“I then thought, and still think, that it was an effort of genius.”— George Washington, 1785 Dear Friends, Exactly 250 years ago this week, a man named Sergeant Ezra Lee climbed into a wooden oak vessel barely larger than a walnut shell, secured the brass hatch above him, and slipped beneath the dark tidal waters of New York Harbor. Above him, the Royal Navy loomed. Ezra Lee’s expedition followed Washington’s army, which had suffered a devastating defeat on Long Island; Manhattan was in...
about 2 months ago • 5 min read
“Security against foreign danger is one of the primitive objects of civil society.”— James Madison, Federalist No. 41 Dear Friends, By the time most of us enjoy our first cup of coffee this Sunday morning, roughly 1.7 million voters in the eastern German state of Saxony-Anhalt will already be casting their ballots in an election that could tell us a great deal about Europe’s future. As many of us learned in our history classes, Germany’s post-Nazi reintroduction to the international community...
about 2 months ago • 9 min read
“Power must never be trusted without a check.”—John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 1816 Dear Friends, If you’ve ever crossed Arlington Memorial Bridge from Washington, you know the view, even if you’ve never thought much about why it feels different from the rest of the city. Behind you sits Abraham Lincoln. Ahead lies Arlington National Cemetery, with Arlington House above it. The open line between them was deliberately created, connecting the president who preserved our Union with ground that...
about 2 months ago • 7 min read
“The most common and durable source of factions, has been the various and unequal distribution of property.”—James Madison, Federalist No. 10, 1787 Dear Friends, Before the cookouts start and the politicians give their yearly nod to the value of hard work, I’d love to introduce you to two remarkable American workers. Though they never met and lived 132 years apart, their stories together teach us so much more about Labor Day than most of what we’ll hear this coming Monday. Jennie Curtis was a...
about 2 months ago • 8 min read
“Where an excess of power prevails, property of no sort is duly respected.”— James Madison, Property, 1792 Dear Friends, There is a particular kind of silence that falls over our nation when a question has hung in the room far too long. Everyone can see it, everyone knows it’s there, but no one quite wants to be the first to point out the white elephant standing in plain sight. That was the feeling around Senator Elissa Slotkin’s question to Gen. Dan Caine. She finally asked aloud what many...
about 2 months ago • 8 min read
“Never was so much false arithmetic employed on any subject as that which has been employed to persuade nations that it is their interest to engage in war.”— James Madison Dear Friends, I originally shared this piece on March 27th, when the Open Society had fewer than half as many readers as it does today. When I revisited it recently, I was struck by how much of what then seemed like warning or speculation now resembles where we have arrived. I wish I could say the argument had aged poorly,...
about 2 months ago • 4 min read
“Some degree of abuse is inseparable from the proper use of every thing; and in no instance is this more true, than in that of the press.”— James Madison, Report of 1800 Dear Friends, I caught myself doing what millions of us still do on most weekend mornings, drinking coffee with the television on and half-listening to the usual discussion of polls, campaigns, and the November midterms. Nothing seemed particularly remarkable until Kristen Welker described Donald J. Trump’s endorsement record...
about 2 months ago • 8 min read
“A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty.”— James Madison, Constitutional Convention, June 29, 1787 Dear Friends, Last September, I captured the image above for an article titled “The Silence at Quantico: A Republic Tested,” which depicted a gathering of our nation’s top-ranking military leaders at Quantico. Hundreds of America’s senior generals, admirals, and senior Enlisted leaders had been summoned from commands around the world...
about 2 months ago • 7 min read
“A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty.”— James Madison, Constitutional Convention, June 29, 1787 Dear Friends, Last September, I captured the image above for an article titled “The Silence at Quantico: A Republic Tested,” which depicted a gathering of our nation’s top-ranking military leaders at Quantico. Hundreds of America’s senior generals, admirals, and senior Enlisted leaders had been summoned from commands around the world...
about 2 months ago • 7 min read
