Religion “works,” in Edmund Burke’s view, when it stands apart from the whims of those who practice it. Only then can it enable self-discipline, give meaning, and provide a real sense of the sacred and the sublime in life… Today’s offering in our Timeless Essay series affords our readers the opportunity to join William F. [...]
The liberal conservative must be discerning. For he believes in freedom as well as in order. He believes in individualism as well as in community. He believes in the equality of all men as well as in hierarchy, natural aristocracy, and excellence… After the trip to Washington, DC, where I thrilled at seeing the U.S. [...]
Edmund Burke’s greatest service to liberty was to remind the world that freedom is anchored in a transcendent moral order and that for liberty to flourish, social and personal order and morality must exist, and radical innovations must be shunned… Edmund Burke (1729-1797) is rightly renowned as the father of conservatism. In this bicentennial year of [...]
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, [...]
Lord Acton is the prophet who foresaw our times. He anticipated the dangers of statism. But ironically he is now a setting star—passé and remote. This, it must be said, is a tragedy of his own making. It’s a mystery why he never wrote his planned magnum opus… In late July, shortly before loading a [...]
Of all John Adams' published writings, two works provide an especially fruitful resource for an inquiry into his deepest political reflection: his "Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America" and "Discourses on Davila." As a political writer, John Adams is most remembered today for the constitutional prescriptions by which he [...]
Delicate cluster! flag of teeming life! Covering all my lands—all my sea-shores lining! Flag of death! (how I watch'd you through the smoke of battle pressing! How I heard you flap and rustle, cloth defiant!) Flag cerulean—sunny flag, with the orbs of night dappled! Ah my silvery beauty—ah my woolly white and crimson! Ah to [...]
“A people may prefer a free government but if, from indolence, or carelessness, or cowardice, or want of public spirit, they are unequal to the exertions necessary for preserving it; if they will not fight for it when it is directly attacked; if they can be deluded by the artifices used to cheat them out [...]
Thomas Paine and others charged that Edmund Burke unhesitatingly defended the French monarchy, monarchy in general, corruption in the Church, and oppressive governments, as long as they provided stability. But is this true? When challenging the “coffee-house” radicals who were so gleefully leading the French into generations of ruin through their mad abstractions, Edmund Burke [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
We live in a country in which liberty is both exercised and preserved by free action. Such action is by its very nature preceded by thought, from which it follows that human beings, the young especially, ought to have a period of reflective learning as a prelude to both private and public action. Editor’s Note: [...]
Even a Constitution that rational individuals can affirm as a firm protection of their liberty can’t endure without the added support of veneration. The instinctive conservative response is to reject the idea of the living constitution for various and conflicting reasons. One such reason is the conservative recognition that even a free country depends on [...]
Editor’s Note: In 1645, John Winthrop, the deputy-governor of Massachusetts, was impeached for interfering in a local militia election. Following his acquittal, Winthrop delivered a short speech, “On Liberty,” which is reproduced below. Please note that spelling and punctuation have been modernized for the sake of clarity and convenience to the reader. I suppose something [...]