Thomas Jefferson and “A Little Rebellion Now and Then”

By |2024-01-24T16:59:23-06:00January 24th, 2024|Categories: American Founding, American Republic, Clyde Wilson, Republicanism, Thomas Jefferson, Timeless Essays|

Nowhere to be seen now are the old Jeffersonians, once a major American type, rebellious men who dared defend the rights of themselves and their communities from outside impositions. But buried somewhere deep in the American soul is a tiny ember of Jeffersonian democracy that now and then gives off an uncertain, feeble, and futile [...]

Russell Kirk’s “Southern Valor”

By |2022-07-02T21:16:23-05:00July 2nd, 2022|Categories: Clyde Wilson, Conservatism, John Randolph of Roanoke, Russell Kirk, South, Timeless Essays|Tags: , |

American culture and public life are in a perilously low state, but how much worse off we would be if it had not been for Russell Kirk and his valorous life in behalf of the moral imagination that is the essence of our civilization. We have no better example of resourceful defense of unchanging principle, [...]

In Honor of Mr. Thomas Jefferson’s Birthday

By |2021-04-13T11:02:20-05:00April 13th, 2021|Categories: Clyde Wilson, Russell Kirk, Thomas Jefferson, W. Winston Elliott III|

Here are recommended essays regarding Thomas Jefferson (April 13, 1743 – July 4, 1826) on The Imaginative Conservative: Looking for Mr. Jefferson by Clyde Wilson Thomas Jefferson’s Birthday by Clyde Wilson The Jeffersonian Conservative Tradition by Clyde Wilson Thomas Jefferson, Conservative by Clyde Wilson From Union to Empire by W. Winston Elliott III Was Thomas Jefferson a Philosopher? by Eva Brann [...]

Patriotism: A Necessary Sentiment

By |2019-07-04T11:59:46-05:00July 4th, 2019|Categories: Clyde Wilson, Nationalism, Patriotism, Quotation, Timeless Essays|

Patriotism is the wholesome, constructive love of one’s land and people. Nationalism is the unhealthy love of one’s government, accompanied by the aggressive desire to put down others—which becomes in deracinated modern men a substitute for religious faith. Patriotism is an appropriate, indeed necessary, sentiment for people who wish to preserve their freedom; nationalism is [...]

From Union to Empire: Essays in the Jeffersonian Tradition

By |2021-04-22T18:17:31-05:00April 12th, 2019|Categories: American Founding, American Republic, Books, Clyde Wilson, Essential, Republicanism, Thomas Jefferson, Timeless Essays, W. Winston Elliott III|

From Union to Empire: Essays in the Jeffersonian Tradition by Clyde N. Wilson (356 pages, The Foundation for American Education, 2003) “To check power, to return the American empire to republicanism we do not need to resort to the drastic right of revolution nor to the destructive goal of anarchic individualism. We have in the [...]

Thomas Jefferson, Conservative

By |2021-04-07T10:58:55-05:00April 12th, 2018|Categories: American Founding, American Republic, Clyde Wilson, Essential, Featured, Thomas Jefferson, Timeless Essays|

The Sage of Monticello, by Dumas Malone, Volume Six of Jefferson and His Time In 1809 Thomas Jefferson yielded up the Presidency and crossed into Virginia. In the 17 active years remaining to him he never left there. The first volume of Malone’s masterpiece, published in 1948, was Jefferson the Virginian. The sixth and last [...]

Who Is the Conservative Intellectual?

By |2017-06-08T09:20:33-05:00May 12th, 2017|Categories: Clyde Wilson, Conservatism, Featured, History, Tradition|Tags: |

The task of the conservative intellectual remains the same as it has always been, though acquiring new urgency. That task is to keep alive the wisdom that we are heir to and must keep and hand on… Carlyle defined history as ”the essence of innumerable biographies.” This is only one of the many inadequate but [...]

The Devolution of the American Presidency

By |2023-04-05T09:15:38-05:00December 10th, 2015|Categories: American Founding, American Republic, Clyde Wilson, Featured, History|

Could the President ever again become what he was intended to be—a person of recognised ability and integrity who is charged temporarily with seeing that the laws are faithfully executed and necessary relations with other governments are carried on—and nothing else? The American President began as Cincinnatus, a patriot called to the temporary service of [...]

The Jeffersonian Conservative Tradition

By |2020-11-18T11:22:56-06:00November 9th, 2015|Categories: Clyde Wilson, Featured, History, Republicanism, Thomas Jefferson, Timeless Essays, Tradition|

American conservatives, when they have felt the need to establish their lineage, have accepted the rather conventional framework of liberalism-conservatism, already existing in American historiography and popular lore. But one possible tradition of American conservatism is the Jeffersonian tradition. As a movement of thought, the resurgent conservatism of twentieth century America cannot achieve maturity without [...]

Jeffersonian Political Economy

By |2020-05-17T01:06:07-05:00September 11th, 2015|Categories: Clyde Wilson, Economic History, Economics, Featured, Political Economy, Thomas Jefferson|

Our Southern forebears did not practice economics. They practiced political economy—which is concerned with human well-being. Those old-time Southerners did not assume that man is to be understood wholly or chiefly as an economic being. Economics, as practiced today, is a utilitarian and materialistic study. It is concerned with maximizing profit, with describing the actions [...]

Inventing a New Nation at Gettysburg

By |2021-11-18T20:39:59-06:00May 18th, 2015|Categories: Abraham Lincoln, American Republic, Civil War, Clyde Wilson, Featured, War|

In the Gettysburg Address, Abraham Lincoln consolidated his base, and justified and sanctified the Northern cause and victory both as preservation of the hallowed old and a birth of the new. He created an image of the United States that has had and continues to have incalculable effects on American public life and, indeed, on [...]

Restoring the Old Order: Who Owns America?

By |2019-07-09T16:04:30-05:00September 4th, 2014|Categories: Agrarianism, American Founding, Clyde Wilson, Constitution|Tags: |

In graduate school, I was assigned by the resident “New South” historian I’ll Take My Stand by Twelve Southerners as my final paper. I eagerly accepted the project. This was in my back-yard, so to speak. I had read the book at least twice before and considered it one of the best tomes on Southern [...]

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