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Spencer Roane

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Spencer Roane and the Richmond Junto

The party of Washington, Adams, and Hamilton were swept out of power. The election of 1800 saw the triumph of Jefferson’s Republicans and the complete decimation of the Federalists, a party that would never again control the White House, or either house of Congress, and would cease to exist after the 1816 presidential election. After a contentious battle in the…
Ryan Walters
March 9, 2026
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Spencer Roane, Part 2

Continued from Part 1. When the Democrats came into power, the need of a Democratic paper was felt in Virginia. The newspaper had now become one of the most important methods of political warfare. Each party maintained one at Washington, in which articles advocating the one and maligning the other were published. These were read throughout the country, and in…
Abbeville Institute
July 26, 2024
Blog

Spencer Roane, Part 1

Written by Edwin J. Smith in 1905 and published in the John P. Branch Historical Papers of Randolph-Macon College. The formative period of our national existence is the one which, more than any other, produced great men. Great issues arose which had to be settled. Great battles were fought and won in the arena of public life-battles on which depended…
Abbeville Institute
July 25, 2024
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McCulloch v. Maryland

Editor's Note: This essay was written by Spencer Roane under the pseudonym Amphictyon in 1819. I. To the Editor of the Enquirer : SIR: I have read with considerable attention the opinion pronounced by the Chief Justice of the U. S. in the case of McCulloch against the State of Maryland. In that opinion we are informed, First, That it…
Abbeville Institute
August 29, 2022
Review Posts

Spencer Roane: The Forgotten Founder

A review of Irreconcilable Founders: Spencer Roane, John Marshall, and the Nature of America's Constitutional Republic (LSU Press, 2021) by David Johnson Of all the leading Jeffersonians of the early Republic—Jefferson, Madison, John Randolph of Roanoke, and John Taylor of Caroline—Spencer Roane is arguably the most obscure. This obscurity is lamentable because while Jefferson and Madison built and led their party,…
Aaron N. Coleman
September 30, 2021
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Spencer Roane

“It has been our happiness to believe, that in the partition of powers between the general and State governments, the former possessed only such as were expressly granted, or passed therewith as necessary incidents, while all the residuary powers were reserved by the latter.” Spencer Roane Had one-time friends John Adams and Thomas Jefferson not had such a high-profile and…
Joe Wolverton
February 26, 2018
Review Posts

A National or Federal Government

Part IV of a four part series. Part I, Part II, Part III. I come now to urge my objection to the jurisdiction of the court. It goes on the ground, that it is not competent to the general government, to usurp rights reserved to the States, nor for its courts to adjudicate them away. It is bottomed upon the…
Spencer Roane
September 15, 2014
Review Posts

On Implied Powers and the Bank of the United States

Part III of a Four Part Series by the Legal Scholar Spencer Roane written in 1819. Part I and Part II. I trust I have shown by the preceding detail, that the words "necessary and proper," contained in the Constitution, were tautologous and redundant, and carried nothing more to the general government than was conveyed by the general grant of…
Spencer Roane
September 8, 2014
Review Posts

On Granted Powers

To the Editor of the Enquirer: According to the regular course of legal proceedings I ought, in the first place, to urge my plea in abatement to the jurisdiction of the court. As, however, we are not now in a court of justice, and such a course might imply some want of confidence in the merits of my cause, I…
Spencer Roane
September 1, 2014
Review Posts

Rights of the States and of the People

This is Part I of four letters that originally appeared in the Richmond Enquirer in 1819 under the nom de plume Hampden. They could have been written yesterday. To the Editor of the Enquirer: By means of a letter to you, sir, I beg leave to address my fellow citizens. I address them on a momentous subject. I address them…
Spencer Roane
August 21, 2014