Athena as Founder & Statesman

By |2022-06-10T13:52:50-05:00June 10th, 2022|Categories: Essential, Justice, Literature, Myth, Politics, Religion, Statesman, Timeless Essays|

In the "Oresteia," Aeschylus examines whether a city exists for proper worship of gods or whether it exists for proper cultivation of “that which is most divine in us.” Today’s offering in our Timeless Essay series affords our readers the opportunity to join John Alvis, as he considers Aeschylus' views of the polity as embodied by [...]

Policing the World

By |2021-08-22T13:34:43-05:00August 22nd, 2021|Categories: Constitution, History, Republicanism, Statesman, Timeless Essays|Tags: , , |

Benjamin Harrison insisted America’s truly dangerous enemies were not Great Powers abroad but a lapse of integrity and purity at home. He believed republicanism would spread in the world by “sympathy and emulation” and feared the harm Americans might do to themselves and to others should they undertake to extend their institutions by force: “We [...]

The Well-Read Voter

By |2020-02-12T08:26:36-06:00February 12th, 2020|Categories: American Republic, John Adams, Quotation, Statesman|

The English Constitution is founded, tis bottomed And grounded on the Knowledge and good sense of the People. The very Ground of our Liberties, is the freedom of Elections. Every Man has in Politicks as well as Religion, a Right to think and speak and Act for himself. No man either King or Subject, Clergyman [...]

“Ride the High Country”: An Elegy on Leadership

By |2023-03-21T12:41:13-05:00December 15th, 2017|Categories: Culture, Film, History, Leadership, Statesman, Virtue|

For students of leadership for a just society, the movie “Ride the High Country” crystallizes beliefs and codes of behavior worth studying, affirming, and claiming today. If you want to know what made the statesman and military leader George Catlett Marshall (1880–1959) great, then watch Ride the High Country (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer), and you will receive a taste of [...]

Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments

By |2021-06-22T08:08:09-05:00June 24th, 2016|Categories: American Founding, American Republic, Featured, Founding Document, Freedom, Freedom of Religion, James Madison, Liberty, Statesman|

The Religion of every man must be left to the conviction and conscience of every man; and it is the right of every man to exercise it as these may dictate. This right is in its nature an unalienable right. It is unalienable, because the opinions of men, depending only on the evidence contemplated by [...]

Was Lincoln a Great Statesman?

By |2015-02-11T16:19:10-06:00February 12th, 2015|Categories: Abraham Lincoln, Books, Bruce Frohnen, Statesman|

Abraham Lincoln Philosopher Statesman, Joseph R. Fornieri (Southern Illinois University Press, 2014) The twin goals of this book are so closely intertwined that it would be easy to see them as a unity. To do so would be unfortunate, however, because it would blind the reader to the important lessons Prof. Fornieri has to offer, [...]

Bill de Blasio and the Spirit of Revolution

By |2015-01-03T00:10:50-06:00January 3rd, 2015|Categories: Revolution, Statesman|Tags: |

“On a sudden, the Earth yawns asunder, and amid Tartarean smoke, and glare of fierce brightness, rises Sansculottism, many-headed, fire-breathing, and asks: What think ye of me? Well may the buckram masks start together, terror-struck; ‘into expressive well-concerted groups!’ It is indeed, Friends, a most singular, most fatal thing.” Thus wrote Thomas Carlyle, reflecting upon [...]

Athena as Founder & Statesman

By |2019-12-27T17:59:33-06:00January 27th, 2013|Categories: Featured, Justice, Literature, Myth, Politics, Religion, Statesman|Tags: |

The agency driving the threefold development of the Oresteia is human effort in partnership with divine purpose. The Athena of the third play provides the executive, personal agent who, in founding a polity, gives over divine to human providence. The great question provoked by the trilogy is the question of assigning ultimate causality, since from [...]

On Statesmanship: The Case of John Adams

By |2022-07-13T18:37:31-05:00July 20th, 2012|Categories: American Founding, American Republic, Bruce Frohnen, John Adams, Statesman|Tags: |

John Adams was a true statesman, committed to republican principles, conducting himself in a virtuous manner that served the public good. Without him, it is entirely possible that there would be no United States of America. What kind of person is worthy of being called a “statesman”? What type of character, what accomplishments, what life [...]

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