Despite the centralizing tendencies of the American national government in the twentieth century, there have been surprisingly few books defending the federal system. Felix Morley's Freedom and Federalism, which examines the root causes of the problem, was thus a pioneering achievement when it first appeared in 1959. No less relevant today, the book provides a perceptive diagnosis of the collapse of States' rights in modern America; and it seeks the restoration of a constitutional balance between central and state authorities. Is federalism worth saving? "Its outstanding virtue," which is "the distinctively American contribution to political art," argues Morley, "is its facility in combining two naturally antagonistic conditions--the social condition of order, and the more personal condition of freedom." In the end, he concludes, the American government will fail unless these two conditions are reconciled. Felix Morley (1894-1982), Pulitzer-Prize-winning author, journalist, and educator, was a Rhodes Scholar, editor of the Washington Post and Human Events, and President of Haverford College.

Freedom Time reconsiders decolonization from the perspectives of Aimé Césaire (Martinique) and Léopold Sédar Senghor (Senegal) who, beginning in 1945, promoted self-determination without state sovereignty. As politicians, public intellectuals, and poets they struggled to transform imperial France into a democratic federation, with former colonies as autonomous members of a transcontinental polity. In so doing, they revitalized past but unrealized political projects and anticipated impossible futures by acting as if they had already arrived. Refusing to reduce colonial emancipation to national independence, they regarded decolonization as an opportunity to remake the world, reconcile peoples, and realize humanity’s potential. Emphasizing the link between politics and aesthetics, Gary Wilder reads Césaire and Senghor as pragmatic utopians, situated humanists, and concrete cosmopolitans whose postwar insights can illuminate current debates about self-management, postnational politics, and planetary solidarity. Freedom Time invites scholars to decolonize intellectual history and globalize critical theory, to analyze the temporal dimensions of political life, and to question the territorialist assumptions of contemporary historiography.

Classic Books Library presents this brand new edition of “The Federalist Papers”, a collection of separate essays and articles compiled in 1788 by Alexander Hamilton. Following the United States Declaration of Independence in 1776, the governing doctrines and policies of the States lacked cohesion. “The Federalist”, as it was previously known, was constructed by American statesman Alexander Hamilton, and was intended to catalyse the ratification of the United States Constitution. Hamilton recruited fellow statesmen James Madison Jr., and John Jay to write papers for the compendium, and the three are known as some of the Founding Fathers of the United States. Alexander Hamilton (c. 1755–1804) was an American lawyer, journalist and highly influential government official. He also served as a Senior Officer in the Army between 1799-1800 and founded the Federalist Party, the system that governed the nation’s finances. His contributions to the Constitution and leadership made a significant and lasting impact on the early development of the nation of the United States.

Despite the centralizing tendencies of the American national government in the twentieth century, there have been surprisingly few books defending the federal system. Felix Morley's Freedom and Federalism, which examines the root causes of the problem, was thus a pioneering achievement when it first appeared in 1959. No less relevant today, the book provides a perceptive diagnosis of the collapse of States' rights in modern America; and it seeks the restoration of a constitutional balance between central and state authorities. Is federalism worth saving? "Its outstanding virtue," which is "the distinctively American contribution to political art," argues Morley, "is its facility in combining two naturally antagonistic conditions--the social condition of order, and the more personal condition of freedom." In the end, he concludes, the American government will fail unless these two conditions are reconciled. Felix Morley (1894-1982), Pulitzer-Prize-winning author, journalist, and educator, was a Rhodes Scholar, editor of the Washington Post and Human Events, and President of Haverford College.

These essays offer new interpretations of the origins of American federalism and the meaning of liberty in American political culture. Peter S. Onuf's introduction examines the historiography of the Constitution--the ways in which distinct schools of historians have interpreted the formation of the federal system. He explains how the essays contribute to this scholarly debate and notes that the present-day concern with "original intent" is a misleading approach to the Constitution. Rather than trying to achieve miraculous solutions to deep-seated social and political problems, the founding fathers instead agreed to compromises that sanctioned future conflict within the bounds of law. Writing on the origins of American federalism, John M. Murrin argues that the founding fathers' greatest achievement was balancing federal authority with states' rights, a "conceptual breakthrough" that allowed the founders to resolve issues that had previously led to the American revolt against Great Britain and the collapse of the Articles of Confederation. David E. Narrett analyzes Anti-Federalist opposition to the Constitution in New York State, telling why Anti-Federalist efforts to restrict the government's taxing power and to alter the system of representation in Congress failed. Thomas Jefferson was in Paris when the Constitution was being drafted. Ronald L. Hatzenbuehler writes in his revisionist essay that Jefferson's attitude toward the Constitution was not dictated by his response to events in prerevolutionary France but rather by American political developments, such as Shay's Rebellion. Michael Kammen concludes the book by probing the character and history of liberty as a constitutional concept. American society today faces complex issues unimagined two centuries ago. An understanding of the origins and development of the Constitution is necessary if we wish to preserve liberty for future generations. This volume is a contribution toward that goal.