
The First Virtue of Old Whigs: Prudence in Burke and Lincoln

|Abraham Lincoln, Edmund Burke, Greg Weiner, prudence
|constrained vision, Jerry Z. Muller, judgment, metrics, prudence, Thomas Sowell
|Brutus, James Madison, John Pickering, Judicial Impeachment, prudence, Publius, Samuel Chase, William Blackstone
by Greg Weiner|
|Clinton Rossiter, Presidential Historian's Survey, Presidential Power, prudence
by Greg Weiner|
Historians, as a profession, are understandably fascinated by change. Civilizations, as a phenomenon, are properly concerned with conservation. Tension is inevitable when the former apply criteria of success and failure ill-suited to the goals of the latter. The best recent evidence: C-Span has just released its Presidential Historian’s Survey for 2017. It is proof that historians celebrate Presidents the more change they achieve while consigning them to obscurity for governing prudently according to circumstance.
|Administrative State, American Founding, Conservatism, David Brooks, John Adams, New York Times, Pinch Sulzberger, Progressivism, prudence
David Brooks is in an angry and spiteful mood. Perhaps he’s even getting to be a bit unhinged, as history is putting his vision of American conservatism onto its rubbish heap.
|41, George H. W. Bush, George W. Bush, prudence
by Greg Weiner|
Washington forgives many things, from Oval Office indiscretions to executive abuses. But neither laughter nor defeat makes the pardonable cut, and George H.W. Bush has endured both, in each case for precisely the quality that most commends him: prudence.
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