Independence Day

July 4, 2016|Declaration of Indepedence, Harvey Mansfield, Independence Day, Thomas Jefferson

Dark Times, the Declaration, and the Despotic Executive

Independence Hall, Philadelphia

It’s been a year since my last little piece on the Declaration of Independence, and what a year it’s been.

On the Right of our political spectrum, one could sum up its events and eventfulness in one word: Trump. A party has been captured by an outsider, the disaffection of millions of its rank-and-file revealed. At the national level, the Grand Old Party is not so grand or even particularly coherent, and some fear it might not last as a party. Something similar can be said of the party of the Left. Substitute “Clinton” and “Sanders” and comparable deep fissures emerge, although perhaps with less likelihood of disintegration.

What light, in terms of principles and manner of thinking about politics, might this context shed?

July 3, 2016|Donald Trump, Free Speech, Hillary Clinton, Honesty, Independence Day, Liberty, polarization

A Republic We Are in Danger of Losing

by John O. McGinnis|

Has there ever been a July 4 other than during the Civil War or the Great Depression where the domestic prospects of our nation have been so dismal? No presidential contest has ever featured a choice that was as obviously dreadful as this one. I would be happy to hear of contrary claims from the annals of American history, but to me even Nixon v. McGovern falls short of our present plight. Nixon’s role in Watergate was not known at the time of the election, and McGovern at least was a man of good character.

But today we are about to elect someone with disabling character flaws and no commitment to the liberty that has been at the core of American ideals. On character, both Trump and Clinton have reputations for dishonesty unusual even for politicians. They also excel at dividing the American people, Trump with his outrageous remarks about ethnic groups, Clinton with her penchant for blaming her and her husband’s troubles of “vast conspiracies” of her political enemies even in instances where she has every reason to know the cause of these troubles is in her own home.

And these character flaws threaten to widen some of our most dangerous fault lines. Trust in government is at one of the lowest points ever. A President widely regarded as dishonest will exacerbate the trust deficit. Americans are more polarized than at any time since the Second World War. Polarizing figures making uncivil remarks about one group or the other are sure to lead to a more divided nation.

July 2, 2014|Continental Congress, Independence Day, John Adams

Celebrating Independence

by Richard Samuelson|

On July 2, 1776, two hundred and thirty-eight years ago today, the Continental Congress voted that "These United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states." John Adams, who more than any other single individual, helped push the resolution through Congress, was elated. The next day he wrote home to Abigail twice. "Yesterday the greatest Question was decided, which ever was debated in America, and a greater perhaps, never was or will be decided among Men. A Resolution was passed without one dissenting Colony "that these united Colonies, are, and of right ought to be free and independent…

July 7, 2013|Bastille Day, Constitutional Convention of 1787, Declaration of Independence, French Revolution, Independence Day, Massachusetts Body of Liberties, Mayflower Compact, Willmoore Kendall

Creed, Conservation and the American Founding

by Greg Weiner|

July 4 is separated from Bastille Day by a week and a half on the calendar but by eons in political culture. The interim is an appropriate interval for reflection on why exactly the two events were so different. One reason is arguably that America is precisely not what one might be led to believe from exclusive emphasis on the Declaration of Independence: a simply creedal nation bound solely by political belief. The creation of a new people connected by creed alone rather than shared tradition and history would, like the French Revolution, have been a radical event. As Willmoore Kendall would remind us, the American Revolution is better understood as a restorative or conserving one.

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.

About