John Wilkes & The Colorful, Criminal & Bawdy Origins of our 4th Amendment
Part 2 In an Ongoing Series on the Revolutionary War
By Scott
John Wilkes, the bad boy of 18th century British politics — hated by King George III and beloved by the American colonists — wasn’t the only inspiration for our Fourth Amendment prohibition against the government using general warrants to search for evidence and to arrest for a crime. But his story was by far the most colorful.
What Was It like to Be Alive in Colonial America in 1775, on the Eve of the Revolutionary War?
Part 1: An Introduction to a New Series
By Scott
In 1775, people traveled only as fast as they could walk, ride a horse, or sail a boat. A sixty-mile drive today that would take an hour would take two to four days in 1775. Travel by sailing ship from Charleston to Boston might take a month, while travel from Charleston to Britain might take two months or more. And news and the mail moved only as fast as that slow travel allowed.
Shouldn’t We Be Teaching the Constitution in Elementary School?
By David Churchill Barrow
How many adults, let alone children, know that while state power is plenary (a state can do anything not prohibited by the U.S. Constitution or its own) federal power is limited; the federal government can only do that which is expressly provided for in the Constitution? How many adults, let alone children, know that the founding fathers’ greatest fear was not that which is prohibited by the Bill of Rights (which were amendments; i.e. afterthoughts) but the combination of powers that ought to be separated?
