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May 24, 2019|A Constitution in Full, Abolitionists, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Alexis de Tocqueville, Declaration of Independence, Democracy in America, Founders, Orestes Brownson, Peter Lawler, St. Augustine

What Distinguishes America?

by Peter Augustine Lawler, Richard M. Reinsch II|

vladimir wrangel (shutterstock.com)
Orestes Brownson’s view is that America is the prudent compromise between two idealistic extremes.

April 29, 2019|Democracy in America, Egalitarianism, Marriage Equality, Tocqueville

Tocqueville’s Rigorous Logic of Egalitarian Conformity

by James R. Rogers|

shutterstock.com (Photo by AumCreatephoto)
Initial steps down the path of equalitarianism in turn create their own momentum, picking up speed and insisting on ever more conformity.

April 24, 2018|Democracy in America, Judicial Supremacy, Tocqueville

Constitutional Amendment as a Path to Avoiding Robed Masters

by James R. Rogers|

The Bill of Rights (Jack R. Perry Photography/Shutterstock.com)
Tocqueville gives us good reasons to think that constitutional amendment is the best path to avoiding judicial supremacy.

March 20, 2018|Alexis de Tocqueville, Aristocracy, decline, Democracy, Democracy in America, Patrick Deneen, tragedy

Tocqueville and the Tragedy of the Democratic Average

by James R. Rogers|

Li Wa / Shutterstock.com
Conservatism should help us negotiate the tragic tradeoffs of life: a way between market and political liberalism versus solidarity. Tocqueville can help.

February 28, 2018|Alexis de Tocqueville, Classical Education, Democracy in America, educational reform, Great Hearts

Tocqueville and the Promise of Classical Education

by Brian A. Smith|

Statue of Plato, Academy of Athens, Greece (Shutterstock.com)
In trying to offer relevance, universities have abandoned classical education and liberal learning - Tocqueville reminds us what we've lost in the process.

February 13, 2018|Democracy in America, Donald Trump, F.H. Buckley

Insights from a Latter-Day Tocqueville

by Stephen Presser|

Bluedog Studio/Shutterstock.com
F.H. Buckley has written a friendly critique of American politics, one carrying on a long tradition of outsiders seeing what we cannot.

February 7, 2018|Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, democratic soul, James Poulos, Lost in the Cosmos, Walker Percy

Self-Help for Crazed Democratic Souls

by Brian A. Smith|

View of Hollywood Boulevard by night. (View Apart/Shutterstock.com)
James Poulos' Art of Being Free is the kind of self-help book democratic souls really need.

June 1, 2016|Democracy in America, Federalism, New Deal, Progressivism, Robert Nisbet, The Fractured Republic, Yuval Levin

A Decentralizing Remedy for the Diseases of a Fractured Republic: A Conversation with Yuval Levin

by Yuval Levin|

This edition of Liberty Law Talk welcomes back Yuval Levin to discuss his latest book, The Fractured Republic. Levin notes that our decentralizing republic, as observed in the decades long trends in social, economic, religious, and cultural diffusion, provides both opportunities and difficulties. America's ongoing deconsolidation from a nearly unprecedented period of national cohesion after World War II has led to numerous benefits for individual freedom and economic prosperity. However, if we are more free than ever, we may also be more alone than ever and bereft of the contexts for a responsible freedom and citizenship. And this has sparked a…

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September 21, 2015|Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, L'Ancien Regime et la Revolution, Niccolo Machiavelli

Democracy According to Human Purpose

by David Corbin|

The essays collected in Tocqueville’s Voyages trace the political thought of the author of Democracy in America and probe whether Alexis de Tocqueville’s ideas have meaning to societies beyond the United States of the mid-19th century. Drawing heavily on the impressive two-volume, bilingual Liberty Fund edition of this seminal work (which includes Tocqueville’s notes and earlier manuscripts), these essays are not only a valuable addition to Tocqueville scholarship but help to explain the trajectory of politics in our democratic age. Tocqueville meant for his work to be a possession for all time. Contributors to this volume treat his project with corresponding care,…

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February 5, 2014|

The Revolution in Ideas and Practice That Elevated American Liberty

by C. Bradley Thompson|

In response to: The Institutions of American Liberty

Ted McAllister and the Liberty Law Forum at Liberty Fund are to be thanked for resurrecting a vitally important but seemingly forgotten, or, at least, neglected topic. The subject of McAllister’s essay is the American tradition of liberty, which he contrasts with perfect or abstract liberty. He asks two important questions: What is distinctive about this American-style liberty, and how does it differ from the liberationist liberty of the modern progressive? For McAllister, American liberty is unique, precious, and worth fighting for. There is much in McAllister’s essay that I like and agree with. For instance, I very much approve of…

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More Responses

The Distinctive Spheres of American Liberty and the State

by Steven Grosby

“The Institutions of American Liberty” is a nicely written and, for the most part, compelling encomium to the tradition of American liberty and the institutions upon which it rests. The author of this piece, as so many following Tocqueville have observed, rightly notes that American history displays “a fervor of institution building by people who…

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Piety, Benevolence, Self-Government, and Free Institutions

by William Dennis

The Rev. Timothy Dwight (President of Yale, 1795-1817, leading Congregational and Federalist thinker, enemy of Thomas Jefferson), wrote about the three great good works: piety, benevolence, and self-government. Self-government meant the well ordering of one’s life so he could live as a free and responsible human being. If a person was well self-governed, he would…

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The Extinction of American Liberty? Ted McAllister responds:

by Ted McAllister

Lamentably, I find myself in general agreement with the thoughtful commentaries on my essay by the three respondents, C. Bradley Thompson, Steven Grosby, and William Dennis. This is not to say that underneath this broad consensus there aren’t serious and enjoyable differences of philosophy that warrant sustained engagement. Taken as a whole, the body of…

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Book Reviews

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.

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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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Liberty Classics

Rereading Politica in the Post-Liberal Moment

by Glenn A. Moots

Althusius offers a rich constitutionalism that empowers persons to thrive alongside one another in deliberate communities.

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James Fenimore Cooper and the American Experiment

by Melissa Matthes

In The American Democrat, James Fenimore Cooper defended democracy against both mob rule and majority tyranny.

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Podcasts

Stuck With Decadence

A discussion with Ross Douthat

Ross Douthat discusses with Richard Reinsch his new book The Decadent Society.

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Can the Postmodern Natural Law Remedy Our Failing Humanism?

A discussion with Graham McAleer

Graham McAleer discusses how postmodern natural law can help us think more coherently about human beings and our actions.

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Did the Civil Rights Constitution Distort American Politics?

A discussion with Christopher Caldwell

Christopher Caldwell discusses his new book, The Age of Entitlement.

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America, Land of Deformed Institutions

A discussion with Yuval Levin

Yuval Levin pinpoints that American alienation and anger emerges from our weak political, social, and religious institutions.

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About

Law & Liberty’s focus is on the classical liberal tradition of law and political thought and how it shapes a society of free and responsible persons. This site brings together serious debate, commentary, essays, book reviews, interviews, and educational material in a commitment to the first principles of law in a free society. Law & Liberty considers a range of foundational and contemporary legal issues, legal philosophy, and pedagogy.

The opinions expressed on Law & Liberty are solely those of the contributors to the site and do not reflect the opinions of Liberty Fund.
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