Rethinking the American Union for the Twenty-First Century

DONALD LIVINGSTON is a professor of philosophy at Emory University. He has published two books on the British philosopher David Hume and has been described as "the greatest Hume scholar of the 20th century." Livingston, along with other academics, formed the Abbeville Institute, an organization in higher education dedicated to scholarly study of Southern tradition.

Kent Masterson Brown received his JD from Washington and Lee University School of Law in 1974 and practiced law for thirty-seven years. In addition to authoring several Civil War titles, Brown is the president and content developer for Witnessing History, LLC, for which he has written, hosted, and produced award-winning documentaries. Appointed by Pres. George H. W. Bush, he served as the first chairman of the Gettysburg National Military Park Advisory Commission. Brown currently lives in Lexington, Kentucky, with his wife and children.

The warring ideas of centralization and decentralization are at the core of modern political debates about the national economy, U.S. foreign policy, and citizens’ cultural values―just as they were among our Founding Fathers. With the election of Abraham Lincoln, the concept and practice of centralization in U.S. government gained power. In contrast, the Confederate constitution carried decentralization even further than the original Constitution and added a number of features that could stand us in good stead in this time of big government and excessive rules.