Thomas Jefferson

November 28, 2019|Alexander Hamilton, President, Proclamation for Thanksgiving, Thomas Jefferson

A National Thanksgiving: President Washington and America’s National Holiday

The authority to proclaim a Thanksgiving might seem trivial to us. But it is, in fact, fraught with meaning.

November 11, 2019|Benjamin Franklin, Great Seal of the United States, Limited Government, Proclaim Liberty Throughout the Land, Thomas Jefferson

The Israelites and the Americans

by David Conway|

A sourcebook on the Hebrew Bible’s influence on the formation of a new government in the New World.

August 6, 2019|American Founding, Andrew Seidel, Freedom from Religion Foundation, Thomas Jefferson

Unlearning The Founding Myth

by Mark David Hall|

Image: Freedom from Religion Foundation

Andrew Seidel misunderstands: America’s founders embraced the freedom of religion; not freedom from religion.

July 3, 2019|Declaration of Independence, George Washington, Harry Jaffa, Harvey Mansfield, Leo Strauss, Thomas Jefferson

Why Did Harry Jaffa Change His Mind?

by David Tucker|

The Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. (Adam Parent/Shutterstock.com).

To preserve both the country and political philosophy, Jaffa returned to the beginning.

June 14, 2019|Antonin Scalia, George Washington, James Madison, John Adams, Joseph Ellis, Robert Bork, Second Amendment, Thomas Jefferson

Joseph Ellis’s American Monologue

by Brian A. Smith|

Junius Brutus Stearns, "Washington as Statesman at the Constitutional Convention," 1856 (Virginia Museum of Fine Arts).

In Joseph Ellis’ view, it’s just fine for us to love the Founders, but not for anyone to understand them in ways that might derail the march of progress.

April 11, 2019|college-admissions scandal, Higher Education, John Adams, Liberal Arts, Thomas Jefferson

Sins of Admissions

by Richard Samuelson|

(image: Tero Vesalainen / shutterstock.com)

The college-admissions scandal enrages conservatives, who detest the concentrated power that today’s “best schools” represent; but we always had an elite.

February 18, 2019|Abraham Lincoln, Congress, Donald Trump, Executive Power, National Emergencies Act, Separation of Powers, Thomas Jefferson

Government by Emergency: Are Two Generations of Crisis Enough?

by Greg Weiner|

shutterstock.com

The oldest emergency proclamation dates to the Carter Administration, 40 years ago. Two generations of crisis are enough.

January 28, 2019|James Madison, Jefferson and the Virginians, Patrick Henry, Peter S. Onuf, Thomas Jefferson

Peter Onuf’s Jefferson

by Kevin Gutzman|

A great historian shows us how much there is still to learn about the nation’s third President.

December 3, 2018|Abraham Lincoln, Alan Levine, Civil War Amendments, Fourteenth Amendment, James R. Stoner Jr., John Bingham, John Holmes, Reconstruction, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas W. Merrill

Was It a Refounding?

by Sean A. Scott|

A new essay collection examines the political thought of the Civil War and Reconstruction.

September 25, 2018|James Madison, republican government, Socrates, Thomas Jefferson

Americans Don’t Need a Politics Cleanse

by James Wallner|

City council meeting in Austin, Texas, February, 2016.

Abandoning politics permanently in the face of conflict precludes us from using persuasion, negotiation, and compromise to resolve our disagreements.

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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