The Measure of Abraham Lincoln

By |2024-02-11T23:10:29-06:00February 11th, 2024|Categories: Abraham Lincoln, Conservatism, Essential, Featured, Presidency, RAK, Russell Kirk, Timeless Essays|

Abraham Lincoln never was a doctrinaire; he rose from very low estate to very high estate, and he knew the savagery which lies so close beneath the skin of man, and he knew that most men are good only out of obedience to routine and convention. Whatever the result of the convulsion whose first shocks [...]

Politics, Slavery, and the Civil War

By |2024-01-18T15:20:38-06:00January 18th, 2024|Categories: Civil War, Mark Malvasi, Politics, Senior Contributors, Slavery|

No episode in the American past is more susceptible to such manipulation—manipulation rather than debate—than the Civil War. On the historical question permit me to be blunt and unequivocal. There can be no doubt that slavery was central to all that divided the northern and the southern states, and that slavery was ultimately responsible for [...]

What “The Federalist” Really Says

By |2023-10-27T06:03:11-05:00October 26th, 2023|Categories: Abraham Lincoln, American Founding, American Republic, Equality, Featured, Federalist, Federalist Papers, James Madison, John Locke, Timeless Essays, Willmoore Kendall|

It is from careful textual analysis of “The Federalist” that the basic symbols of the American political tradition, and indeed the conservative tradition, may be found. III In his analysis of the Socrates of the Apology, Willmoore Kendall was hinting strongly at the probability that the contemporary John Stuart Mill-Karl Popper school in the United [...]

A Requiem for Manners

By |2023-08-30T17:46:50-05:00August 30th, 2023|Categories: Christianity, Conservatism, Culture, Edmund Burke, History, Robert E. Lee, Stephen M. Klugewicz, Timeless Essays, Virtue|

Today the idea that the cultivation of manners should be an essential part of one’s education has been lost almost entirely. Proof of the demise of manners is all around us, and thus one of the main pillars of civilization is crumbling before us. On April 9, 1865, General Robert E. Lee met General Ulysses [...]

Wendell Berry’s “The Need to Be Whole”

By |2023-08-21T18:18:51-05:00August 21st, 2023|Categories: Agrarianism, Books, Civil War, South, Southern Agrarians, Wendell Berry|

More than ever, America is split between populist nationalism and left-wing internationalism, with little room in either ideology for anything like Wendell Berry's vision of local patriotic devotion. Whatever we make of his ruminations, with respect to this subject it is obviously the culture which has changed over the past few years, not him. The [...]

Why Juneteenth Matters

By |2023-06-18T15:15:12-05:00June 18th, 2023|Categories: Civil War, History, Slavery|

The essence of America isn't characterized by four centuries of racial subjugation but by the 247-year-long persistent and often heroic struggle by Americans of every race and creed to live up to our highest ideals. This ideal continues to inspire countless individuals, both domestically and internationally. Juneteenth stands as a symbol of this enduring inspiration. [...]

Decoration Day, Memorial Day, & Fallen Heroes

By |2023-05-28T21:45:17-05:00May 28th, 2023|Categories: Civil War, Memorial Day, Military, Peter A. Lawler, Timeless Essays|Tags: , |

Memorial Day originates with the Civil War as “Decoration Day.” Southern women took up the task of decorating the graves of what turns to have been hundreds and hundreds of thousands of their fallen heroes. Theirs was highly civilized work—a duty maybe more Greek and Roman than Christian. So I’ve been criticized for saying that [...]

And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln & the American Struggle

By |2023-05-06T22:48:28-05:00March 14th, 2023|Categories: Abraham Lincoln, American Republic, Books, Civil War, History, Slavery|

Is there room for yet another biography of Abraham Lincoln? Of course there is, especially if the biographer in question is as deft and insightful as Jon Meacham. And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle by Jon Meacham (676 pages, Random House, 2022) Is there room for yet another biography of Abraham [...]

The Tragic South

By |2023-01-24T17:43:07-06:00January 24th, 2023|Categories: Civil War, Joseph Pearce, South, Timeless Essays, Tragedy|

The tragedy is that the South’s tragic flaw—its defense of slavery—led to the defeat of its just demand for states’ rights and the consequent rise of the Federal Government, so that the original concept of the nation has been entirely lost. Recently, whilst staying with friends in Dickson, Tennessee, I came across an article in [...]

Teaching the American Civil War

By |2023-01-23T17:39:16-06:00January 23rd, 2023|Categories: Bradley J. Birzer, Civil War, History, Senior Contributors|

One of the most frustrating things about the Civil War is simply trying to understand its many causes. As long as historians exist, there will be a multitudinous cacophony of answers to this perplexing question. I’ve been wrestling with these questions for nearly a quarter of a century. Let me offer several causes. I’ve had [...]

Honoring Veterans, Envisioning Peace

By |2022-11-10T18:53:38-06:00November 10th, 2022|Categories: Abraham Lincoln, Christopher B. Nelson, History, St. John's College, Timeless Essays, Veterans Day, Virtue, War|

On Veterans Day, we honor our surviving warriors. We rightly give thanks to those who have sacrificed their personal peace for the survival of the nation. And we rededicate ourselves to fulfilling the pledge “to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan.” War endures. The oldest [...]

Statesmanship & the Dangers of Civil Religion

By |2022-06-27T17:35:55-05:00June 27th, 2022|Categories: Abraham Lincoln, Bruce Frohnen, Equality, Government, Politics, Timeless Essays|

Demands for statesmanship tend to hold up a model of greatness in political leadership that is profoundly dangerous. The desire to be “great” by upholding the interests of the nation as a political whole promotes a massive increase in the extent and centralization of political power. I recently attended a conference on statesmanship. Truth be [...]

Prudence as Excellence: Edmund Burke, Abraham Lincoln, & the Problem of Greatness

By |2022-03-30T09:12:00-05:00March 29th, 2022|Categories: Abraham Lincoln, Edmund Burke, Virtue|Tags: |

In a democratic age, how can greatness come to be? Edmund Burke offers a way forward: prudence as a form of excellence. Our conference is subtitled “equality and the survival of heroism.” My concern is the survival of prudence amid the longing for heroism—in particular, the misalignment between ambition and circumstance, the persistent pursuit of [...]

A Reading of the Gettysburg Address

By |2023-05-21T11:28:56-05:00November 18th, 2021|Categories: Abraham Lincoln, Alexis de Tocqueville, American Republic, Civil War, Declaration of Independence, E.B., Essential, Eva Brann, In Honor of Eva Brann at 90 Series, Senior Contributors, St. John's College, Timeless Essays|

Liberal education ought to be less a matter of becoming well-read than a matter of learning to read well, of acquiring arts of awareness, the interpretative or “trivial” arts. Some works, written by men who are productive masters of these arts, are exemplary for their interpretative application. Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address is such a text. Liberal [...]

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