Americans have tried the Hamiltonian experiment of centralized government, usury, and gigantism long enough. Surely it is time, somewhere, for the Jeffersonian vision to begin to reappear. Today’s offering in our Timeless Essay series affords readers the opportunity to join Arthur J. Versluis as he explores the Jeffersonian vision for America and how we may [...]
If anything identifies a conservative, it is his realistic appraisal of human nature—his appreciation of what is good and admirable, and his recognition of what is base. As some renditions of American history would have it, the conservative pedigree in the United States begins with, or at the very least includes, Alexander Hamilton and his [...]
At this time, as perhaps never before, we Americans are as a people well on our way to being forced into belated recognition of the truth behind Mr. Jefferson’s alarm at the Compromise of 1820, our first attempt in employing the engines of national power to regulate and reform our domestic economic and social relations [...]
The Jeffersonian philosophy of rights and duties is not to be blamed for the explosion and inflation of rights. It is by doing our duties that we protect our rights, and rights come at cost of these duties. Today’s offering in our Timeless Essay series affords readers the opportunity to join Paul Kuntz as he [...]
"Every human being, my dear, must thus be viewed according to what it is good for, for none of us, no not one, is perfect; and were we to love none who had imperfections this world would be a desert for our love. All we can do is to make the best of our friends: [...]
The cosmopolitan Jefferson—enlightened, tolerant, humane—is at the same time the best example of the sensitive provincial. And in getting back to the provincial Jefferson, the essential Jefferson, we recover one of the valuable links of our national heritage. Today’s offering in our Timeless Essay series affords readers the opportunity to join David Hoeveler as he [...]
Many parts of North America were settled by Christians who devoted their communities to the service of God. Arguments and assumptions drawn from Christian theology were part of the background for the framing and ratification of the Constitution, as well as many of the great controversies of American history… In 2010 the Texas state school [...]
In a certain sense, Thomas Jefferson’s allies and enemies invented him in the years following his resignation from the Washington Administration. To the former, he became something akin to a Second Coming of the Savior, while to the latter, he seemed nothing less than a version of the Anti-Christ… Confounding Father: Thomas Jefferson’s Image in [...]
Americans transcribed the Edenic myth and heralded the supremacy of the New World over the Old. Yet, many could not suppress the fear that they were already losing their sense of purity, innocence, and power, and would in time come face to face with the disappointments of history, the sorrows of the human condition, and [...]
What is true conservatism? That question, more than anything else, is the argument raging in the Republican Party today–one side fully represented in the party’s establishment wing, while the other resides in the hearts of true patriots at the grassroots, those who carry the American Revolution’s sacred fire of liberty. Yet most true conservatives may [...]
The cry, “That violates the separation of church and state!” has been the centerpiece of the secularist drive to marginalize Christianity in the public sphere since the 1940s. The real—and often neglected—question is what precisely that separation means and how it should be interpreted and applied. […]
Thomas Jefferson was one of the architects of the American political system. He was the primary author of the Declaration of Independence, helped to shape Constitutional interpretation, and was a virtual wellspring of the ideas on which the foundation of the United States was laid. While his knowledge of history and government was profound, the [...]
Last year, I decided to take my teenage sons on a trip across the country. We traveled in our motor home, starting in our home state of Utah, visiting sites of historic significance along the way. I am not a historian, but on this trip I discovered that left-leaning benefactors doling out large grants have [...]
Every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. We have called by different names brethren of the same principle. We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists. FRIENDS AND FELLOW-CITIZENS, Called upon to undertake the duties of the first executive office of our country, I avail myself of the presence of that portion [...]