Chapter 1 asks how the Framers thought about war and security – and how those concerns shaped the Constitution’s approach to military power. It shows that the Constitution does not vest a single, all-purpose “war power” in any one branch. Instead, it divides authority horizontally among Congress, the President, and the courts, and vertically between the national government and the states. These choices reflected anxieties about executive overreach, legislative inertia, standing armies, and the domestic dangers of concentrated military power, alongside a desire to preserve state control over local defense and militias. They also reflected differing views and assumptions about American grand strategy. Drawing on Convention debates, ratification-era writings, and early commentary, the chapter explains how war powers were distributed across multiple functions, including creating and organizing forces, going to war, commanding operations, regulating military conduct, deploying troops domestically, and deciding how wars end. This multidimensional design aimed to prevent any single institution from dominating military power while still enabling effective national defense. In doing so, the Founding settlement established a system of shared control grounded in institutional rivalry, overlapping authority, and political accountability rather than rigid rules.

Before diving into the individual groups, Chapter 1 presents readers with the motivations and goals of interwar European federalists. Specifically, it explains the relationship between European and global federalists – particularly their position regarding the League of Nations. It provides information about what type of federal government these groups envisioned, as well as the limitations to having such clear definitions. Last, this chapter positions the activists featured in this book in the national German and British peace and women’s movements.

This chapter analyzes the extent that the Women’s International League from Peace and Freedom supported European federalism during the interwar years. Although its ideas regarding the role of women in politics had a significant impact on European federalists, since it was never a declared aim of the international WILPF office, it is important to assess whether it should be considered a part of the broader federalist movement. The evidence presented in this chapter suggests the German section of WILPF largely drove the conversation about federalism’s potential as a means of achieving WILPF’s goals. Yet, by the time the NEG became active in the early 1930s, the German section was primarily focused on combating Nazism, and by 1933, many of its members had to go into exile or try to hide the fact they ever belonged to WILPF. Additionally, while some members of the British section of WILPF were open to the idea of a world federation, most were strong supporters of the League of Nations, which made them hesitant when it came to proposals for regional federations.

Chapter 3 investigates the EU’s competence to regulate unhealthy lifestyles. Two main rationales for EU intervention in the field can be found in the TFEU. The first, historically and conceptually predominant, is related to the market. EU regulation contributes to the establishment of the EU internal market, by addressing the externalities of Member State lifestyle policies and their restrictive effect on free movement, of goods in particular. This rationale corresponds to broad and functional powers to eliminate trade barriers between Member States, via the EU’s fundamental free movement provisions, so-called negative integration, and the harmonisation of health standard at the EU level, positive integration. The second rationale concerns health as a standalone value, independent of the economic dimension of unhealthy lifestyles. For this rationale, the EU has been granted a much more limited competence. This explains why, in legal terms, EU law on unhealthy lifestyles remains a form of economic and market regulation, with a key role for Article 114 TFEU.

Chapter 6 focuses on Iran’s thirteen minority ethno-nations. These nations differ from the ethno-nation formed by Iran’s ruling Persians (who are discussed in other chapters). These minority ethno-nations differ from one another but also share some features. Their affiliates, social organizations, leaderships, and cultural systems vary but they all provide structure and meaning for adherents in ways that are often lacking for other citizens. Many affiliates of minority ethno-nations do not identify as Iranians. Undergoing discrimination and persecution in Iran, they respond by enhancing their distinctive groupings and furthering their internal cohesion. Iran’s minority peoples formed political coalitions outside Iran, in their pursuit to oust the theocracy, form a secular democracy, and improve conditions for Iranians of all ethnicities. Most affiliates of these movements support a pluralist federal Iran in which communities could achieve regional autonomy. Some affiliates consider separating from Iran and joining their compatriots in adjoining countries. A few of them advocate for independence as new nation-states, just as the fifteen republics of the former Soviet Union had done in 1991.

Part III (Chapters 5 and 6) discusses Reconstruction, focusing on Congress’s post–Civil War power over voting and elections, which was often at odds with the Supreme Court’s interpretation of that authority. Reconstruction was defined, in large part, by the marriage between the Constitutions of Political Structure and Political Rights. This synergy was necessary because the exigencies of war required the creation of new political norms regarding the right to vote, republicanism, and federalism. This expansion of federal power ultimately set Congress on a collision course with the Court as Congress liberally interpreted its constitutional obligation to ensure republican government in the southern states.

Federal authority to regulate voting and elections derives from structural provisions that serve as express delegations of power to Congress, rather than the courts, the executive branch, or the states. Known collectively as the “Constitution of Political Structure,” these provisions include the Guarantee Clause of Article IV, Section 4; The Elections Clause of Article I, Section 4; Article I, Section 5; and later, Section 2 of the Fourteenth Amendment. Part I (Chapters 1 and 2) argues that the Guarantee Clause, the Elections Clause, and Article I, Section 5, defined the basic parameters of the federal–state relationship over elections during the founding and antebellum periods. Notably, Congress’s deference to the states when acting pursuant to these provisions was not driven solely by abstract concerns about federalism, but focused on political disputes surrounding slavery and whether state election procedures adequately ensured the continued existence and legitimacy of federal elections consistent with republican ideals.

This chapter examines the constitutional foundations, historical development, and judicial interpretation of eminent domain in the United States. Rooted in the Fifth Amendment’s Takings Clause, the doctrine highlights the tension between private ownership and public necessity. Early cases such as Barron v. Baltimore (1833) limited the Clause to federal action, but Chicago, B. & Q. Railroad v. Chicago (1897) incorporated it against the states. The Supreme Court has since expanded its reach: Pennsylvania Coal v. Mahon (1922) introduced the concept of regulatory takings, while Penn Central v. New York City (1978) stressed investment-backed expectations. The Court has distinguished physical takings, as in Loretto v. Teleprompter (1982), from regulatory restrictions and scrutinized exactions in Nollan (1987), Dolan (1994), and Koontz (2013). Controversy peaked with Kelo v. New London (2005) and most recently Tyler v. Hennepin County (2023). Overall, eminent domain jurisprudence reflects the struggle to balance property rights with public purposes

This chapter examines the scope and limits of state authority in the US federal system, emphasizing the tension between state powers and federal supremacy under the Commerce Clause. It traces the issue from the Articles of Confederation, where fragmented state regulation created disorder, to the Constitution’s grant of congressional authority over interstate and foreign commerce while reserving state powers under the Tenth Amendment. Supreme Court decisions chart the evolving balance: Gibbons v. Ogden (1824) stressed federal control, while Cooley v. Board of Wardens (1851) allowed state regulation of local commerce. Later rulings refined taxation and regulation at the state level, while dormant Commerce Clause cases such as Dean Milk (1951) and Philadelphia v. New Jersey (1978) barred protectionism. The chapter concludes that states retain broad police powers, yet these are constrained to safeguard the national economic union.

This chapter examines the means by which the Constitution distributes powers between the states and national government, including the courts, and then explores the historical and judicial processes through which the federal government gained ascendancy over the states, considering key cases such as McCulloch v. Maryland (1819). To connect these issues to contemporary debates, a lower federal court's evaluation of the legitimacy of federal efforts to force state actors to work for federal agencies in enforcing immigration policy is considered in US v. Illinois (2025). The second portion of the chapter considers contemporary manifestations of federalism, including the increasing importance of the Eleventh Amendment in defining state sovereignty, with special consideration of the Americans with Disabilities Act. The final section briefly considers another form of concurrent sovereignty – that of Native American tribes. The relationship between the Native American tribes and the federal government, as well as the authority of the states, creates a unique constitutional dynamic in the United States, as demonstrated in McGirt v. Oklahoma (2020).

This introduction outlines a comprehensive study of the U.S. Constitution’s structure, marking its 237th year as the oldest modern constitution. It aims to equip readers – from law students to everyday Americans – with tools to understand its framework of representation, separation of powers, checks and balances, federalism, and the Bill of Rights, addressing enduring questions like the legitimacy of secession, the scope of national powers, presidential authority in foreign affairs and war, judicial review’s origins, and Congress’s taxing and spending powers. The book challenges myths, such as the existence of a “general welfare clause,” and critiques both originalist and living constitutionalist views, arguing, for instance, that enumeration limited executive, not just national, power, and that functionalism fuels the imperial presidency. Organized into seven parts and eighteen chapters, the book explores the Constitution’s compound republic, the distribution of legislative, executive, and judicial powers, and federal-state dynamics. By engaging recent scholarship, it seeks to clarify the Constitution’s original design while advocating its continued relevance today.

This chapter turns back to the scope of national powers, and argues that the original meaning of the Commerce Clause limits Congress to regulating the exchange of goods across state lines, and critiques the Supreme Court’s modern, expansive interpretation of the clause. It demonstrates, however, that the national commerce power was understood to be exclusive, lending support to the modern dormant Commerce Clause doctrine that restricts states from interfering with interstate commerce and that many originalists have opposed. It argues that, as originally understood, States retain police powers to regulate the health, safety, morals, and welfare of their populations and can incidentally affect interstate commerce through police regulations, as long as they have a legitimate purpose and do not target interstate commerce. Congress, similarly, could incidentally affect the states’ police powers or private conduct beyond the enumeration of powers so long as it was genuinely exercising its power over interstate commerce, such as when it closed the channels of interstate commerce to goods produced with child labor. This formalist approach reveals a symmetry in the original distribution of power between Congress and the states.

This chapter examines Congress’s taxing and spending powers, arguing that the Constitution’s first clause in the enumeration of powers originally granted only a power to tax for national purposes, not an independent power to spend for the general welfare. Textual and historical evidence, including from the Articles of Confederation and Committee of Detail, supports this as the best reading, with spending permissible only under the Necessary and Proper Clause to further enumerated powers. The chapter critiques modern doctrine, which recognizes a broad spending power allowing Congress to influence state policies indirectly, as in South Dakota v. Dole, by attaching conditions to funds. It proposes a test distinguishing genuine spending (e.g., disaster relief) from coercive regulatory attempts (e.g., conditioning funds on state policy changes), which usurp state functions. This formalist approach, rooted in the Constitution’s federalist structure, seeks to limit Congress’s ability to undermine state autonomy through expansive spending, preserving the original balance of federal and state authority critical to the Constitution’s enduring success.