Professor of History, Western Connecticut State University
Kevin R. C. Gutzman is the New York Times best-selling author of five books, including the new Thomas Jefferson—Revolutionary: A Radical’s Struggle to Remake America, a History Book Club Selection. Gutzman is Professor and former Chairman in the Department of History at Western Connecticut State University and a faculty member at LibertyClassroom.com . He holds a bachelor's degree (With Honors and With Special Honors in History), a master of public affairs degree, and a law degree from the University of Texas at Austin, as well as an MA and a PhD in American history from the University of Virginia.
Dr. Gutzman's first book was the New York Times best-seller The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Constitution, which was a Main Selection of the Conservative Book Club. It is the only Jeffersonian account of American constitutional history. His second book, Virginia’s American Revolution: From Dominion to Republic, 1776-1840, explores the issue what the Revolutionaries made of the Revolution in Thomas Jefferson’s home state. After that, he co-authored Who Killed the Constitution? The Federal Government vs. American Liberty from World War I to Barack Obama with New York Times best-selling author Thomas E. Woods, Jr. His fourth book, James Madison and the Making of America, a Main Selection of the History Book Club, received positive reviews from The Wall Street Journal, The Journal of Southern History, The Washington Times, and numerous other publications. His latest book, Thomas Jefferson—Revolutionary: A Radical’s Struggle to Remake America, published on January 31, 2017, was a Selection of the History Book Club.
Gutzman's essay “Lincoln as Jeffersonian: The Colonization Chimera” appeared in Lincoln Emancipated: The President and the Politics of Race, and his “James Madison and Ratification: A Triumph Over Adversity” appeared in A Companion to James Madison and James Monroe. His scholarly articles have appeared in The Journal of Southern History, The Journal of the Early Republic, The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, The Review of Politics, and The Journal of the Historical Society, among other publications. He has written a hundred book reviews for outlets scholarly and popular, and he has contributed three dozen essays to historical encyclopedias. Gutzman has written for numerous popular magazines and newspapers, including Canada’s National Post, the San Antonio Express-News, and the Richmond Times-Dispatch, among others.
Kevin R. C. Gutzman has appeared on hundreds of radio programs, such as NPR’s “Backstory With the American History Guys” and many of the most prominent commercial programs, terrestrial and satellite, as well as on national television programs including C-SPAN 2's “BookTV,” CNN's “Lou Dobbs Tonight,” Fox News's “The Glenn Beck Program” (both with Beck and with Judge Andrew Napolitano), and NewsMax TV, besides on the BBC and several local television broadcasts. He has been interviewed by reporters from major outlets such as the AP, The Washington Times, The Philadelphia Enquirer, The Washington Post, The Hartford Business Journal, The Houston Chronicle online, Investor's Business Daily, Money Magazine, Connecticut Magazine, and The New York Times, among others.
Gutzman was a featured expert in the documentary movies “John Marshall: Citizen, Statesman, Jurist” and “Nullification: The Rightful Remedy.”
Professor of Law, American University Washington College of Law
Robert L. Tsai is Professor of Law at American University and a prize-winning essayist in constitutional law and history. Though he was born in Taiwan, he has always considered America his home. In fact, one of the proudest moments of his life was the day he was sworn in as a U.S. citizen. Tsai spent his formative years in the Pacific Northwest, working in his parents’ cafe in charming Port Townsend, Washington, and dreaming about the world beyond his small town. He left the area for college and earned a B.A. magna cum laude in History and Political Science from the University of California, Los Angeles, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and received the Carey McWilliams Prize for his honors thesis on the political significance of early Christian teachings.
He then headed to Yale Law School, where he helped edit the Yale Law Journal, served on the Board of the Morris Tyler Moot Court, and was awarded Honorable Mention for Oral Advocacy as a Harlan Fiske Stone Prize Finalist. After graduating from law school, he learned the intricacies of America’s justice system by working as a law clerk for federal judges in New York and Boston: U.S. District Judge Denny Chin (later appointed by President Obama to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit) and U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Hugh H. Bownes (a Carter appointee who passed away in 2003).
After two years of judicial tutelage, Tsai relocated to the South to become a civil rights lawyer in Georgia. Those exhilarating years working with students, clergy, protesters, prisoners, and the homeless left a lasting impression. His first teaching gig was at the University of Oregon Law School, where he earned tenure, along with awards for teaching and research from the law school and the university.
Tsai is the author of three books, Practical Equality: Forging Justice in a Divided Nation (W.W. Norton Feb. 19, 2019), America’s Forgotten Constitutions: Defiant Visions of Power and Community (Harvard 2014), and Eloquence and Reason: Creating a First Amendment Culture (Yale 2008). Practical Equality, which will be published by W.W. Norton in February 2019, is a call to arms to do the hard work of equality, brimming with historical lessons for how to make social progress in tough times. America’s Forgotten Constitutions, which explores how citizens have written a wide range of alternative constitutions to resist mainstream constitutional law, has been called “captivating,” “magisterial,” and “a remarkable feat of excavation.” Eloquence and Reason, his book on the development of America’s free speech values, has been described as “fresh,” “sophisticated,” and “compelling.”
Tsai’s research spans constitutional law, legal history, democratic theory, American political culture, social movements, criminal procedure, presidential leadership, and radical constitutionalism. He has written about the legal obstacles placed in the way of black civil rights activists, President Franklin Roosevelt and freedom of religion, the philosophy of John Brown and his followers, modern white supremacy and the militia movement, the Republic of New Afrika’s ideas about the Constitution, the historical treatment of migrants, early socialism in America, the rise and fall of the “one world” movement, President Obama’s reversal on same-sex marriage, and ideas of equality in the poetry and fiction of Langston Hughes.
His work has been published by the Journal of American History, Contemporary Political Theory, Constitutional Commentary, Perspectives on Politics, Yale Law Journal, Michigan Law Review, Georgetown Law Journal, Washington University Law Review, and Boston University Law Review. His popular essays have appeared in Los Angeles Review of Books, Boston Globe, Washington Post, Politico, Boston Review, and Slate. He has been interviewed by the New York Times, NPR, and CNN. He lives with his family in Washington, D.C.
Communications Director, Tenth Amendment Center
Michael Maharrey serves as the national communications director for the Tenth Amendment Center and the managing editor of the SchiffGold blog. He hosts his own podcast, Thoughts from Maharrey Head, as well as the Friday Gold Wrap podcast and the It’s Your Dime interview series for SchiffGold.
Michael is the author of three books. Our Last Hope – Rediscovering the Lost Path to Liberty, makes the historical, philosophical and moral case for nullification. Smashing Myths: Understanding Madison’s Notes on Nullification digs deep into James Madison’s views on nullification, focusing on his writing’s later in life. Finally, Michael joined Tenth Amendment Center executive director Michael Boldin in penning Nullification Objections: Dismantling the Opposition, a book that takes apart the common objections to nullification one at a time. He’s also penned several e-books, including The Power of No: The Historical and Constitutional Basis for State Nullification to Limit Federal Powe and Its Practical Application, The Constitution and the Report of 1800, and The Jefferson Letters, Vol. 1: Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions.
Michael earned a degree in Mass Communications and Media Studies from the University of South Florida St. Petersburg. As a non-traditional student, he won several academic awards and was a member of the school’s ethics bowl team that placed eighth in the nation. Mike played for the USF ice hockey team at the ripe old age of 40, earning American Collegiate Hockey Association Academic All-American honors. He also holds a B.S. degree in Accounting from the University of Kentucky. Along with his formal schooling, he’s had the opportunity to associate with and study under some of the top academics in constitutional history and our founding principles.
Michael speaks at events across the United States, and frequently appears as a guest on local, national and international radio shows advancing constitutional fidelity and liberty through decentralization.
As a working journalist, Michael has written and reported for several newspapers, including the St. Petersburg Times and the Kentucky Gazette, covering local and state politics, and sports. Mike won a pair of 2009 Kentucky Press Association awards while serving as the sports editor for the Woodford Sun in 2009. He also worked for a local television news outlet writing web content for the station’s award-winning website.
Michael lives in Lexington, Ky., with his beautiful wife Cynthia, and has two daughters and a son. Although a native Kentuckian, he spent much of his adult life in Florida and considers the Sunshine state his adopted home. In his spare time, he still plays ice hockey and is equally passionate about defending the Constitution and his crease.
Emanuel S. Heller Professor of Law, University of California at Berkeley; Senior Research Fellow, School of Civic Leadership, Civitas Institute, University of Texas at Austin; Nonresident Senior Fellow, American Enterprise Institute
John Yoo is the Emanuel Heller Professor of Law. He is also Distinguished Visiting Scholar, School of Civic Leadership and Senior Research Fellow, Civitas Institute, at the University of Texas at Austin. He is also a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
His most recent book, The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Supreme Court, co-authored with Robert Delahunty, was published in 2023. Professor Yoo’s other books include Defender-in-Chief: Trump’s Fight for Presidential Power; Striking Power: How Cyber, Robots, and Space Weapons Change the Rules for War, Point of Attack: Preventive War, International Law, and Global Welfare, and Crisis and Command: A History of Executive Power from George Washington to George Bush.
Professor Yoo has published more than 100 articles in academic journals on subjects including national security, constitutional law, international law, and the Supreme Court. He also regularly contributes to the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and National Review, among others.
Professor Yoo has served in all three branches of government. He was an official in the U.S. Department of Justice, where he worked on national security and terrorism issues after the 9/11 attacks. He served as general counsel of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee. He has been a law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and federal appeals Judge Laurence Silberman. He has been a visiting professor at Seoul National University in South Korea, the Interdisciplinary Center in Israel, Keio University in Japan, Trento University in Italy, the University of Chicago, and the Free University of Amsterdam.
Professor Yoo supervises the Public Law and Policy Program and the California Constitution Center. He also serves on the boards of the Pacific Legal Foundation, the Federalist Society’s Separation of Powers and Federalism Division, the Universidad Cientifica del Sur Law School, and the Asia-Pacific Law Institute at Seoul National University. He is a winner of the Federalist Society’s Paul Bator award and been the Edwin Meese III Originalism Lecturer at the Heritage Foundation.
Professor Yoo graduated from Yale Law School and summa cum laude from Harvard College.
W. St. John Garwood and W. St. John Garwood, Jr. Centennial Chair and Professor of Government, University of Texas at Austin School of Law
Sanford Levinson, who holds the W. St. John Garwood and W. St. John Garwood, Jr. Centennial Chair in Law, joined the University of Texas Law School in 1980. Previously a member of the Department of Politics at Princeton University, he is also a Professor in the Department of Government at the University of Texas. Levinson is the author of approximately 400 articles, book reviews, or commentaries in professional and popular journals--and a regular contributor to the popular blog Balkinization. He has also written six books: Constitutional Faith (1988, winner of the Scribes Award, 2d edition 2011); Written in Stone: Public Monuments in Changing Societies (1998); Wrestling With Diversity (2003); Our Undemocratic Constitution: Where the Constitution Goes Wrong (and How We the People Can Correct It)(2006); Framed: America's 51 Constitutions and the Crisis of Governance (2012); An Argument Open to All: Reading the Federalist in the 21st Century (2015); and, with Cynthia Levinson, Fault Lines in the Constitution: The Framers, Their Fights, and teh Flaws that Affect Us Today (forthcoming, September 2017). Edited or co-edited books include a leading constitutional law casebook, Processes of Constitutional Decisionmaking (6th ed. 2015, with Paul Brest, Jack Balkin, Akhil Amar, and Reva Siegel); Nullification and Secession in Modern Constitutional Thought (2016); Reading Law and Literature: A Hermeneutic Reader (1988, with Steven Mallioux); Responding to Imperfection: The Theory and Practice of Constitutional Amendment (1995); Constitutional Stupidities, Constitutional Tragedies (1998, with William Eskridge); Legal Canons (2000, with Jack Balkin); The Louisiana Purchase and American Expansion (2005, with Batholomew Sparrow); Torture: A Collection (2004, revised paperback edition, 2006); and The Oxford Handbook on the United States Constitution (with Mark Tushnet and Mark Graber, 2015). He received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Law and Courts Section of the American Political Science Association in 2010.
He has been a visiting faculty member of the Boston University, Georgetown, Harvard, New York University, and Yale law schools in the United States and has taught abroad in programs of law in London; Paris; Jerusalem; Auckland, New Zealand; and Melbourne, Australia. He was a Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton in 1985-86 and a Member of the Ethics in the Professions Program at Harvard in 1991-92. He is also affiliated with the Shalom Hartman Institute of Jewish Philosophy in Jerusalem. A member of the American Law Institute, Levinson was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2001. He is married to Cynthia Y. Levinson, a writer of children's literature, and has two daughters and four grandchildren.
Professor of History, United States Military Academy
Robert M. S. McDonald is a professor of history at the United States Military Academy and an adjunct scholar of the Cato Institute. He is a graduate of the University of Virginia, Oxford University, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he earned his Ph.D. A specialist on Thomas Jefferson and the early American republic, he is author of Confounding Father: Thomas Jefferson’s Image in His Own Time (University of Virginia Press, 2016). In addition to essays and articles in journals such as The Historian, Southern Cultures, and the Journal of the Early Republic, he is editor of Thomas Jefferson’s Military Academy: Founding West Point (University of Virginia Press, 2004), Light & Liberty: Thomas Jefferson and the Power of Knowledge (University of Virginia Press, 2012), and Sons of the Father: George Washington and His Protégés (University of Virginia Press, 2013). He is completing an edited volume to be titled Thomas Jefferson’s Lives: Biographers and the Battle for History. He lives in Cornwall-on-Hudson, New York, with his wife, Christine, and their children Jefferson and Grace.
What Is a Constitutional Crisis? Would You Know it if We Were in One?
Kevin R.C Gutzman, Robert L. Tsai, Michael Maharrey
Is the United States experiencing a constitutional crisis--or multiple crises? How would we even know...
Executive Power & the Louisiana Purchase
John C. Yoo, Sanford V. Levinson, Robert S. McDonald
When Napoleon Bonaparte offered to sell 827,000 square miles of land to the United States,...