Free Republic

Isn't it ironic that GOP moderates are harshly criticizing GOP conservatives for being harshly critical of GOP presidential frontrunner John McCain? What mortal sins have conservative McCain critics committed? Oh, they've stuck to their conservative principles, fighting for the values they believe in and refusing, prematurely, to surrender. What good would they be if they so readily threw in the towel of defeat? "Enlightened" moderates are shocked at conservatives, tagging them as uncompromising extremists who represent the very fringe of the Republican Party. John Dilulio, a principal architect of President Bush's arguably non-conservative, faith-based initiative, is among those making these...

In the heat of the electoral controversy — the worst possible time to make constitutional decisions — many people, such as Senator-elect Hillary Rodham Clinton, are calling for an end to the Electoral College. Big mistake. Someone once said, Don’t knock down a wall merely because you cannot immediately see what it’s good for. The same can be said for the Electoral College. We should keep in mind that the Founding Fathers were of somewhat better caliber than the politician you are likely to see on television, including those with presidential ambitions. The Electoral College was not an idea floating...

From The Center for Constitutional Studies Democratizing the Constitution: The Failure of the Seventeenth AmendmentC. H. Hoebeke*[From HUMANITAS, Volume IX, No. 2, 1996 © National Humanities Institute, Washington, DC USA] It was with no small sense of vindication that Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan signed the proclamation of 31 May 1913, declaring the Seventeenth Amendment duly ratified and incorporated into the fundamental laws of the United States. More than twenty years earlier as a Nebraska congressman, "The Great Commoner" had joined the struggle to free the Senate from the control of corrupt state legislatures, and despite three failed campaigns for...

The men who founded our nation understood that government was necessary to preserve the people's freedoms. But they also knew that government agents could not always be trusted to use their authority justly, and that government remains the single greatest threat to the rights and liberties of the people. America's Founding Fathers knew that freedom required that the people always retain the ability to take government out of the hands of abusive officials, "to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security." This was far from just some lofty theory to the Founders. They had...

"A little learning is a dangerous thing; drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring: there shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, and drinking largely sobers us again." -- Alexander Pope Around this time last year I participated in the Center for Civic Education’s National Academy, where Professor Will Harris led a selected group of students in 21 days of intense study on the basic issues of political theory, and the values and principles of American constitutional democracy. Early on, the importance of gaining a “surplus of mind,” as a crucial element of the democratic process, was discussed. In order to...

April 10, 2006 issue - America's first fight was over faith. As the Founding Fathers gathered for the inaugural session of the Continental Congress on Tuesday, September 6, 1774, at Carpenters' Hall in Philadelphia, Thomas Cushing, a lawyer from Boston, moved that the delegates begin with a prayer. Both John Jay of New York and John Rutledge, a rich lawyer-planter from South Carolina, objected. Their reasoning, John Adams wrote his wife, Abigail, was that "because we were so divided in religious sentiments"—the Congress included Episcopalians, Congregationalists, Presbyterians, and others—"we could not join in the same act of worship." The objection...

Rethinking the Articles of Confederation by Scott Trask August 8th, 2003 An assumption that dominates American historical studies is that the wealth and prosperity of the country would be much less without the existence of a powerful central government. This theme is but part of a larger, and now international, orthodoxy that larger political jurisdictions, as long as they are "democratic," foster liberty and economic growth while smaller ones stifle it. In Europe, elites hold up an all-European government as the golden road to a brighter and wealthier future. Others go further, such as Atlantic Monthly correspondent Robert D. Kaplan,...

NOW REPUBLICANS are "borking" one of their own. [. . .]I think these two are miffed because Bush didn't select a member of their in-crowd. Bork was rather bald-faced about it, when he explained to CNN that Miers' nomination was "a slap in the face to the conservatives who have been building a legal movement." [. . .]It's not enough that the National Law Journal named Miers one of America's 50 most influential women lawyers -- before she worked in the White House. In the world according to Bork, she's supposed to be a member in good standing of a...

Since the 1960s, the U.S. Supreme Court has been issuing decisions contrary to the generally held values of Americans, imposing a "modish, untested philosophical notions and extreme libertarianism that would have left the [Constitution's] Framers aghast," Edith Jones, a judge on the New Orleans-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, told a packed room Jan. 28 in a speech sponsored by The Federalist Society. This series of decisions has done "more to jeopardize than sustain" the future of American society, which she said stands "as the most successful and long-lived experiment in self-government and human freedom in history."...

PHILADELPHIA — At one end of Independence Mall, at the historical center of this city where so much of America's foundational history was made with parchment and ink, stands the brick and mortar of Independence Hall. Built between 1732 and 1756, this model of what is called the Georgian style of architecture is where independence was voted and declared, and where, in 1787, the Constitution was drafted.

  Section 3. Treason   Clause 1. Definition and Limitations   Treason The treason clause is a product of the awareness of the Framers of the ''numerous and dangerous excrescences'' which had disfigured the English law of treason and was therefore intended to put it beyond the power of Congress to ''extend the crime and punishment of treason.'' 1283 The debate in the Convention, remarks in the ratifying conventions, and contemporaneous public comment make clear that a restrictive concept of the crime was imposed and that ordinary partisan divisions within political society were not to be escalated by the stronger...

From Powers to Rights, a Conservative Vision -- Clearly, the American debate began with rights--with the protests that led eventually to the Declaration of Independence. And in that seminal document, Jefferson made rights the centerpiece of the American vision: rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, derived from a premise of moral equality, itself grounded in a higher law discoverable by reason--all to be secured by a government of powers made legitimate through consent. But when they set out to draft a constitution, the Framers focused on powers, not rights, for two main reasons. First, their initial task...

“Whoa,” I hear you cry. “Why should I read anything about a ‘Pukin Dog’?” This is an honorable name, the nickname of a squadron of Navy fighter pilots who flew combat in Vietnam. Now it is the screen name of a man who flew for that unit in Central Europe. He’s currently a pilot for a major American airline. Both he and his airline will remain anonymous, because he thinks some might take offense at his words. I’ll respect his confidence. Besides, on the Internet it doesn’t matter who you are or what your background is. The only questions are:...

This week we formally dedicated the World War II Memorial on the Mall in Washington, D.C. The center of the Memorial is a reflecting pool in front of a curved wall on which there are 4,050 golden stars, each of them representing one hundred Americans who gave the last full measure of devotion in that conflict. This was the long-delayed memorial for the 16 million Americans who served in that conflict, only a quarter of whom are still alive. A substantial number of those were in attendance at the dedication. Of course, World War II was not the war in...

<p>Before political correctness, radical feminism and revisionist history, America's founders were revered for their democratic vision and egalitarian ideals.</p> <p>Today they are viewed merely as marketing gimmicks for February retail sales at best and hypocrites, bigots and misogynists at worst. Thomas G. West, a director and senior fellow of the Claremont Institute and professor of politics at the University of Dallas, argues otherwise in "Vindicating the Founders."</p>

The air is cold, the skies are slate grey, threatening snow but not delivering it. At the end of the year the various networks are doing their retrospectives. The gallery of faces of those who died this year is always part of that. And in his centennial year, Bob Hope was among those. In the last days of the year I prefer to reflect not on what has been lost, but what is valuable and still here. Some engage in such reflection at Thanksgiving. Some, regrettably, never reflect on that. I prefer to meditate on such things at year’s end....

Our reverence for the Fathers has gotten out of handThe history of our Revolution will be one continued lie from one end to the other," John Adams wrote to Benjamin Rush in 1790. "The essence of the whole will be that Dr. Franklin's electrical rod smote the Earth and out sprung General Washington. That Franklin electrified him with his rod, and thence forward these two conducted all the policy, negotiations, legislatures and war." Adams never liked being wrong. Yet he, rather than George Washington or Benjamin Franklin, is the lion of recent historical literature. David McCullough's Pulitzer Prize-winning John Adams,...

DETROIT -- It's said you learn a lot about your country when you leave it. After four years of living overseas and missing America's birthday, a few things feel different about home, politics and business. The United States in the post-September 11, post-Afghanistan and almost-post-Iraq world is full of talk of "freedom," but there's a lot less responsibility and accountability and a lot more blame and incivility. Legions of plaintiffs lawyers file lawsuits ascribing almost all of society's ills -- including stock-market losses -- to faceless corporations and, by implication, Republicans. Consumers complain about "The Media," its endless hyping and...

On a mission to develop in young Americans what President Ronald Reagan called "an informed patriotism," the non-profit, Alexandria, Va.-based Bill of Rights Institute is slated to unveil this fall a new curriculum for high school students emphasizing the principles of the Constitution. The institute, established in 1999, aims to educate high school students and teachers about our country's founding principles through programs that explore what the nation's first leaders said, what their documents communicated and how these ideas affect our daily lives and shape our society, according to Victoria Hughes, institute president. "We believe that informed patriotism depends upon...

<p>Michael Newdow, the atheist who went to court to get the Pledge of Allegiance declared unconstitutional, spent his 15 minutes of fame last week asserting that the Founding Fathers would have cheered his campaign against the words "under God."</p> <p>"He is confident," The Washington Post reported, "that the framers of the Constitution would have supported his view, noting that they did not mention God in the nation's founding document." He had earlier made the same claim on television, telling Katie Couric, "There is no reference to God in the Constitution. It's striking . . . that it is missing."</p>