Dictatorship vs. American Liberties

Dictatorship vs. American Liberties by J. Henry Peyton is a direct constitutional argument that contrasts centralized executive power with the structure of limited government established by the American founding. Written as a warning rather than a neutral study, the book contends that emergency powers, administrative expansion, and wartime controls create precedents that erode the separation of powers and weaken individual rights. Peyton frames dictatorship not as a foreign aberration but as a potential domestic development—one that can emerge gradually through legal mechanisms, bureaucratic growth, and public acquiescence. Anchored in constitutional language and historical example, the work insists that liberty depends less on rhetoric than on strict adherence to enumerated powers, local authority, and the primacy of law over executive will.