As Edmund Burke began to wind down his very long letter—that which would become 1790’s Reflections on the Revolution in France—he returned to the question of first principles and right reason, especially in regard to the nature of the human person. At his best and most natural, Burke argued, men understood themselves as spirited and [...]
By the beginning of the Mexican war, even famed newspaper editor John L. O’Sullivan began to doubt his own expansionist infatuations. What would America do, for example, if she tried to incorporate not just Mexico but actual, honest-to-God Mexicans into the republic? Standing with his father as they watched the Battle of Bunker Hill in [...]
The Union soldiers defending Forts Sumter and Moultrie in Charleston Harbor had come to believe that their honor, as well as the honor of the Constitution and the federal government, was at stake. Shortly after dawn, around 6 am, on January 9, 1861, Captain Abner Doubleday spotted a steamer preparing to enter Charleston Harbor by [...]
As the political realm brings even more bitterness, more anger, and more division, it’s well worth remembering a time that we all share in common—the real founding of America by a group of ordered, well-armed, and determined Christian families. In 1620, an extraordinary thing happened. At a small landing on the extreme western edge of [...]
Rather than justify Jackson’s deeds, Bradley Birzer's "In Defense of Andrew Jackson" instead depicts its subject in the context of his own world. Whether one enters into its pages admiring or loathing Jackson, Dr. Birzer’s book is a must-read. In Defense of Andrew Jackson by Bradley Birzer (226 pages, Regnery History, 2018) Andrew Jackson, whom [...]
When Americans claim that the 2016 election was the most contentious in history or that we’ve never been as divided as a people as we are now, I have to try very hard not to be smug. After all, unlike folks who actually have to show a profit each year, I as a college professor [...]
One of the most important aspects of early American history is just how devoid of actual Roman Catholics it is. Obviously, on the North American continent, Catholicism throve in the French and Spanish areas and, frequently, among American Indians. Yet, when we consider the main narrative of American history—that told from the standpoint of Plymouth [...]
In the early nineteenth century, Americans assumed that the Indians would fall in line with the United States, recognizing the young republic as the indisputable new Great Father. But the title, they quickly found out, had to be earned. In 1818, Indian Commissioner Benjamin Parke attempted to treat with the Miamis, Weas, and Delawares but [...]
Like all human beings, Andrew Jackson certainly had his faults—sometimes spectacular, brutal, and violent ones—but is it just to label him, as one recent critic has, simply as "a slaver, ethnic cleanser, and tyrant"? Sometime in the last several years, it has become the cultural norm to see President Andrew Jackson as the sum of [...]
The vast majority of Americans think of Andrew Jackson as a despicable man: a scoundrel, an uncouth violent redneck, hell-bent on the imperial expansion of the United States with the American Indians his burnt offerings to whatever god he worshipped. But my research has revealed Jackson as a true American republican, a virtuous man of the [...]
Real, actual letters are a gift, an insight into our best and our worst selves. Unlike the present world of the ephemeral email and hatchet posts on social media, letters of the pre-internet era could be gorgeous works of art. In them, the writer shares just a bit of his soul, preserving it for time, [...]
Our world drowns in information, facts, bites, noise, opinions, and other particulars. Yet, even the best of our students have the most difficult time connecting one thing to another. It is myth that allows us to transcend the immediate and the ephemeral... About ten years ago, I proposed a course of study for first-year college [...]
While explicating Russell Kirk, Dr. Birzer is drawing attention to a larger conservative intellectual tradition and inviting a reconsideration of what that tradition has to offer. Dr. Birzer is here not merely an erudite and perceptive historian but also a thinker in his own right... Russell Kirk: American Conservative by Bradley Birzer (574 pages, University Press [...]
When C.S. Lewis converted to Christianity in 1931, he admitted that he did so in large part because Christianity answered the pagan longings he had experienced in his love of mythology and of all things northern. Northern Irishman C.S. Lewis holds such an important place in the hearts, minds, and souls of American Protestants that [...]