Provocative in nature, this work looks critically at the bureaucratic infrastructure behind the U.S. federal government, from its origins as a self-governing republic in the 18th century to its modern presence as a centralized institution.

• Suggests a number of improvements in the way our government runs based on the basic principles of good government

• Explains the sources of bureaucratic government—how we went from a limited, constitutional government to a sovereign state

• Discusses the economic, religious, and legal background of the growth of bureaucratic government

• Shows how the original Constitution contained the spread of bureaucracy for more than a century

• Reveals how the nineteenth-century party system avoided administrative excesses