I have called M.E. Bradford the Agrarian Aquinas. He did not write a Summa, but his work, as a whole, enriched and carried into new territory the message of I’ll Take My Stand on a broad front of literature, history, and political thought. He came at a crucial time when Richard Weaver had passed his [...]
In graduate school, I was assigned by the resident “New South” historian I’ll Take My Stand by Twelve Southerners as my final paper. I eagerly accepted the project. This was in my back-yard, so to speak. I had read the book at least twice before and considered it one of the best tomes on Southern [...]
The name Thomas Jefferson is still significant, witness the relentless efforts of the present regime, which fears the real Jefferson, to destroy his favorable image. A cynical but true saying that sometimes passes around among historians is “He who controls the present controls the past.” Man is a symbolizing creature, and political struggles can be [...]
Several times in his dense treatises, John Taylor of Caroline, the systematic philosopher of Jeffersonian democracy, warned that political terms are treacherous and their exact meaning must be examined with care. Because, words are themselves weapons in the eternal campaign of designing men to achieve power and exploit their fellows. Let them control the terms [...]
Friends, you must have either Jefferson or Hamilton. All the fundamental conflicts in our history were adumbrated during the first decade of the General Government in the contest symbolized by these two men. Hamilton lost in the short run, but triumphed in the long run. He would find much that is agreeable in the present American [...]
From historian Dumas Malone, we can, if we wish, begin to discern the real Jefferson. And that Jefferson is, in the broad outline of American history, identifiable in no other way than as a conservative. The Sage of Monticello, by Dumas Malone, Volume Six of Jefferson and His Time In 1809 Thomas Jefferson yielded up [...]
Recommended essays regarding Mr. Jefferson (April 13, 1743 – July 4, 1826) on The Imaginative Conservative: Looking for Mr. Jefferson by Clyde Wilson Thomas Jefferson’s Birthday by Clyde Wilson Thomas Jefferson & the American Declaration of Independence by Ross Lence Thomas Jefferson, Conservative by Clyde Wilson Jefferson Was Right by Joseph Sobran Calhoun, Jefferson, and Popular Rule by Lee Cheek The [...]
As a movement of thought, the resurgent conservatism of twentieth century America cannot achieve maturity without a properly worked out historical self-image—a documented and convincing picture of what traditions, tendencies, and movements it is heir to. In its earliest stages the conservative resurgence has conceived of itself largely as an extension of the European Burkean [...]
Thomas Jefferson had the most capacious mind and, until his later years, the most optimistic temperament of any of the Founders. Thomas Jefferson’s birthday went virtually unnoticed earlier this year (note: this essay was written in 1993—editor), the 250th anniversary of his birth. Nothing is more indicative of how badly we Americans have squandered our moral [...]
Patriotism is the wholesome, constructive love of one’s land and people. Nationalism is the unhealthy love of one’s government, accompanied by the aggressive desire to put down others—which becomes in deracinated modern men a substitute for religious faith. Patriotism is an appropriate, indeed necessary, sentiment for people who wish to preserve their freedom; nationalism is [...]
From Union to Empire: Essays in the Jeffersonian Tradition by Clyde N. Wilson “To check power, to return the American empire to republicanism we do not need to resort to the drastic right of revolution nor to the destructive goal of anarchic individualism. We have in the states ready-made instruments. All that is lacking is [...]