[Iris7]

To me John Adams seems the last man of the Right to hold the Presidential Office.

Henry Adams (John's great-grandson) wrote acutely about the great loss of meaning in modern life, the idea that in the balance more had been lost through Modernity than gained, evincing a sort of sentimental Right-ishness while he himself lived a life of late 19th Century liberalness (in the modern sense of the word).

The Old Republic did not last very long. Pretty dead by Charles River Bridge.

Standard view of the story:
http://www.oyez.org/oyez/resource/case/70/print

Justice Joseph Story's dissent:
http://courses.missouristate.edu/ftm922f/Documents/Cases/charlesrbridge--storydisnt.htm

Perhaps you might ask if I miss the Old Republic? I do. Does that make me a man of the Right? Like John Adams? Very likely.

[Professional Engineer]

Interesting. I don't recall hearing of this case before.

[snippy_about_it]

... yet it has never been understood, at least, never in our republic, that the sovereign power can take the private property of A. and give it to B., by the right of 'eminent domain;' or, that it can take it at all, except for public purposes; or, that it can take it for public purposes, without the duty and responsibility of making compensation for the sacrifice of the private property of one, for the good of the whole. These limitations have been held to be fundamental axioms in free governments like ours;

That beautiful Republic of old is most certainly gone.