By Gilbert E. Roe . Preface By Colin Heston

This book is, at its heart, a constitutional and civic indictment—a sharp rebuke of a legal system which, in Roe's view, had drifted from its republican moorings and embraced a kind of conservative absolutism in the guise of judicial interpretation. It is a work of advocacy, history, and democratic theory. Roe's central thesis is unambiguous: the American judiciary, and especially the federal courts, had evolved into a quasi-aristocratic institution, usurping powers not granted by the Constitution and resisting the popular will under the pretense of legal finality.

Our Judicial Oligarchy is a courageous and principled statement from a time when democratic ideals were under pressure from concentrated power—whether corporate, financial, or judicial. Its enduring relevance lies in its challenge to all Americans: to ensure that no institution, no matter how cloaked in legality or tradition, becomes so removed from the people that it ceases to serve them.

In rereading Roe today, we find not only a vivid picture of Progressive Era politics, but a warning and a reminder—that constitutional democracy requires not just good laws and courts, but an active and informed citizenry unwilling to surrender sovereignty to any oligarchy, judicial or otherwise.

 Read-Me.Org Inc. New York-Philadelphia-Australia. 2025. p. 111.

By Edward Payson Powell. Edited by Colin Heston

In Nullification and Secession in the United States: A History of the Six Attempts During the First Century of the Republic, Edward Payson Powell undertakes an ambitious and far-reaching examination of one of the most fraught and recurring themes in American political development: the idea that individual states possess the legal or moral authority to nullify federal law or withdraw from the Union altogether. Written at the close of the 19th century and first published in 1897, Powell’s work reflects both the urgency of historical clarification in the aftermath of the Civil War and the enduring philosophical contest over the balance between federal power and state sovereignty.

This volume is not merely a chronicle of constitutional crises; it is a sustained meditation on the challenges of national unity in a country designed as a federation of semi-autonomous states. Powell, a journalist, historian, and keen observer of American public life, assembles a carefully documented history of six separate episodes where nullification or secession was proposed, debated, or attempted—beginning with the earliest murmurings under the Articles of Confederation and culminating in the cataclysm of the Confederate rebellion. His purpose is not only to recount these events but to interpret them, to understand the motivations behind them, and to identify the forces—legal, ideological, economic, and sectional—that allowed the American Union to survive repeated assaults on its coherence.

Nullification and Secession in the United States is more than a chronological account of rebellion and reaction; it is a civic education, a warning, and a testament. Edward Payson Powell offers readers both a panoramic view of American political development and a moral argument for the sanctity of national unity. In an age when the bonds of Union had been sorely tested, he reaffirms that the survival of the Republic has depended not only on laws and courts but on the ongoing negotiation between principle and compromise, autonomy and allegiance.

For modern readers—historians, political thinkers, and citizens alike—Powell’s work remains a rich and valuable resource. It shows that the story of America has never been one of perfect consensus, but of persistent debate and, ultimately, a shared determination to hold the states together in common purpose. Few books of its era so skillfully combine historical scholarship with constitutional insight, and few provide as clear a window into the recurring crises that have shaped—and tested—the idea of the United States itself.

Read-Me.Org Inc. Australia, New York & Philadelphia. 2025. 230p.

By Edward Payson Powell

A study of sucession and nullification movements in the United States from the nullification resolutions of 1798 to the American Civil War. Powell proposes that the secession of the southern states in 1861 was not a unique event in American history, but the culmination of a tradition as old as the nation. Indeed, he argues, it was an expression of the "intense individualism which was the most potent factor in the creation of the republic" (Preface). Sensitive to the continued animosity between the North and South, Powell hoped that the historical context provided by his study would help to promote a spirit of reconciliation.

The Knickerbocker Press, New York, 1897, 470p.