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January 15, 2016|Brad Birzer, Conservative Movement, F.A. Hayek, Neoconservatism, Paleoconservatism, Russell Kirk, The Conservative Mind

The Fertility God of Conservatism

by Mark Pulliam|

It is hard to imagine what the world of a conservative intellectual looked like in 1953. In our present age of talk radio (led by Rush Limbaugh), Fox News, national conservative magazines and blogs, and the New York-D.C. axis of Right-leaning think tanks, we regard the conservative movement as ubiquitous—and inextricably linked to politics and public policy.

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July 1, 2013|

Russell Kirk’s Founders and the Unwritten Constitution

by Gary L. Gregg II|

In response to: The Conservative Mind at 60: Russell Kirk’s Unwritten Constitutionalism

2013 is the 60th year since Regnery Publishing brought Russell Kirk's The Conservative Mind to the reading public.  The book helped transform modern American politics and inform many emerging conservative minds. When I was interning in Washington, DC more than twenty years ago, I remember answering a question by saying that I had a skeletal conservatism only until I met the works of Russell Kirk who put flesh on those bones.  Kirk's influence was similar to a generation before I was born whom he helped understand they were both conservative and just the latest in a long line of Anglo-Americans…

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Reason and the Unfounded Constitution

by James Matthew Wilson

In Gerald Russello’s account of Russell Kirk’s Constitutional theory, he conscisely outlines Kirk’s thought on that central concern for conservatives and indeed for all Americans.  As Kirk understood, the Constitution is a great Fact of American experience, whose importance cannot be overlooked; and yet, as any historian could tell us, the trouble with facts is…

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Natural Law, Natural Rights, and the Law of Freedom

by Bradley J. Birzer

It is a great honor to be asked to comment on Gerald Russello’s excellent piece.  A man whose scholarship and wisdom is as high as his integrity is deep, Russello has pioneered much in his own writing and editing and in his profound grasp of the law.  Almost every topic I’ve explored academically has proudly…

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July 1, 2013|

Natural Law, Natural Rights, and the Law of Freedom

by Bradley J. Birzer|

In response to: The Conservative Mind at 60: Russell Kirk’s Unwritten Constitutionalism

It is a great honor to be asked to comment on Gerald Russello’s excellent piece.  A man whose scholarship and wisdom is as high as his integrity is deep, Russello has pioneered much in his own writing and editing and in his profound grasp of the law.  Almost every topic I’ve explored academically has proudly followed the trails he has already cut and blazed. The Conservative Mind Sixty years ago, Russell Kirk (1918-1994) published his stunning and culturally and politically shattering work, his barely revised dissertation, The Conservative Mind.  Knopf had accepted it but the prestigious publishing firm wanted the relatively young…

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Reason and the Unfounded Constitution

by James Matthew Wilson

In Gerald Russello’s account of Russell Kirk’s Constitutional theory, he conscisely outlines Kirk’s thought on that central concern for conservatives and indeed for all Americans.  As Kirk understood, the Constitution is a great Fact of American experience, whose importance cannot be overlooked; and yet, as any historian could tell us, the trouble with facts is…

Read More

Russell Kirk’s Founders and the Unwritten Constitution

by Gary L. Gregg II

2013 is the 60th year since Regnery Publishing brought Russell Kirk's The Conservative Mind to the reading public.  The book helped transform modern American politics and inform many emerging conservative minds. When I was interning in Washington, DC more than twenty years ago, I remember answering a question by saying that I had a skeletal…

Read More

July 1, 2013|

The Conservative Mind at 60: Russell Kirk’s Unwritten Constitutionalism

by Gerald Russello|

In his great work, The American Republic, written in 1866, the American Catholic political writer Orestes Brownson – who ranks with Calhoun and John Adams as among the finest political minds America has produced, and who still remains somewhat neglected – wrote this about the nation’s political order. The constitution of the United States is twofold, written and unwritten, the constitution of the people and the constitution of the government. The written constitution is simply a law ordained by the nation or people instituting and organizing the government; the unwritten constitution is the real or actual constitution of the people as a…

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Responses

Reason and the Unfounded Constitution

by James Matthew Wilson

In Gerald Russello’s account of Russell Kirk’s Constitutional theory, he conscisely outlines Kirk’s thought on that central concern for conservatives and indeed for all Americans.  As Kirk understood, the Constitution is a great Fact of American experience, whose importance cannot be overlooked; and yet, as any historian could tell us, the trouble with facts is…

Read More

Natural Law, Natural Rights, and the Law of Freedom

by Bradley J. Birzer

It is a great honor to be asked to comment on Gerald Russello’s excellent piece.  A man whose scholarship and wisdom is as high as his integrity is deep, Russello has pioneered much in his own writing and editing and in his profound grasp of the law.  Almost every topic I’ve explored academically has proudly…

Read More

Russell Kirk’s Founders and the Unwritten Constitution

by Gary L. Gregg II

2013 is the 60th year since Regnery Publishing brought Russell Kirk's The Conservative Mind to the reading public.  The book helped transform modern American politics and inform many emerging conservative minds. When I was interning in Washington, DC more than twenty years ago, I remember answering a question by saying that I had a skeletal…

Read More

July 23, 2012|Conservatism Revisited, Conservative Thinkers: From John Adams to Winston Churchill, Frank Meyer, Fusionism, Metapolitics, National Review, Peter Viereck, Russell Kirk, Shame and Glory of the Intellectuals, Terror and Decorum, The Conservative Mind, The Unadjusted Man, William Buckley

Peter Viereck: Traditionalist Libertarian?

by Claes Ryn|

The Post-World War II American intellectual conservative movement was a philosophically jerrybuilt political alliance. Its ideas were greatly influenced by William F. Buckley’s National Review, which started in 1955. The magazine’s chief ideologue was senior editor Frank S. Meyer. He propagated a rather paradoxical notion of conservatism, which he summarized as the individualism of John Stuart Mill without its moral utilitarianism. To become conservative laissez-faire liberalism only needed to be leavened with what Meyer called “an objective moral order.” This ideological stance, called “fusionism,” was typical of National Review in that it fudged, or simply ignored, issues of far-reaching philosophical importance.

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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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