Ask the typical undergraduate to discuss the ideas advanced in the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions of 1798 and you may as well be asking for an overview of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum physics. Yet these nearly forgotten documents fully merit a place among the most important political writings in American history, both in terms of the ideas they put forth and the influence they had on subsequent generations of American political thinkers. That’s why William Watkins’ new book, an expansion of a piece that originally appeared in The Free Market as “Live Free or Separate“, is something to celebrate. Full Article]
Source link: http://archive.mises.org/2957/states-rights-and-freedom/
States Rights and Freedom
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I like this book as well. The way that Watkins wades through the differences between the two Resolutions and the interpretations of them is excellent! He has taken up the issues of the time and helped to make them real for the reader of today. I have read a good deal of the writings of the period and the more recent interpretations, and probably the best, to my mind is Richard Rosenfeld’s “American Aurora” and Watkins comes close (and is more concise).
Just Ken
I chuckled when I read the introduction here, because I am an undergraduate and I could have given you an overview of the Copenhagen interpretation (did a history project on Heisenberg, once,) but I could not have told you anything about the Virginia and Kentucky resolutions.
Guess I’m not typical :-p.
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