Sublime

Part of the explanation for Moses’ increased power was simply the breadth and depth of his knowledge of the government at whose head Roosevelt, with little preparation, suddenly had found himself. No one knew the vast administrative machinery the Governor was supposed to run better than this man the Governor hated.

RUSSELL WAS AN UNCONVENTIONAL GOVERNOR. He conducted gubernatorial business only until about four o’clock in the afternoon, and then, closing the door to his private office, began what, in his biographer’s words, “he considered his real work.” Part of that work was answering mail. Routine correspondence was disposed of by his assistants, but if a l

Suddenly, he was filled with holy love and sobering shame. Angry with himself, he turned his eyes on his friend and said to him: “Tell me, I beg you, what do we hope to achieve with our labors? What is our aim in life? What is the motive of our service to the state?”19 On the margin of my book in 1992, I wrote next to this passage: “The Questions.”

Nor did he have to devote much time to the question of Assistant Majority Leader, or “whip,” which was after all a job of even less significance. To Johnson’s request for a “leadership position,” he replied that the whip’s job was his if he wanted it. As a Senate historian was to summarize, “Johnson had no claim to the position, except that he had

Gratitude—and other aspects of the quality he considered most important, the unquestioning obedience that he called “loyalty”—was, in fact, the prime qualification for a man receiving a Johnson job.

Indeed, I will argue that liberty in the broad sense requires judges and officials, when applying legal principles, to assert norms of reasonableness. Otherwise, self-interested people will use law to claim almost anything.

Property is very prominent in Locke's political philosophy, and is, according to him, the chief reason for the institution of civil government: “The great and chief end of men uniting into commonwealths, and putting themselves under government, is the preservation of their property; to which in the state of nature there are many things wanting.”

Moses disciplined Harriman not only by using publicity but by withholding it: by not inviting the Governor to speak at ground breakings and ribbon cuttings.

The aristocracy of America is on the bench and at the bar—Influence of lawyers upon American society—Their peculiar magisterial habits affect the legislature, the administration, and even the people.