Books by "Daniel J. Gifford"
4 books found
In the 1830s, the French aristocrat Alexis de Tocqueville warned that "insufferable despotism" would prevail if America ever acquired a national administrative state. Today's Tea Partiers evidently believe that, after a great wrong turn in the early twentieth century, Tocqueville's nightmare has come true. In those years, it seems, a group of radicals, seduced by alien ideologies, created vast bureaucracies that continue to trample on individual freedom. In Tocqueville's Nightmare, Daniel R. Ernst destroys this ahistorical and simplistic narrative. He shows that, in fact, the nation's best corporate lawyers were among the creators of "commission government" that supporters were more interested in purging government of corruption than creating a socialist utopia, and that the principles of individual rights, limited government, and due process were built into the administrative state. Far from following "un-American" models, American state-builders rejected the leading European scheme for constraining government, the Rechtsstaat (a state of rules). Instead, they looked to an Anglo-American tradition that equated the rule of law with the rule of courts and counted on judges to review the bases for administrators' decisions. Soon, however, even judges realized that strict judicial review shifted to courts decisions best left to experts. The most masterful judges, including Charles Evans Hughes, Chief Justice of the United States from 1930 to 1941, ultimately decided that a "day in court" was unnecessary if individuals had already had a "day in commission" where the fundamentals of due process and fair play prevailed. This procedural notion of the rule of law not only solved the judges' puzzle of reconciling bureaucracy and freedom. It also assured lawyers that their expertise in the ways of the courts would remain valuable, and professional politicians that presidents would not use administratively distributed largess as an independent source of political power. Tocqueville's nightmare has not come to pass. Instead, the American administrative state is a restrained and elegant solution to a thorny problem, and it remains in place to this day.
A political scientist who went on to become president, Woodrow Wilson envisioned a "responsible government" in which a strong leader and principled party would integrate the separate executive and legislative powers. His ideal, however, was constantly challenged by political reality. Daniel Stid explores the evolution of Wilson's views on this form of government and his endeavors as a statesman to establish it in the United States. The author looks over Professor and then President Wilson's shoulder as he grappled with the constitutional separation of powers, demonstrating the importance of this effort for American political thought and history. Although Wilson is generally viewed as an unstinting and effective opponent of the separation of powers, the author reveals an ambivalent statesman who accommodated the Founders' logic. This book challenges both the traditional and revisionist views of Woodrow Wilson by documenting the moderation of his statesmanship and the resilience of the separation of powers. In doing so, it sheds new light on American political development from Wilson's day to our own. Throughout the twentieth century, political scientists and public officials have called for constitutional changes and political reforms that were originally proposed by Wilson. By reexamining the dilemmas presented by Wilson's program, Stid invites a reconsideration of both the expectations we place on the presidency and the possibilities of leadership in the Founders' system. The President as Statesman contributes significantly to ongoing debates over Wilson's legacy and raises important questions about the nature of presidential leadership at a time when this issue is at the forefront of public consciousness.
Offers insights into sources and inspirations, authorship and authorial style, and patterns of separation and convergence across versions of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is one of the most important documents to survive from early medieval England. Written in Old English, it was first created during the reign of King Alfred the Great (871-899). Up to Alfred's reign, and then in multiple continuations extending into the twelfth century, the Chronicle versions often provide a unique record of events, at times reported in the barest style, at others with passionate commentary. This book is the first to tell the story of how the Chronicles came to be, providing a clear but detailed account of the development of its various versions. It starts with an examination of the textual and manuscript evidence, then explores the work of the two chroniclers first responsible for the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle's creation in the late ninth century, arguing that the first made a set of annals from disparate sources. The author then contends that a later reviser aligned with the Alfredian political programme wrote the annals for Alfred's reign, and at the same time also revised earlier entries, including the famous story of Cynewulf and Cyneheard. This book also sheds new light on the annals of Æthelred the Unready, arguing that Archbishop Wulfstan of York is likely to have authored some these, together with some tenth-century annals. Its final chapter provides the first comprehensive study of all the Chronicles' poetry.