American National Character Project

September 3, 2019|American National Character Project, Ryan Foundation

Liberty and American National Character: A Law & Liberty Symposium

U.S. Naturalization Ceremony on May 5, 2016 at Tom McCall Waterfront Park in Portland, OR (Diego G. Diaz/Shutterstock.com).

The character of a regime ultimately depends on the character of its citizens.

September 3, 2019|American Citizenship, American National Character Project, American Nations, Declaration of Independence, George Bancroft

The Fraught Battle to Create an American Nationhood

by Colin Woodard|

United States, 1795 (I. Pilon, shutterstock.com)

As the United States marked its 243rd birthday this year, its citizens would be forgiven for worrying that the union might not reach its 250th.

April 3, 2018|Abraham Lincoln, American National Character Project, Barack Obama, Declaration of Independence, Donald Trump, E Pluribus Unum, Frederick Douglass

To Secure the Blessings of Liberty: Sharing Stories of American Civic Purposes

by Rogers Smith|

Kent Weakley/Shutterstock.com

One the ways Americans can unite is over our shared purposes, but for this to work, we need a renewed attention to the story of American liberty.

April 3, 2018|American National Character Project, Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, Religious Liberty

Masterpiece Cakeshop, Religious Liberty, and America’s Character

by Rick Santorum|

Ommaphat Chotirat/Shutterstock.com

The best security for a free people's character is religious liberty, and the logic of Masterpiece Cakeshop undermines this.

April 3, 2018|American National Character Project, Congress, energy, expertise, republican liberty, Self-Government

Self-Government Cannot Live while Congress is Moribund

by Philip A. Wallach|

U.S. Capitol (zimmytws/shutterstock.com)

Until Congress restores itself to its proper place as a body worth of a free people, it will never rein in executive and judicial abuse.

April 3, 2018|American National Character Project, George Washington

Defining Freedom Up: National Character Revived

by W. B. Allen|

Statue of George Washington, Trafalgar Square, London, UK (Tony Baggett/Shutterstock.com)

George Washington offers many lessons on how to understand the common good and living well together: it begins with character.

A Mirror of the 20th-Century Congress

by Joseph Postell

Wright undermined the very basis of his local popularity—the decentralized nature of the House—by supporting reforms that gave power to the party leaders.

The Graces of Flannery O'Connor

by Henry T. Edmondson III

O'Connor's correspondence is a goldmine of piercing insight and startling reflections on everything from literature to philosophy to raising peacocks.

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