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 [...]

The Declaration of Independence: Translucent Poetry

By |2023-07-03T16:15:18-05:00July 3rd, 2023|Categories: American Founding, Constitution, Declaration of Independence, E.B., Essential, Eva Brann, In Honor of Eva Brann at 90 Series, James Madison, Samuel Adams, Senior Contributors, St. John's College, Thomas Jefferson, Timeless Essays|

The Declaration of Independence, intended as an expression of the common opinion, is truly a text of "right opinion," a benign practical text which also has a peculiarly sound relation to the realm of thought. Section I:  The Legacy of the Declaration When American schoolchildren first discover that they have a place in the world they [...]

Madison’s “Memorial and Remonstrance”: A Jewel of Republican Rhetoric

By |2023-06-22T07:55:13-05:00June 21st, 2023|Categories: American Founding, American Republic, E.B., Eva Brann, Freedom of Religion, James Madison, Senior Contributors, St. John's College, Timeless Essays|

The document entitled “To the Honorable the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia, A Memorial and Remonstrance” is a jewel of republican rhetoric.[1] Nor has this choice example of American eloquence gone without notice. And yet, compared to the Declaration of Independence and the Gettysburg Address, it has remained obscure—more often quarried for stately [...]

Madison’s “Extended Republic” and the Culture Wars

By |2023-03-15T18:04:01-05:00March 15th, 2023|Categories: American Republic, Culture War, Government, James Madison, Politics, Timeless Essays|

Centering our national politics on the culture wars is unhelpful because in the end it simply is not cut out for this. The optimal jurisdictional sphere for resolving many of our cultural battles will be localities, not states. Localities must be empowered boldly to operate and experiment within the immense gray areas that the questions [...]

The Extended Republic Theory of James Madison

By |2022-10-10T16:16:11-05:00October 10th, 2022|Categories: American Founding, American Republic, Featured, Federalist Papers, George W. Carey, James Madison, Timeless Essays|Tags: |

Certainly, James Madison cannot be faulted for not having seen the true dimensions of the problems associated with factions. Perhaps more clearly than other theorists who preceded him, he saw its root causes. Yet, he can be faulted for not having urged upon his audience the observance of that morality necessary for the perpetuation of [...]

Madison’s Metronome: The Sovereign Physician of Our Passions

By |2021-11-03T20:00:01-05:00November 3rd, 2021|Categories: Books, Constitution, Featured, James Madison, Timeless Essays|

To the extent that James Madison’s democratic theory of "temporal republicanism" depends on time, the virtue on which it hinges is patience. If so, fundamental features of Madison’s democratic thought stand in tension with a twenty-first-century ethos of instant gratification and communication. Twelve-year-olds do not read Michel de Montaigne anymore, much less take notes. James [...]

Madison’s “Memorial and Remonstrance”: A Jewel of Republican Rhetoric

By |2023-05-21T11:29:01-05:00June 22nd, 2021|Categories: American Founding, American Republic, E.B., Essential, Eva Brann, Freedom of Religion, In Honor of Eva Brann at 90 Series, James Madison, Senior Contributors, St. John's College, Timeless Essays|

James Madison's "Memorial and Remonstrance" is in truth among the finest of those works of republican rhetoric in which one finds an adroit enunciation of liberty. The document entitled “To the Honorable the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia, A Memorial and Remonstrance” is a jewel of republican rhetoric.[1] Nor has this choice example [...]

Impeachment, the End of an Era, and the Conservative Challenge

By |2020-01-14T14:46:46-06:00January 14th, 2020|Categories: Conservatism, Donald Trump, Government, James Madison, Liberalism, Politics|

It is difficult to know when an era has ended. The events dominating the news today—presidential impeachment, deep state subversion of secret surveillance courts, confused and prolonged wars, out-of-control debt and government spending, and a radicalized educational and media culture—suggest something quite profound is threatening American governance. But it is not so clear precisely what. [...]

Publius on the Relation of the Federal Government to the States

By |2021-04-22T17:53:07-05:00August 8th, 2019|Categories: American Founding, American Republic, Constitution, Federalist Papers, Government, History, James Madison, Politics|

James Madison wrote in “The Federalist” that the Constitution puts the states to the test: The stronger federal government will inaugurate a kind of competition in good government, breaking the states’ monopolies. Having founded republican regimes in America, regimes animated by respect for the laws of Nature and of Nature’s God as enunciated in their [...]

American Eden: The Rise and Fall of New World Man

By |2020-04-03T00:07:31-05:00June 30th, 2019|Categories: American Founding, American Republic, Federalist Papers, James Madison, Literature, Mark Malvasi, Thomas Jefferson, Timeless Essays|

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 the ACLU Gets Wrong About the Separation of Church & State

By |2021-04-28T09:57:32-05:00December 11th, 2017|Categories: American Founding, Christianity, Faith, History, James Madison, Politics, Thomas Jefferson|

America’s Founders did not want Congress to establish a national church, and many opposed establishments at the state level as well. Yet there was virtually no support for the sort of separation of church and state promoted today by organizations such as the ACLU. In Everson v. Board of Education (1947), Justice Wiley Rutledge proclaimed that “no [...]

James Madison: A Son of Virginia & a Founder of the Nation

By |2021-03-15T15:02:40-05:00December 8th, 2017|Categories: American Founding, Books, Conservatism, Featured, History, James Madison, Religion|

Jeff Broadwater’s biography of James Madison reminds readers of the necessity of a free people to keep their rulers inside the limits of their authority as determined by the people, who are the ultimate sovereigns. Letting leaders roam outside the borders of the consent given by the governed will only end in tyranny. James Madison: A Son [...]

Was James Madison an Opponent of Democracy?

By |2021-03-15T15:33:23-05:00September 3rd, 2017|Categories: American Founding, American Republic, Constitution, Featured, Federalist Papers, James Madison, Timeless Essays|

What made James Madison unique among his generation and has subsequently made his legacy invaluable was his commitment to the “sacred fire of liberty” and his steadfast refusal to abandon either his republican commitment to popular participation or his liberal commitments to justice and the protection of individual rights. Scholarship on the political thought and [...]

The Foreign Policy of George Washington

By |2021-04-22T19:27:52-05:00August 20th, 2017|Categories: Alexander Hamilton, American Founding, Constitution, Featured, Federalist Papers, George Washington, James Madison, War|

The war between France and Great Britain was the first major crisis faced by the country under the new Constitution. It was a test that the Washington Administration helped the nation pass with flying colors. The following essay is an examination of the Washington administration’s handling of the first major foreign policy crisis facing the [...]

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