There is something uniquely awful about children getting gunned down. But in terms of school security, the good news is that we are still free enough to use existing laws and institutions to experiment in states and local communities, in government and private schools, to see what works… One principle that should unite all serious [...]
With a “clear, plain, and palpable” eagerness to seize control of the Pennsylvania congressional map in time for the 2018 mid-term elections, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has gone beyond judicial activism and joined with the Democrats in their attempt to win control of the U.S. Congress. The details of how this came about and the [...]
Why did the centralization of power occur so quickly in America? Why have those genuinely common-good communities that were supposed to have worked hand-in-glove with the federal government suffered so much under the American Regime?… Today’s offering in our Timeless Essay series affords our readers the opportunity to join Thaddeus Kozinski as he explores the [...]
In The Federalist, Publius writes of “new” and “improved” “principles” of the “science of politics,” and he urges his countrymen to abandon the classical teachings concerning the possibilities of republican government over an extensive territory… Conservatives—American and otherwise—have always held The Federalist in extremely high regard. Virtually all would agree with Clinton Rossiter that it stands with the Declaration [...]
Historical context, for members of the Straussian school, is “historicism,” a form of moral relativism that believes that there are no fixed truths, only ideas appropriate for their historical moment… Patriotism Is Not Enough: Harry Jaffa, Walter Berns, and the Arguments That Redefined American Conservatism by Steven Hayward (263 pages, Encounter Books, 2016) Dr. Steven Hayward [...]
We need to develop a fully American variant of conservatism; to advance our understanding of the conservative nature of the political traditions we have inherited; and to do so with a dignity that will permit us to stand before God, the American public, and our conservative forebears. In the next century, because of both need [...]
Climate change is a perfect example of a problem which, to those intent on saving the world, cannot be managed within a constitutional order. Whatever may be happening to the climate, keeping faith with the Founders’ gift of ordered liberty is our best hope of addressing it… The decision by President Trump to withdraw the [...]
In the potentially momentous case considering the issue of “political gerrymandering,” the Supreme Court last week spent almost no time discussing and demanding that the litigating parties address the language of the Constitution. In Gill v. Whitford, Wisconsin Democrats had won a 2-1 ruling of a three-judge federal district court that the 2010 re-apportionment plan [...]
It is a small step from the charters and constitutions of the Medieval Church to our own Declaration of Independence… The civilization of the West is rendered an intelligible unit and distinguished from the alternatives by three characteristics present nowhere else: monotheism in religion, philosophy, and science as a means for understanding the natural world, [...]
In the wake of President Trump’s decision to rescind DACA, prominent voices have been raised in moral indignation, painting him as a villain. But is that characterization fair? Much of the Catholic world is in an uproar over President Trump’s decision to phase out the DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) order enacted by former [...]
What made James Madison unique among his generation and has subsequently made his legacy invaluable was his commitment to the “sacred fire of liberty” and his steadfast refusal to abandon either his republican commitment to popular participation or his liberal commitments to justice and the protection of individual rights. Scholarship on the political thought and [...]
The war between France and Great Britain was the first major crisis faced by the country under the new Constitution. It was a test that the Washington Administration helped the nation pass with flying colors. The following essay is an examination of the Washington administration’s handling of the first major foreign policy crisis facing the [...]
Abraham Lincoln did all that he could to preserve constitutional rule by trying to teach his fellow citizens what it means to be an American. The paradox of Abraham Lincoln’s appearance in the United States’ sectional conflict becomes manifest if one considers a passage written by James Madison in Federalist No. 10. In that paper, [...]
The federal judiciary is often the most dangerous branch precisely because it is considered to be the least dangerous one. Libertarians and conservatives have never achieved widespread consensus regarding issues of federalism in American jurisprudence. The gridlock has to do with competing ideas about the proper role of the federal judiciary in protecting and preserving [...]