I more than suspect already, that he is deeply conscious of being in the wrong—that he feels the blood of this war, like the blood of Abel, is crying to Heaven against him. —Abraham Lincoln on President Polk, 1848

This episode establishes the baseline of American foreign policy as the founders envisioned it. We examine the lessons of the Revolutionary War and the French Alliance, the classical republican tradition's warnings about standing armies, and the constitutional provisions designed to prevent military adventurism. We explore the foundational texts—Washington's Farewell Address, Jefferson's First Inaugural, and Madison's "Political Observations"—in depth and in the founders' own

“Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none.” —Thomas Jefferson, First Inaugural Address, 1801

How did a republic founded on principles of non-intervention become an empire with military bases in eighty countries? How did a nation that once warned against “entangling alliances” come to maintain alliance commitments that span the globe? And here is the question that matters most: How have these choices abroad shaped liberty at home?

Every modern debate about federal power — from Social Security and Medicare to student loan forgiveness and pandemic bailouts — traces back to a fight most Americans have never heard of. It wasn’t about guns or abortion or the culture wars. It was about a single phrase in Article I of the Constitution

Two centuries after the Federalist debates, the American experiment has come full circle. In 1787, Madison and Hamilton argued over the meaning of “general welfare.” Madison saw it as a boundary: Congress could tax and spend only for the enumerated ends of the Constitution. Hamilton saw it as an engine: a grant of broad national authority to promote prosperity. The Republic’s story has been the gradual triumph of Hamilton’s interpretation over Madison’s restraint.

Before income taxes, before Social Security, before the alphabet soup of federal agencies, the United States lived under what the Founders called a government of enumerated powers. The federal government was meant to be strong enough to defend the Union and regulate commerce, yet weak enough to leave most of life untouched. That balance—between energy and restraint—defined the first seven decades of the Republic. It was not perfect, not consistent, and certainly not unanimou

Every modern debate about federal power — from Social Security and Medicare to student loan forgiveness and pandemic bailouts — traces back to a fight most Americans have never heard of. It wasn’t about guns or abortion or the culture wars. It was about a single phrase in Article I of the Constitution: “The Congress shall have Power to lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United S