For some time now, our political rhetoric has increasingly moved toward an opposition between classes, causing tension—indeed a kind of warfare—between what Aristotle called the few rich and the many poor. Our founders worked hard to bridge this gap… Today’s offering in our Timeless Essay series affords readers the opportunity to join Virginia Arbery as [...]
In favor of Trinity Lutheran, the Supreme Court ruled that a government program cannot require a church “to renounce its religious character in order to participate in an otherwise generally available public benefit program for which it is fully qualified…” In its decision in Trinity Lutheran v. Comer this week, the Supreme Court took another [...]
A devoted American nationalist, James Madison often knowingly worked backstage to make the United States more national—less federal—than his fellow Virginians were willing to endure. Today’s offering in our Timeless Essay series affords readers the opportunity to join Kevin Gutzman as he examines the complex role James Madison played in the American Founding. —W. Winston Elliott [...]
The United States Constitution is important, and great, precisely because it recognizes that people and their rights are social by nature, and must remain rooted in their communities if we are to enjoy the benefits of ordered liberty under the rule of law. All nations have constitutions—whether written down or not. Why? Because every nation [...]
It is understandable that confirmation hearings should sometimes become contentious and even partisan. But the past half-century has seen the infection of the process by serious contentions that go to the heart of constitutional governance itself. Confirmation hearings have a noble place in the American political tradition. They are necessary so that Senators may see [...]
Willmoore Kendall held that American politics is not supposed to reflect universal values expressed through the rhetoric of a single leader, but rather the values or truths that American politics expresses must become known through the deliberate sense of the community… Willmoore Kendall is one of the most overlooked founding fathers of the conservative movement [...]
By insisting that judges are responsible for fixing bad laws, rather than interpreting all laws with fairness and respect for standards of due process, progressives gather to themselves the power to impose their vision on the nation. I find this originalist judicial philosophy to be really troubling. In essence, it means the judges and courts [...]
Freedom of speech and press is the lifeblood of a free society. And the abuse of free speech, however outrageous, is the price we must pay for this freedom... Recently, I was asked by a federal judge to appear on a panel of three at an Inns of Court in Houston on the topic, “Free [...]
Natural law jurisprudence seems to be our only salvation—the only way to re-establish the proper hierarchy of laws, the only way to put the prudence back in American jurisprudence… The First Grace: Rediscovering the Natural Law in a Post-Christian World, by Russell Hittinger (ISI Books, 2002) As a professor of political science, I am often [...]
How could the man who cried “give me liberty or give me death,” this patriot who penned Virginia’s resolves against the Stamp Act in 1765, not support the Constitution? At the conclusion of Virginia’s 1788 ratification convention, a meeting tasked with voting on the new Constitution, Patrick Henry strode to the assembly floor, convinced that [...]
Far from feeding disunion, John C. Calhoun understood that a more perfect Union listened to the representative voices of the states, rather than the despotic voice of the “nation” represented in the federal Congress. I recently read two essays: one bemoaning the electoral college, and another explaining that Yale University was considering renaming Calhoun College. [...]
Textualism is a compromise, or rather a lowest common denominator, that can allow for a renewal of the rule of law. Still, it rests on a great loss—that of the common mind of our people… Neil Gorsuch, President Trump’s nominee to fill late Justice Antonin Scalia’s spot on the Supreme Court, might follow other recent [...]
No one came to the Convention with his thought more thoroughly in order than James Madison. His participation in the framing was the challenge he required in order to produce a democratic classic… Today’s offering in our Timeless Essay series affords readers the opportunity to join Lance Banning as he studies the role James Madison played [...]
Until Members of Congress rediscover the most basic virtue necessary to fulfill their role in our constitutional government, no amount of tinkering can hope to restore our republic… As the late George Carey and I were writing our recently published Constitutional Morality and the Rise of Quasi-Law, we were convinced that we would be criticized [...]