The Tory Touch: True North and Old South
Introduction It seems a very propitious moment to think about Canadian and Southern history in conjunction given the recent and more or less concurrent bicentennial of the…
Christianity’s Home in Homelessness
The history of Western philosophy may be but a footnote on Plato, but the history of the whole of Western philosophy, theology, politics, science, art, and the…
A Return to Natural Rights Jurisprudence?
Justice Stephen Field’s Cooperative Constitution of Liberty: Liberty in Full. Adam M. Carrington. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. 2017. During his Senate confirmation hearings held to determine…
What Can the Puritans Teach Us About Philanthropy?
Here’s our most characteristically philanthropic antidote to the excesses of individualism in the American political tradition: the thought and deeds of our first founders—the Puritans. Philanthropy, of…
Are Americans Too Busy?
From a certain view, the most probing question Alexis de Tocqueville had to answer in Democracy in America is “Why are the Americans so restless in the…
A Popular Defense of Our Undemocratic Constitution
Amid the outrages surrounding the confirmation hearings for Brett Kavanaugh, progressive commentator Chris Hayes noted the growing tension between our popular notions about democracy and the undemocratic character…
Truth as a Democratic Project
I During the Presidential Campaign of 1996, in California, President Bill Clinton said that democracy is “government of the people, by the people, and for the people”…
Why Do We Have an Electoral College?
During the debates over the ratification of the Constitution, Alexander Hamilton remarked in Federalist 68 that the method of presidential selection was “almost the only part of the…
The Electoral College and The Founders’ Design
During the debates over the ratification of the Constitution, Alexander Hamilton remarked in Federalist 68 that the method of presidential selection was “almost the only part of…
Liberals, Conservatives, and the American Presidency
The office of the presidency has always been controversial. Born of the Founders’ struggle to create a stable republican political order, it was to be an office…
Our Enemy: The (Imperial) Presidency
Albert Jay Nock was an important literary and social critic of the first-half of the twentieth century. Part scholar, part pundit, part prophet, Nock’s many essays and…
Is America Devolving into Soft Totalitarianism?
What should a democratic people fear in their leaders? That depends on the character of the people. When the great French philosopher and statesman Alexis de Tocqueville…
Statesmanship and the Dangers of Civil Religion
I recently attended a conference on statesmanship. Truth be told, there are reasons to be ambivalent about statesmanship. While public service is a great virtue, the statesman…
Can Subsidiarity Restore American Self-Government?
Just as it is gravely wrong to take from individuals what they can accomplish by their own initiative and industry and give it to the community, so…
What Is the Constitution For?
All nations have constitutions—whether written down or not. Why? Because every nation must have rules determining who gets to govern and how. And you don’t need to…
