As Far As Republican Principles Will Admit

Why it’s on the list: Martin Diamond’s essays on the American founding, arguing against the Progressive historians that the Framers were solving a genuinely republican problem — how to check majority faction while staying answerable to the majority. The founders’ republicanism as a solution rather than a compromise.

Where I heard about it

• Brendan McCord — on his Philosopher-Entrepreneur Reading List (March 2026), under The American Experiment, which reads the founding through its own documents and then through its interpreters. Full transcription: The Philosopher-Entrepreneur Reading List.

About this edition

A posthumous collection, edited by William A. Schambra and published by the AEI Press. The title is Madison’s phrase from The Federalist.

Connections

• The Philosopher-Entrepreneur Reading List — the curriculum this card came from.
• Democracy — the founding’s design problem as Diamond reconstructs it.
• Institutions — the level at which he thinks the founders’ answer lives.