefell v. Hodges, the Supreme Court invoked its awesome power of judicial review to legalize gay marriage throughout the nation.
Celebrate Liberty Month: The separation of powers, stare decisis, and the Constitution
Because the U.S. Constitution is dedicated to liberty through limited government, power is divided between the federal and state governments and separated among the three branches of the federal government—the purpose in both cases being to pit power against power in order to check it.
Celebrate Liberty Month: Stare decisis and the separation of powers
"Stare decisis" makes it harder for judges to change the law.
Celebrate Liberty Month: Separation of powers: A primer
Constitutional concepts like free speech or the right to bear arms are ingrained in our popular culture, but just 36% of Americans can name all three branches of the federal government.1
Celebrate Liberty Month: The real great charter--not Magna Carta, but the American Constitution
As the world celebrates the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta, we should remember that the true origins of our modern democratic political world lie not in Runnymede, but right here in the United States.
Celebrate Liberty Month: America is exceptional--for now
American exceptionalism -- and America is exception -- is a result of the Scottish Enlightenment, the waves of immigration that built the colonies, and, most importantly, the Constitution.
Celebrate Liberty Month: America's great charter
Eight hundred years and a few weeks ago, a group of rebellious barons forced King John of England to agree to a "Great Charter" limiting his royal power.
Celebrate Liberty Month: American exceptionalism
America is the planet's wealthiest and most powerful nation.
Celebrate Liberty Month: Wanted: American exceptionalism in foreign affairs
The Obama administration's single achievement in foreign affairs policy is its wholesale retreat from American exceptionalism.
Celebrate Liberty Month: American exceptionalism
Ours is the only nation on earth to define itself and the rights of its citizens based not on blood or land, but rather on adherence to a document: the Constitution.
Memorable Quotes from Founding Fathers
The Federalist Society offers memorable quotes from the Founding Fathers to help celebrate Liberty Month.
