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 [...]
It is a cliché that if we do not study the past we are condemned to repeat it. Almost equally certain, however, is that if there are lessons to be learned from a historical episode, the political class will draw all the wrong ones—and often deliberately so. Far from viewing the past as a potential [...]
The Founding Fathers Guide to the Constitution, Brion McClanahan, Regnery, 262 pages The two key arguments against bothering with constitutional restraints on government are “who knows” and “who cares”: we can’t know what the Constitution means, and we shouldn’t care even if we did. In The Founding Fathers Guide to the Constitution, historian Brion McClanahan [...]
Kevin Gutzman’s James Madison and the Making of America takes what we thought was a familiar story and gives it a fresh and important interpretation that challenges old orthodoxies and helps us better understand important episodes in American history. For instance, proper credit for the world-historic Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom is at last granted [...]
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 followers. In fact, the typical lineages are given thus: Federalist-Whig-Republican on the one hand and Jeffersonian-Jacksonian-Populist-New Deal on the other. This breakdown of the American political tradition [...]