While we should rightly praise Thomas Jefferson for his authorship of the Declaration of Independence, we should never ignore the role of John Adams. If Jefferson was the pen, Adams was the voice. The Declaration of Independence: A Radical Experiment in Liberty (Stone House Press, 2026) “Who shall write the history of the American revolution? [...]
Jamestown, after much painful experimentation, established the kinds of local institutions, beliefs, and practices that colonizers recognized as the prerequisites to successful settlement and that we have come to recognize as the seedbeds of the American republic. The Jamestown Project by Karen Ordahl Kupperman (392 pages, Belknap Press, 2009) “Discovery” has been a term and [...]
In the end, America’s greatness does not lie in its ability to exist as an ideal in the minds of men, but in its success as a lived experience and its character as a nation forged in a history steeped in order, justice, and freedom, for which it is rightfully esteemed. The “miracle at Philadelphia,” [...]
In what kind of world is it fair that the United States should shoulder the burden of protecting totally wealthy societies from a corrupt and violent world? Though it would be hard to pin a tail on Trump’s ever-moving and erratic donkey of a myriad of statements on every topic imaginable, it’s pretty clear that [...]
Whatever his failings as an imaginative thinker, President James Monroe’s own convictions were rooted deeply in the spirit and the letter of the U.S. Constitution. As he entered the White House in March 1817, he had little (well, less) use for James Madison’s newfound love of nationalism. While he entered the presidency too late to [...]
As a theory of history, progressivism always believes in conflict and violence and antagonism. Progressivism, then, not surprisingly, is wrapped up in bigotry, racism, and violence. “Progress! Did you ever reflect that that word is almost a new one?” asked an enraptured Woodrow Wilson in 1913. “No words come more often or more naturally to [...]
Outnumbering the Lexington militia nearly ten to one, the British easily won the skirmish. But, symbolically, they lost. For at the moment the first Lexingtonian died, the American Republic was born. British Major Pitcarne took six companies of an advance team to scout out Lexington, Massachusetts, early morning, April 19, 1775. Behind him marched nearly [...]
Listen, my children, and you shall hear Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere, On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-Five: Hardly a man is now alive Who remembers that famous day and year. He said to his friend, — "If the British march By land or sea from the town to-night, Hang a lantern [...]
Not only do democracies invade every aspect of life and politicize them, they always and everywhere—from Athens to America—serve as an impetus to imperialism. If the will of the majority is to rule at home, why not enforce such rule the world over? John Adams & Benjamin Franklin “Remember Democracy never lasts long. [...]
What is it that finally holds a society together? What enables it to cohere? Nothing less, St. John Henry Newman reminds us, “than a common reverence for a certain sacred possession.” Does anyone know what the central myth of America might be? I mean, isn’t there a story out there we tell ourselves about our origins? Our [...]
Neither the past nor the present can be reduced to a simple morality play with unambiguous heroes and villains. This false and superficial understanding of human nature and the human condition has convinced many that American power and decency are, or ought to be, unassailable, and that the continued application of technology will forever sustain [...]
Ours is the first nation under God which makes no real provision for God in its public life, owing to a great and sundering wall of separation between Church and State, religion and politics, faith and life. We live in a country whose citizenry have been, almost from the beginning of the Republic, carefully coached to [...]
George Washington was acutely aware that he had become a legend in his time, a true myth, and he recognized that the presidency made possible the institutionalization of the role he had been playing. That is to say, he endowed the presidency with the capacity—and the awesome responsibility—to serve as the symbol of the nation, [...]
The American people have, unfortunately, come to see the president as the embodiment of their hopes, their dreams, and their nightmares. It is time to begin a conversation about the nature, goals, and limits of the U.S. Presidency. When it comes to the American Founding, broadly defined, it’s hard for this born-and-bred Kansan not to [...]