The Use and Abuse of Antitrust From Cleveland to Clinton: Causes and Consequences

George Bittlingmayer

The Struggle Between Presidents and Big Business: Winners, Losers, and Business Confidence

Dramatic conflict between the president and business is a recurring theme in U.S. history. Nineteenth-century disputes over banking, such as the struggle between Nicholas Biddle and Andrew Jackson, provide early examples. The rise of the modern corporation toward the end of the nineteenth century resulted in an intensification of this conflict.

From Opponent of Empire to Career Opportunist: William Howard Taft as Conservative Bureaucrat in the Evolution of the American Imperial System

William Marina

The Evolution of the Imperial Presidency

Any reassessment of the presidency in general, or of any president in particular, must begin with some understanding of the concept of the presidency itself in American history and its evolution over the last two centuries.

Woodrow Wilson’s Revolution Within the Form

Richard M. Gamble

Declaring that “Woodrow Wilson was not a revolutionary,” University of Virginia President E.A. Alderman defended the Wilsonian legacy before a joint session of Congress convened specially on December 15, 1924, to hear the late president eulogized. Seeing himself somewhat in the role of Pericles praising the Athenian war dead, Alderman elevated his friend and fellow academic into the Progressives’ eclectic Pantheon to join Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal: From Economic Fascism to Pork-Barrel Politics

Thomas J. DiLorenzo

Before the massive government intervention of the 1930s, all recessions were short-lived. The severe depression of 1921 was over so rapidly, for example, that Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover, despite his interventionist inclinations, was not able to convince President Harding to intervene rapidly enough; by the time Harding was persuaded to intervene, the depression was almost over. . . .

Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the First Shot: A Study of Deceit and Deception

John V. Denson

The question was how we should maneuver them into the position of firing the first shot without allowing too much danger to ourselves.1

Despotism Loves Company: The Story of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Josef Stalin

Yuri N. Maltsev and Barry Dean Simpson

Many people consider Franklin D. Roosevelt one of the greatest presidents of the United States.

Harry S. Truman: Advancing the Revolution

Ralph Raico

A “Near-Great”?

When Harry Truman left office in January 1953, he was intensely unpopular, even widely despised. Many of his most cherished schemes, from national health insurance (socialized medicine) to universal military training (UMT) had been soundly rejected by Congress and the public. Worst of all, the war in Korea, which he persisted in calling a “police action,” was dragging on with no end in sight.

From Kennedy’s “New Economics” to Nixon’s “New Economic Policy”: Monetary Inflation and the March of Economic Fascism

Joseph T.

The Managerial President

Paul Gottfried

Legend has it that the U.S. was founded incipiently, if not explicitly as a presidential government. Whether this tendency was already present in the minds of the Founders or whether it emerged as a historical destiny to be ecstatically embraced, an executive regime is what we supposedly were meant to be. An entire school of American historical writing, which has dominated public education since mid-century, elevates presidential power to the skies.

The President as Social Engineer

Michael Levin

In America’s tripartite system of government, only Congress is authorized to make social policy. “The will of the people” is to be expressed in laws passed by the people’s representatives, thus ensuring that rules are imposed only when a majority, at least, wants them. The application of the law to particular cases will sometimes be unclear; then, the task of interpreting it falls to the judiciary.