Minds and Empires

Clues in this puzzle

Across

• Executive Latin for putting down your foot (4)
• A partisan splinter causing headaches for Madison in Federalist Ten (7)
• He secured our rights before tabula was rasa (5)
• Ordinary speech without meter's tight corset (5)
• Solid union formed behind an iron partition (4)
• The Incorruptible who fed the national razor until it cut him (11)
• State-tolerated devastation targeting a minority population (6)
• Draft before the gavel falls and the executive pens it (4)
• A striking stroke of statecraft that deposes heads (4)
• Hairpiece for an anti-Jacksonian reformer (4)
• Rift that tore Rome and Constantinople asunder in 1054 (6)
• He wouldn't cross the duty line for pure reason (4)

Down

• Iron weapon dipped in ink to expose foolish sovereigns (6)
• Character reference that anchors an orator's credibility (5)
• Gilgamesh's long story, grand in scale and heroic in measure (4)
• Farmer who warned that some pigs are more equal (6)
• Belief that finds profound meaning in absolute nothingness (8)
• Rule where wealth concentrates into a handful of palms (9)
• Counselor who favored fear over affection in the corridors of power (11)
• Ruler who wears the crown or the supreme authority vested in the body politic (9)
• Dominance maintained when the subordinate accept the narrative (8)
• Overworked turn of phrase or plot device (5)
• Vatican sovereign who also penned heroic couplets on man (4)

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