Will the Supreme Court Give the President More Immunity Than a Roman Emperor?

Two Centuries of Ancient Legal Scholarship Applied the Same Laws to Leaders as Everyone Else

I have been studying and writing about Roman emperors for more than 30 years. I never imagined I would live in a time and place where the judicial system might give more extensive legal immunity to an American president than any Roman emperor ever enjoyed. Until last Thursday.

Contemporary imagination often assumes that Roman emperors enjoyed absolute authority to do what they wanted with their empire’s resources, wealth, and military power. They did not. Rather, Roman emperors were magistrates who held office for life, managing the Roman state on behalf of …

by Edward Watts | May 2, 2024

How Vain, Stubborn, Thin-Skinned George Washington Grew Up

Through the Trauma of War, and By Learning From His Mistakes, the First President Gained Empathy and Gravitas

By Peter Stark | May 21, 2018

At 21 years of age, George Washington was a very different man than the one we know and hold sacred, different from the stately commander, the selfless first president, the …

Will Donald Trump Be America’s First ‘Post-Imperial’ President?

As the U.S. Declines and China Rises, Its Chief Executive Will Have to Accept a Loss of Privilege and Status

By Victor Bulmer-Thomas | May 15, 2018

In a forthcoming book, I argue that the United States has been an empire ever since its birth as an independent country, that the empire ceased to be based on …

That Time I Urinated on the White House Lawn

It Was 1954. Eisenhower Was President. And There Were No Barking Dogs or Secret Service Agents in Sight.

By Warren Olney | March 7, 2018

On a warm summer evening in 1954, my high school classmate Gerry and I walked up to the steel fence topped by tall bronze spears that surrounded the Eisenhower White …

Barack Obama Had an ‘Iron Will’ to Succeed—but What Was at His Core?

Biographer David J. Garrow Explains How the 44th President Compartmentalized and Rewrote His Life

By Reed Johnson | December 7, 2017

Historian David J. Garrow acknowledges that he’s “cynical” about Barack Obama, a conclusion that he reached while conducting 1,000 interviews and spending nine years researching the formation and political rise …

Trump Isn’t the First Presidential Power Grabber

American Chief Executives Have Always Tried to Act as They Wish. But Has the Practice Gone Too Far?

By Reed Johnson | April 26, 2017

King George III imposed taxation on the American colonies without representation. Franklin D. Roosevelt unilaterally exiled Japanese Americans to internment camps. Barack Obama declared his intent to bypass a perpetually …

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