The Spirit of Philadelphia

By |2026-01-28T20:13:16-06:00January 28th, 2026|Categories: American Founding, American Republic, Books, Christianity, Common Good, Constitution, Nature of Man|

Chris Gibson's "The Spirit of Philadelphia" helps us to rethink the role of Common Sense Realism as a unifying principle of American life. But that idea rests on a greater idea. The spirit of Philadelphia has no sustaining power to preserve order in soul or republic unless wedded to the genius of Christianity. The Spirit [...]

Willmoore Kendall: Public Truth & the Problem of Free Speech

By |2025-10-14T15:45:04-05:00October 14th, 2025|Categories: American Republic, Community, Constitution, Free Speech, Freedom, John Stuart Mill, Libertarianism, Truth, Wilhelm Roepke, Willmoore Kendall|

Willmoore Kendall’s support of (relative) free speech is an integral part of his view of the “deliberate sense of the community,” which in turn is informed by the “public truth,” which itself is the political expression of the particular American historical experience of transcendent revelation. “[B]ut a completely open society in which everyone does his [...]

The Jubilee of the Constitution

By |2025-09-17T05:59:44-05:00September 16th, 2025|Categories: Constitution, History, John Quincy Adams, Timeless Essays|

The Constitution consummated the work commenced by the Declaration of Independence—a work in which the people of the North American Union had achieved the most transcendent act of power that social man in his mortal condition can perform. John Quincy Adams, at the time a former President of the United States and member of the [...]

John Marshall on the Supreme Court & Universal Injunctions

By |2025-08-13T15:28:01-05:00August 13th, 2025|Categories: Constitution, Donald Trump, John Marshall, Rule of Law, Supreme Court|

If we could explain to him what executive orders of a President mean today and what jurisdiction the district courts now have, what would the great John Marshall have said about the Supreme Court’s opinion limiting the power of the district judges to issue universal or nationwide injunctions? Introduction In June, the United States Supreme [...]

Randy Barnett: A Life for Liberty

By |2025-06-02T13:27:15-05:00June 2nd, 2025|Categories: American Republic, Books, Chuck Chalberg, Constitution, Libertarianism, Liberty, Politics, Senior Contributors|

In his excellent memoir, Georgetown Law Center Professor Randy Barnett reveals what he has long maintained: “There will never come a time when our liberty is permanently secured, but there may well come a time when our liberty is permanently lost.” A Life for Liberty: The Making of an American Originalist, by Randy Barnett (635 [...]

What a Constitution Can, and Can’t, Do

By |2025-04-10T16:51:41-05:00April 10th, 2025|Categories: Bruce Frohnen, Conservatism, Constitution, Federalist Papers, Politics, Timeless Essays|

A constitution has to have formal structures and requirements if it is to do its job of imposing the rule of law on people in positions of power. But for these formal structures to work, both the people and the governors they choose must recognize that they are important. I was at a conference recently [...]

The Constitutional Thought of Thomas Jefferson

By |2025-03-09T21:43:13-05:00March 9th, 2025|Categories: American Founding, American Republic, Books, Constitution, Republicanism, Thomas Jefferson|

Were the actions of Thomas Jefferson as president consistent with his constitutional theory? David N. Mayer’s account raises fundamental but unanswered questions. The Constitutional Thought of Thomas Jefferson by David N. Mayer (416 pages, University of Virginia Press, 1995) Thomas Jefferson continues to fascinate scholars. A voluminous literature examines his long public career and extensive comments on [...]

How Should We Rank the American Presidents?

By |2025-02-16T18:58:39-06:00February 16th, 2025|Categories: American Founding, American Republic, Books, Constitution, Featured, Presidency, Stephen M. Klugewicz, Timeless Essays|

Traditional rankings of the American presidents ask whether our chief executives did what was necessary for the good of the country. But should we look to their fidelity to the Constitution as a better way to evaluate their behavior in office? 9 Presidents Who Screwed Up America: And Four Who Tried to Save Her, by [...]

The Duty to Bear Arms

By |2025-01-22T18:21:08-06:00January 22nd, 2025|Categories: 2nd Amendment, American Founding, Bradley J. Birzer, Rights, Timeless Essays|

Americans historically have not just believed in the “right” to bear arms, but they have, more importantly, claimed an actual republican duty of all Americans to bear arms. Every two years at Hillsdale College, I have the immense privilege of teaching three of our upper-level U.S. survey courses: American Founding (1753-1806); Democratic America (1807-1848); and [...]

Harry Jaffa and the Demise of the Old Republic

By |2024-09-26T14:29:39-05:00September 26th, 2024|Categories: American Republic, Conservatism, Constitution, Declaration of Independence, Edmund Burke, Featured, Foreign Affairs, History, Political Philosophy, Politics, Timeless Essays, Tradition|

Harry Jaffa’s constitutional history of America’s late-eighteenth-century is not credible nor, in keeping with many of his own pronouncements, is it conservative. The writing of history, as we have learned from authors as diverse as Thucydides, Voltaire, Nietzsche, Butterfield, Collingwood, and Oakeshott can and has been done in strikingly different ways while serving radically different [...]

A Popular Defense of Our Undemocratic Constitution

By |2024-09-16T15:56:06-05:00September 16th, 2024|Categories: American Republic, Constitution, Democracy, Electoral College, Federalism, Federalist Papers, Timeless Essays, Wyoming Catholic College|

If we consider the Founders’ arguments for the Constitution, we find not only that they intended it to be undemocratic, but that they would defend even its most undemocratic elements on “popular” grounds. What might appear to the partisans of democracy today as outdated roadblocks to efficient government are for the Founders politically salutary forms [...]

The Spirit of American Constitutionalism

By |2024-09-16T15:27:37-05:00September 16th, 2024|Categories: American Founding, American Republic, Constitution, Edmund Burke, Featured, Federalist Papers, John Dickinson, Timeless Essays|

The Constitution described by John Dickinson in his “Letters of Fabius” is a model of prudence and moderation, based not primarily on theoretical arguments, but on experience and an extensive knowledge of history. Though virtually ignored by scholars in recent decades, John Dickinson was one of the most influential of the American Founders. When he [...]

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