Creed, Culture, and the Electric Cord of the Declaration
As America limps toward the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence—one of the most remarkable political documents in history—the country itself no longer knows with precision what to...
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The Republic on Parade
At the present moment, our screens are full of images of rioting and violence, and both parties are straining to craft visual narratives based on those images to build popular support for their...
View Article“People Don’t Talk That Way Anymore”
Patriotism is, sadly, out of fashion in elite circles. On the left, critics of America argue that the injustices and hypocrisies of the Founding invalidate the republic’s highest ideals. On the right,...
View ArticleWas the Founding Generation “Churched”?
George Hawley is one of the best students of contemporary political conservativism and the Alt-Right. His recent Law & Liberty piece on American Christian nationalism does not disappoint. He and I...
View ArticleReal Republics and Fake Democracies
In an essay recently published in The Free Press, the political commentator Martin Gurri made a nicely arch response to the fashionable hand-wringing about supposed threats to “our democracy.” I come...
View ArticleWrestling With the Founding in the Culture Wars
As America prepares to celebrate her 250th anniversary in less than three years, it is perhaps strange that the Founders are still alive in our national consciousness and indeed play an outsized role...
View ArticleThe Founders’ Vision for American Independence
This Independence Day, it is worth reflecting on what the Founding Fathers meant when they used the term “independence.” On one level, July 4th is about our national independence, securing for America...
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Remembering Gordon Lloyd
Gordon Lloyd, retired professor in Pepperdine University’s School of Public Policy, passed away this week at the age of 81. I first met Gordon at a Liberty Fund conference on “Madison’s Notes of...
View ArticleWhy Liberalism and Constitutionalism Need Christianity
Liberalism and constitutionalism need Christianity. This is a provocative thesis, and one that challenges many current narratives. In what sense can this be true? There is no point in attempting here...
View ArticleThe Catholic Case for George Washington
Americans have long understood, if intuitively, that honoring the American Founding and celebrating George Washington are intrinsically linked. Should the day ever come when the events of the...
View ArticleDavid Hume at the Constitutional Convention
“I am an American in my Principles and wish we would let them alone to govern or misgovern themselves as they think proper.” With these politically incorrect words, written in a letter to Baron...
View ArticleAn American Socrates, Dumbed Down
Ken Burns is America’s favorite documentary-maker, judging by his success over forty years now. If anyone speaks on the authority of popularity as a liberal historian of America, it’s him, and he has...
View ArticleWinston Churchill as American
Editor’s Note: The following is a toast given by the author at the Portland Chartwell Society dinner on November 30, 2021, in Portland, Oregon. Imagine that today, in the year 2021, the fifty...
View ArticleThere Is More to Life Than Politics
When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. And when all you have is politics, everything looks like a political argument. My friend Nathan Schlueter recently published a critique of...
View ArticleNumerical Democracy or Constitutional Reality?
Did we just witness “democracy in action”? It depends on whom you ask. In early October, Sen. Mike Lee responded to claims that the Republican-controlled Senate’s confirmation of a Supreme Court...
View ArticleSecularism Cannot Sustain Liberty, a Response to Greg Forster
An author should be grateful for every serious book review and reviewer. Thus, I deeply appreciate the seriousness with which Greg Forster has reviewed in this space my latest book, The Gathering...
View ArticleFreedom and Decline
For the first time in memory, the United States had severe restrictions on individual freedom in place during the Jewish celebration of Passover—a holiday that, by tradition, is associated with...
View ArticleWhy I Am an Originalist—Properly Understood
I thank my good friend Frank Buckley, not only for favoring me with a rejoinder to my critique of his “We Can Do Better Than the Founders’ Constitution,” but for doing so in the familiar tutoiement,...
View ArticleFounding Deists and Other Unicorns
We need to know what the word plethora means before we can say we have a plethora of piñatas. So, too, we cannot consider whether or not America had a Christian founding without having an idea of...
View ArticleThe New York Times Resurrects the Positive Good Slavery Argument
Editor’s Note: This essay is part of a Law & Liberty symposium on the 1619 Project. One hundred and sixty years ago citizens in the United States (or, at least as many as sufficed) rightly...
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