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During the contentious political debate of 1787, Montesquieu enjoyed exceptional prestige in the United States. In their struggle against the Constitution adopted in Philadelphia, Anti-Federalists appealed to The Spirit of the Laws as their leading authority. In response, those defending the proposed Constitution had to go back to Montesquieu's founding theories to counter the arguments of their opponents. Building upon previous scholarship, this article will explore three aspects of The Federalist 's political doctrine where Madison and Hamilton analyzed and subverted Montesquieu's ideas: first, the dogma that republics cannot survive when surrounded by empires if they do not unite their forces in a confederation; second, that in a federative state as in any kind of state, power should limit power; third, that in this constitutional arrangement, an independent judiciary should play a special role. Thus, the core of American federal ideology was borrowed from Montesquieu: that multiple layers of government could legitimately exist within a single polity, and that such an arrangement is not a defect to be lamented but a virtue to be celebrated if the balance of powers is properly respected. Yet it is only by confronting the Anti-Federalists' intellectual allegiance to axioms of The Spirit of the Laws that Madison and Hamilton were able to provide the first political treatise – however unfinished it might be – on the viability of modern democracies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the lessons that can be learned by examining the positions taken by the U.S. Anti-Federalist Party prior to the creation and ratification of the U.S. Constitution in the eighteenth century. The opinions of members of the U.S. Federalist Party such as Alexander Hamilton and James Madison are mentioned, along with arguments espoused by Anti-Federalists regarding governance and the development of a national Constitution. Political philosophies and national power are examined.

The article offers information on the war powers under the administrations of former U.S. Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. Topics discussed include the views of former U.S. statesmen Alexander Hamilton and James Madison on the Presidential Power, the opinion of several political scientists to have more legislative power than the President, and the use of the Presidential Power by both Obama and Clinton. Also mentioned are the Office of Legal Counsel under Clinton, and the U.S. policy for Libya under Obama.

The political thought that informed the design of the United States Constitution largely neglected the danger posed by socioeconomic elites. The writings of John Adams, I contend, are exceptional in this regard. Using Adams's writings as a vantage point, this article exposes two important blind spots in mainstream Founding-era thought and the Constitution it informed. Whereas the likes of Hamilton and Madison insisted that majorities held the clear preponderance of power in republican America, Adams maintained that an elite of wealth, birth, and beauty retained overwhelming power even after the abolition of formal distinctions. And whereas Federalists sought security against the threat of majority tyranny, Adams's principal fear was of aristocratic tyranny-specifically, the tendency of the elite few to undermine both popular representation and effective government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presidential power to recognize foreign nations and governments, exercised since the dawn of the republic, has never been viewed as exclusive. Indeed, Congress has enacted legislation that conferred recognition upon foreign countries. Recently, however, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, in Zivotofsky v. Secretary of State, asserted for the first time in American history an exclusive presidential power of recognition. This conclusion, built on a flawed historical record and faulty judicial premises stemming from United States v. Curtiss- Wright Export Corp., exaggerates executive authority and ignores the largely ministerial role assigned to the president in receiving ambassadors and foreign ministers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]