According to David French, when Christians and drag queens agree to coexist peacefully, both are “protecting the First Amendment from the culture war.” God and the devil can peacefully waltz together. But God and Satan are eternal and unequal enemies. One rules over His creation—including heaven, earth, humanity, and the universe. The other—the eternal loser—reigns [...]
The Declaration of Independence, intended as an expression of the common opinion, is truly a text of "right opinion," a benign practical text which also has a peculiarly sound relation to the realm of thought. Section I: The Legacy of the Declaration When American schoolchildren first discover that they have a place in the world they [...]
The Supreme Court has found the race-based admission practices of both Harvard University and the University of North Carolina to be unconstitutional violations of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. In the words of Chief Justice John Roberts, “Eliminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it.” In Students for Fair Admissions, Inc., decided [...]
The paramount issue facing the Constitutional Convention was how to secure the safety and happiness of the people. Therefore, the paramount question which guided the deliberations was: What is justice? James H. Hutson concludes his valuable 1984 survey of two hundred years of Constitutional scholarship on a pessimistic note. Scholarship, says Hutson, is at a [...]
Such was Gordon Lloyd's contagious energy that his presence at an academic program guaranteed its success. Even now I can see him, with his irrepressible enthusiasm, almost hopping across the stage in excitement, brushing back the bangs of his wavy white hair as they fly about, and boyishly declaiming in the Caribbean accent of his [...]
Orestes Brownson so esteemed New England people, customs, and institutions that they dominated his writings and fit at the heart of his political ideas. The danger of majoritarian tyranny hangs over republics. The dilemma of constituting a virtuous republic while also restricting interests, sects, and factions’ use of unchecked political power possessed eighteenth century American [...]
President Joseph Biden’s creating and inserting of his student loan forgiveness program, which his Department of Justice solicitor general accurately just called a “benefit” program, into last fall’s midterms elections received a thorough hearing in the Supreme Court on Tuesday. In defense of the program, the government’s case turned on what statutory words normally mean [...]
Luther Martin understood human nature with a genius of sheer power, foresight, and brilliance. He believed that there can be no union without subsidiarity because without it, governments run with the cyclical and typical tyrannies of humankind. Forgotten Founder, Drunken Prophet, The Life of Luther Martin, by Bill Kauffman (Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 2008) “Happiness is [...]
Perhaps more than any other figure in the early history of the American Republic, John Marshall shaped the Supreme Court as well as attitudes toward and understandings of the U.S. Constitution. John Marshall (September 24, 1755–July 6, 1835) was the fourth man to serve as the Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, following [...]
In acknowledgement of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, I wish to raise the question, based on Dr. King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” as to when, if ever, as well as to what extent, it is appropriate to defy the rule of law. On The Imaginative Conservative Winston Elliott raised the question “When is a Change [...]
The "surplus population" is, in fact, the population that the Constitution is made to protect. What do Ebenezer Scrooge and Planned Parenthood have in common? The fundamental answer to this question is more than a sentimental appeal to “the Christmas spirit” or a “cheap-shot” at the abortion industry. The answer is found in the writings [...]
Why are the American people so ready to give themselves over to an emperor? Why do they want a god-king? I would suggest that our very loss of the classical world—especially in education—has led us to forget the great lessons of Western civilization. For what it’s worth, I do not consider myself a political person, [...]
The first essay of The Federalist provides a convenient point of departure for exploring Publius’s conception of republicanism and the problems associated with it. Towards the end of this essay, he informs us that among the “interesting particulars” he intends to take up in the subsequent papers is “The conformity of the proposed Constitution to [...]
In its 1978 Bakke case, the Supreme Court created and condoned racial preference—“affirmative action” and “diversity”—in university admissions. Now the Court is hearing a fundamental challenge to this widespread and now ever-increasing practice in education and in society. As for the membership of the Court in what may turn out to be landmark decisions in [...]