Abraham Lincoln

April 3, 2018|Abraham Lincoln, American National Character, Civil Religion, Congress, George Washington, Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission

Cultivating Virtuous Citizenship?: A Law and Liberty Symposium on American National Character

by Rogers Smith, Rick Santorum, W. B. Allen, Philip A. Wallach, Colleen Sheehan, Steven McGuire|1 Comment

Cheryl Casey/Adobe Stock Images

Politics requires fit characters, but can virtue be restored as a basis for liberty? Four contributors address this problem.

April 3, 2018|Abraham Lincoln, American National Character Project, Barack Obama, Declaration of Independence, Donald Trump, E Pluribus Unum, Frederick Douglass

To Secure the Blessings of Liberty: Sharing Stories of American Civic Purposes

by Rogers Smith|4 Comments

Kent Weakley/Shutterstock.com

One the ways Americans can unite is over our shared purposes, but for this to work, we need a renewed attention to the story of American liberty.

March 14, 2018|Abraham Lincoln, David Waldstreicher, Originalism, Paul Finkelman, Slavery

The Constitution: A Pro-Slavery or Anti-Slavery Document?

by Allen Guelzo|16 Comments

The U.S. Constitution (Derek Hatfield / Shutterstock.com)

The most telling evidence in the debate over slavery in the Constitution is how the pro-slavery forces responded to Lincoln's election.

March 5, 2018|Abraham Lincoln, Conservatism, Declaration of Independence, Harry Jaffa, Patriotism Is Not Enough, Steven Hayward, Walter Berns, Willmoore Kendall

A Question of Patriotism

by Richard M. Reinsch II|4 Comments

Lincoln Memorial view at dawn.

Willmoore Kendall’s voice is now the most pressing for our contemporary republican order.

July 17, 2017|Abraham Lincoln, American Revolution, Bill of Rights, Federalist 84, French Revolution, Friedrich von Gentz, Martin Diamond, Publius

Federalist 84: Completing the Declaration of Independence

by Greg Weiner|9 Comments

The Sixteenth of July, not having the same ring, will never compete with the Fourth for fireworks, picnics, or paeans to the document published on that day. But now that Americans have digested our annual hosannas to the natural rights theory of the Declaration of Independence, we might save a moment to remember the appearance, in the New York Independent Journal of July 16, 1788, of Publius’ broadside against a Bill of Rights. If the Fourth of July represents the American contribution to abstract universalism on rights, July 16 was the day we theorized it, in Federalist 84, as the…

March 28, 2017|Abraham Lincoln, John Locke, Lincoln's Peoria Speech, Majority Rule, Natural Law, Neil Gorsuch, positive law, The Federalist

Publius’ Natural Law

by Greg Weiner|12 Comments

Between the breathless whispers that Judge Neil Gorsuch intends to impose either medieval Catholicism or, worse, Oxford sensibilities from the bench through the mechanism of natural law and the fear that he might otherwise glide into the legal positivism of which Justice Scalia was unreasonably accused lies another possibility: The Constitution can neither be interpreted through natural law nor reduced to positive law. It is more profitably understood as fundamental law.

December 15, 2016|Abraham Lincoln, Civil Religion, Cold War, Foreign Policy, George Washington, Iraq War, Progressivism, The Tragedy of U.S. Foreign Policy, Theodore Roosevelt

American Heresies and the Betrayal of the National Interest: A Conversation with Walter McDougall

by Walter A. McDougall|1 Comment

What is American civil religion? And has it been distorted to the extent that it has undermined our nation's foreign policy? The eminent historian and scholar Walter McDougall, author of the new book, The Tragedy of U.S. Foreign Policy, joins this edition of Liberty Law Talk to discuss these questions.

October 3, 2016|Abraham Lincoln, judicial activism, judicial engagement, Majority Rule, Natural Rights, Originalism, Our Republican Constitution, Randy Barnett

Government by Judiciary

by Carson Holloway|22 Comments

Americans are united in professing respect for the Constitution, but they are deeply divided over what it actually means and how it ought to be interpreted. These disagreements have roiled our public life for decades. Everybody who follows politics knows about the clashes between the liberal proponents of judicial activism and the conservative defenders of judicial deference. These arguments go on and on, with neither side succeeding in persuading the other of the superior merits of its theory. Faced with this ongoing deadlock, we wonder if there is any way to achieve unity on the meaning of the Constitution.

February 15, 2016|Abraham Lincoln, Booker T. Washington, Emancipation Proclamation, NAACP

Lincoln and the Other Washington

by Diana Schaub|Leave a Comment

Booker T. Washington

On the centennial of Lincoln’s birth, February 12, 1909, Booker T. Washington delivered an important speech before the Republican Club of New York City. His “Address on Abraham Lincoln” deserves to be better known. Not only does it provide an astute assessment of the Great Emancipator’s virtues and legacy, but it demonstrates the ability of a talented statesman to deploy the memory of Lincoln to meet pressing needs of the moment.

April 22, 2015|Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address, John Winthrop, King James Bible, Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address

Sacred Rhetoric and Political Discourse

by Daniel Dreisbach|2 Comments

Ronald Reagan delivers the "Evil Empire" speech

My previous posts for Law and Liberty examining Abraham Lincoln’s use of the Bible in the Gettysburg and Second Inaugural addresses generated interest that far exceeded my expectations (and those of the editor). These were primarily descriptive rather than critical assessments of the propriety of Lincoln’s references or allusions to Scripture in these celebrated orations. Space constraints did not allow me to explore other issues of interest to me, such as the perils of deploying religion in political—often partisan—rhetoric.