Had the Nationalists carried the day in 1776 and turned the Continental Congress into a national government, implied powers would have been the normal constitutional practice from the moment of independence. The American Revolution, State Sovereignty, and the American Constitutional Settlement, 1765-1800 by N. Coleman (294 pages, Lexington Books, 2016) The Articles of Confederation that Congress [...]
What is America? Are we a nation or an idea? A recent essay by one Colin Woodard contends that we must choose one or the other. More than that, Woodard chooses to make his choice very clear, while also claiming to know the choices of President Donald Trump and Vice-President J.D. Vance. America as a [...]
The founding of nations always involves a willful forgetting and subsequent divinization of the founding fathers. The Scriptures are an acid that dissolves every attempt to produce an untainted origin story, and so a new nation. Throughout his City of God, Augustine accuses the Romans of willfully forgetting their origins. The philosopher Varro, Augustine says, [...]
In both rhetoric and substance, the ideologies of globalism and nationalism have been playing a major role in current events and controversies. How have they shaped American and world attitudes and actions over centuries? Introduction The current controversy about the violent riots in Los Angeles and President Trump’s military response to them is part of [...]
Mercantilism was an attempt to fashion a national economy at the same time that the so-called New Monarchs throughout parts of Western Europe were attempting to construct the institutions of the modern national state. I. The Historical Background Designed to effect a favorable balance of trade, Donald Trump’s economic policies constitute the revival of mercantilism.[i] [...]
So, is Christianity nationalist? The Church clearly thinks the nation is essential and worthy of defense, but what is it? To answer this, we must explore the historical genesis of the modern “nation” itself. John Paul II asserted with confidence that the two natural societies recognized by the Church’s social teaching are the family and [...]
There is one aspect of the immigration debate that most liberals do not like to discuss. Recognizing a right for anyone to flee misfortune, liberals invite them to pour over the border, which most do illegally. However, they refuse to look at the reasons behind the growing migrant stream and seek to stop it. Dealing [...]
The West is split by a new cosmology or religion, pitting a faith in Divine Retribution against a founding faith in Divine Redemption, those who trust a Providential Creation versus those who evangelize a Universal Catastrophe. We’re now embroiled in a culture war, yet the insurgents’ purpose and origin remain obscure. A random collection of [...]
I see in the resurgence of radical nationalism one of the principle threats to the United States and the world. Nationalism serves the needs and interests of the tribe at the expense, and often to the detriment, of everyone else. I. In 1992 Francis Fukuyama announced the end of History.[i] (The capitalization is essential to [...]
Both Roger Scruton and Yoram Hazony argue that the nation-state has its virtues. In the current “global conflict,” Scruton urged, “the nation is one of the things that we must keep." Sir Roger Scruton wrote of a “turning point in our history”[1], and this turning point was about the nation. Scruton believed that the “greatest [...]
Article II of the Articles of Confederation codified that one of the purposes of the American Revolution was the protection of state sovereignty, by making state sovereignty a fundamental aspect of the American constitutional order. The American Revolution, State Sovereignty, and the American Constitutional Settlement, 1765-1800 by N. Coleman (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2016) The [...]
It is hard to imagine how this country will recover from the hostility and political polarization that now define it without rediscovering a “pre-political loyalty," as Sir Roger Scruton called it, "towards something higher, something that is shared between all the citizens, regardless of their political beliefs and inclinations: the nation." With Roger Scruton’s passing [...]
I suggest a crisis by collecting in one breath the terms national character and political disorder. Nor do I shrink from the implicit affirmation that the people of the United States confront an identity crisis at the very center of our national existence, at once moral and political and touching precisely upon the reciprocal relationship [...]
It is the perennial task of the conservative to disentangle the truth from the weeds of confusion which keep growing up around it. Samuel Francis and Patrick Buchanan have greatly contributed to the present resurgence of conservative elements rising up in America. Whatever political victories may come of their work should certainly be celebrated. “Go [...]