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Reassessing the Presidency : The Rise of the Executive State and the Decline of Freedom ReviewAs a student of the presidency, I'm nearly at a loss to describe how interesting and important the essays in this collection are. This high quality is just what I've come to expect from the scholars and writers at the Ludwig von Mises Institute, and if I could give this title six or seven stars, I would.
As in any collection of essays, some of the ones here assembled are better than others. Taken as a whole, though, they are a powerful indictment of how the increasing centralization of power in the office of the presidency has resulted in the destruction of America's heritage of individual liberty and decentralized government. Some of the articles that struck me as particularly valuable (or just as fascinating reads) include:
* H. Arthur Scott Trask's study of Thomas Jefferson. This is one of the best attempts I've yet seen to grapple with the question, not only of whether Jefferson himself can justly be called a 'libertarian,' but also the specific issue of whether his two terms as president advanced or hindered the cause of liberty.
* Marshall L. DeRosa's 'Supreme Court as Accomplice: Judicial Backing for a Despotic Presidency.' While all three branches of government are to blame for the centralization of power in Washington, the Supreme Court has, at key points in history, been particularly destructive. DeRosa gives us chapter and verse.
* Randall G. Holcombe's 'The Electoral College as a Restraint on American Democracy.' This article goes beyond other analyses of the Electoral College in explaining how the Founders really intended the body to function, why it never did, and how it was early corrupted and twisted by the influence of party and faction.
* William Marina's excellent 'From Opponent of Empire to Career Opportunist: William Howard Taft as Conservative Bureaucrat in the Evolution of the American Imperial System.' In tracing Taft's career, Marina shows how foreign and domestic empire-building inevitably go hand-in-hand. This is an insightful and unexpectedly timely essay.
The two concluding essays, by Hans-Hermann Hoppe and Clyde N. Wilson, are also excellent summaries of the changing nature of the presidency and the likelihood, or lack thereof, for meaningful change. Other essays -- including those by Thomas J. DiLorenzo (of 'The Real Lincoln' fame), Ralph Raico, Joseph R. Stromberg, Jeffrey Rogers Hummel, and editor John V. Denson -- are of similar high quality. Space prevents me giving each of them the raves they deserve.
Each of these essays challenges the accepted hagiography of the presidency as an office, and of individual presidents as well. The men generally voted by historians as among our 'greatest' chief executives -- notably FDR, Lincoln, and Truman -- are proven in these pages to have been among the worst, most dangerous, and least worthy of canonization. The Mises Institute is never afraid to challenge the old orthodoxies (founder Lew Rockwell has called for the abolition of the office of the presidency altogether), and here they have done so, not only with skill and insight, but almost compulsive readability as well.
I have no hesitation, even now, in declaring this my Book of the Year for 2002 (it was published in 2001, but I'm a little behind in my reading). It's a bit of an effort to carry around, but it's definitely worth the exertion.
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