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Full-Text Articles in History
Commentary: What It Means To Be A Citizen, Allen C. Guelzo
Commentary: What It Means To Be A Citizen, Allen C. Guelzo
Civil War Era Studies Faculty Publications
It was one of the great shocks of my life, and it came early. In fifth-grade government class. Though I can't remember much else that we learned then, a detail in Article 1, Section 2, of the Constitution reached out and grabbed me like the hound of the Baskervilles: "No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President." [excerpt]
Democracy And Nobility, Allen C. Guelzo
Democracy And Nobility, Allen C. Guelzo
Civil War Era Studies Faculty Publications
Americans love revolutions. Our national identity began with a revolution, and a revolutionary war that lasted for eight years; and we cheer on other people’s revolutions, as though we find satisfaction in multiplying our own. “I hold that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing & as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical,” wrote Thomas Jefferson. “No country should be long without one.” An excited James Garfield, in his maiden speech in the House of Representatives in 1864, asked whether his colleagues “forget that the Union had its origin in revolution.” Ralph Waldo …
Abraham Lincoln And The Development Of The "War Powers" Of The Presidency, Allen C. Guelzo
Abraham Lincoln And The Development Of The "War Powers" Of The Presidency, Allen C. Guelzo
Civil War Era Studies Faculty Publications
By conferring on the President the title of "commander in chief," the Constitution created an awkward and undefined area of presidential prerogative. The first President to have to confront this ambiguity was Abraham Lincoln, who developed a presidential "war powers" doctrine based on his presidential oath, the Constitution's "republican guarantee," and the necessity imposed by the novelty of a civil war. This doctrine was seriously contested in Lincoln's time by both Congress and the judiciary, and it continues to be an unresolved constitutional question in the present. But Lincoln's use of such war powers is one demonstration of how a …
Apple Of Gold In A Picture Of Silver: The Constitution And Liberty, Allen C. Guelzo
Apple Of Gold In A Picture Of Silver: The Constitution And Liberty, Allen C. Guelzo
Civil War Era Studies Faculty Publications
In the threatening winter of 1861, as the United States was being ~ inched ever- closer td the outbreak of civil war by the secession of the Southern states over the issue of black slavery, the newly elected president, Abraham Lincoln, opened up a confidential correspondence with a f6rmer Southern political colleague, Alexander Stephens of Georgia. Stephens had made headlines in November 1860, in a speech to the Georgia legislature, urging Georgia not to follow tlie South into secession. Lincoln sent him a friendly note, asking- for a printed copy of the speech-and perhaps warming Stephens to an invitation to …