For Clyde Wilson, the Jeffersonian conservative tradition was never a stale embrace of the past for its own sake. It conserves only to produce something better. In 1969 the late Mel Bradford recommended to Modern Age’s second editor, Eugene Davidson, that he should publish a groundbreaking article by a young historian named Clyde Wilson. The [...]
Americans turned to the concrete lessons of history and experience to guide them in securing their liberty. The French, on the other hand, deified Reason above not only experience, but also above religion and divine revelation. One of the many differences between the American and French Revolutions is that, unlike the French, Americans did not [...]
Trevor Colbourn considers the Declaration of Independence the highest expression of Anglo-Saxon thought and liberty. Not only did it draw upon the Whig traditions of natural rights and common law, but it identified the king as a traitor to his own office. The Lamp of Experience: Whig History and the Intellectual Origins of the American [...]
I was deeply saddened to learn of the death of the greatest of "pirate scholars," Donald S. Lutz. As it turns out, he had actually passed away back in January of this year, but I only found out about it a week or so ago. I’ve loved the man’s work for a long time, and [...]
Cara Rogers Stevens has done the history profession proud with her new book, and we owe her a huge thanks for revising our understanding of Thomas Jefferson in terms of his lifelong opposition to slavery. Thomas Jefferson and the Fight Against Slavery, by Cara Rogers Stevens (400 pages, (University Press of Kansas, 2024) As I’ve [...]
Our collective confusion about the American experience begins at the beginning. Most Americans who think about such questions imagine that they understand the Declaration of Independence, though many of them may be puzzled that it did not (and does not) produce the results one might expect from the commitments which they believe it makes. After [...]
In “Our Lives, Our Fortunes and Our Sacred Honor,” Richard R. Beeman tells a compelling narrative of the crucial years between the first meeting of the Continental Congress and the announcement of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. He gives concrete examples of the novel ways in which the lines of political and legal [...]
The need for understanding our roots is as timeless as the human story itself and explains why we cling to the Declaration of Independence. Most people know that the Fourth of July—Independence Day—is a celebration of America’s separation from Great Britain. July 4, 1776 marks the beginning of the United States. It’s like our national birthday. [...]
As we celebrate the documents produced by the generation that also gave us Paul Revere, let us remember that they knew something that we have largely forgotten: the richness of community life that lay behind those documents, and without which they would never have been written. We celebrate this weekend a common declaration of independence, [...]
Unlike our present politicians, George Washington and Russell Kirk cared about the common good, strove for it, and constantly reminded us what it means to be a citizen of a republic. Dear Imaginative Conservative reader, as we approach this journal's fourteenth birthday, I owe a humble apology (bless me, Father, for I have sinned!) to [...]
Few who knew John Randolph in his youth ever imagined him embracing the tenets of the Gospel or admitting the reality of Original Sin. He was raised in an orthodox Christian home. He lived in a conservative place, around people who identified as traditionalists. But as Christianity waned in his day, he embraced new vogues. [...]
In very different historical circumstances, two strong-willed, athletic men with intelligence and leadership ability survived multiple dangers, but neither attributed his survival to his abilities or to sheer willpower. Instead, both men consistently and publicly credited Divine Providence. Their stories are well-known, but worth reviewing, since they serve as witnesses to us in our own [...]
During the first six decades of the eighteenth century, the American colonies were mostly allowed to govern themselves. In exchange, they loyally fought for Great Britain in imperial wars against the French and Spanish. But in 1763, after the British and Americans won the French and Indian War, King George III began working to eliminate [...]
In making a case for the property rights of the American clergy, Bishop John Carroll made a revolutionary case for the nature of the American Church’s relationship with Rome. In these United States our Religious system has undergone a revolution, if possible, more extraordinary than our political one. —John Carroll, 1783 John Carroll and his fellow [...]