GoodFellows: Conversations on Economics, History & Geopolitics GoodFellows LIVE: The US Constitution and A Republic - If You Can Keep It | Hoover Institution
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Apr 30, 2026 
John Cochrane, economist and institutional thinker; Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, former Army leader and strategist; Sir Niall Ferguson, historian and contrarian. They debate the Constitution’s practical design, separation of powers, federalism versus centralized authority. Topics include war powers, the administrative state, Amendments like the Second and natural-born clause, and whether the republic drifted toward empire.
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Sovereignty With The People Was The Radical Break
- The American Revolution's real novelty was locating sovereignty with the people, not the monarch or Parliament.
- Gen. H. R. McMaster links this to Enlightenment and classical republican roots that made slavery politically unsustainable over time.
Separation Of Powers Explains Constitutional Durability
- The Constitution's lasting novelty is not republicanism itself but the durability achieved by separation of powers.
- John Cochrane credits Madisonian checks—mixture of democracy, monarchy (president), and aristocracy (Senate)—for preventing rapid collapse into tyranny or anarchy.
Revolution Was Continuity And Principle Not Just Oppression
- The American Revolution combined conservative institutional continuity with radical social implications; it resembled a second English Civil War.
- Niall Ferguson argues colonists had low taxes but revolted over principle: taxation without representation.
