The Once and Future King - F. H. Buckley

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      Praise for The Once and Future King

      “His prose explodes with energy.”

      —The Weekly Standard

      “One of the best non-fiction books of 2014.”

      —Tyler Cowen, Marginal Revolution

      “Compelling—and compellingly readable.”

      —Reason

      “No U.S. political scientist has achieved what F.H. Buckley . . . does in this ambitious book.”

      —Times Literary Supplement

      “The best recent description of [the modern presidency]. . . . A very important contribution.”

      —National Review

      “Un libro magnifico.”

      —L’espresso

      “Fascinating and highly instructive.”

      —The American Spectator

      “Essential reading. . . . Buckley is the rare scholar who can write engagingly for a popular audience.”

      —The Washington Times

      “The Once and Future King is a worthy contribution to the great discourse on liberty and power which has existed and will continue to exist between the great nations on opposite sides of the Atlantic.”

      —Standpoint (U.K.)

      “Just when you think there’s nothing more to be said about the Constitution’s framers, F.H. Buckley’s provocative The Once and Future King: The Rise of Crown Government in America (Encounter, 2014) comes along.”

      —World

      “Read The Once and Future King to see the true scope of the problem of executive power, not for easy answers.”

      —Pileus

      “A powerfully argued indictment of the growth of executive power in Great Britain and its former colonies, the United States and Canada. Buckley’s book is greatly enhanced by his expert knowledge of the constitutions and politics of these three English-speaking nations. He shows, as few scholars have, just how much of the time we live in a fog and create results we never intended.”

      —Gordon S. Wood, Brown University, author of The Radicalism of the American Revolution

      “The book deals with constitutional issues at a more serious level than almost anything else I have read recently. This is a beautifully written, very interesting, and largely persuasive book.”

      —Philip Hamburger, Columbia Law School, author of Separation of Church and State

      “The book is written with real brio and is a bracing read, in every way.”

      —Sanford V. Levinson, University of Texas School of Law, author of Our Undemocratic Constitution: Where the Constitution Goes Wrong (and How We the People Can Correct It)

      “This is a bold and willfully provocative critique of American presidential power. Buckley takes no prisoners, questioning all the conventional pieties and received wisdom along the way. If history truly is an argument without end, this is a new entry in the debate.”

      —Joseph J. Ellis, Mount Holyoke College, author of Founding Brothers and Revolutionary Summer

      “The Once and Future King is a work of virtuoso scholarship—bold, iconoclastic, and practical-minded in the spirit of the Framers themselves.”

      —Christopher DeMuth, Distinguished Fellow, Hudson Institute

      © 2014, 2015 by F. H. Buckley

      Preface © 2015 by F. H. Buckley

      All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of Encounter Books, 900 Broadway, Suite 601, New York, New York, 10003.

      First American edition published in 2014 by Encounter Books, an activity of Encounter for Culture and Education, Inc., a nonprofit, tax exempt corporation.

      Encounter Books website address: www.encounterbooks.com

      The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48‒1992 (R 1997) (Permanence of Paper).

      First paperback edition published in 2015.

      THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS HAS CATALOGED THE HARDCOVER AS FOLLOWS:

      Buckley, F. H. (Francis H.), 1948–

      The once and future king: the rise of crown government in America/F.H. Buckley.

      pages cm

      Includes bibliographical references and index.

      ISBN 978-1-59403-794-8 (ebook)

      1. Executive power. 2. Presidents. 3. Constitutional history. 4. Comparative government. 5. United States—Politics and government. 6. Great Britain—Politics and government. 7. Canada—Politics and government. I. Title.

      JF251.B83 2014

      321.8’7—dc23

      2013020656

      For Esther and Sarah

      Contents

       -4- Exporting Westminster

       -5- The Rise of Crown Government

       PART II: The Pitfalls of Presidentialism

       -6- American Exceptionalism

       -7- Jack Sprat’s Law

       -8- Taming the King

       -9- Madisonian Infirmities

       -10- Tyrannophilia

       Appendix A: The Framers

       Appendix B: Presidentialism and Liberty

       Appendix C: Presidents and Corruption

       Acknowledgments

       Notes

       Index

      The Once and Future King, published in April 2014, described how political power in the United States has become ever more concentrated in a kinglike presidency—more so than in a parliamentary executive—and predicted that this trend would continue. That gloomy prognosis was in the very title of the book, so I could scarcely walk away from it. I needn’t have

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