History
July 8, 2020 — Scott Johnson
Anticipating the 50th anniversary of what the French euphemistically call “the events” of ’68, Professor Daniel Mahoney provided a retrospective assessment based on the work of Raymond Aron, Roger Scruton, and Pierre Manent in the Law & Liberty essay “France’s psychodrama of 1968.” Steve revisited the subject with Professor Mahoney last week in the podcast posted here. Rereading Professor Mahoney’s 2018 essay, I was most struck by this paragraph toward
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July 7, 2020 — Scott Johnson
The Washington Free Beacon has put together the SUPERcuts video below illustrating the Orwellian revision of Mount Rushmore. Past statements pretending to admiration are going down the memory hole. Oh, Big Brother Sibster. And don’t forget: IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH. If we didn’t understand before, we should be getting a handle on the importance of this axiom right about now now. Perhaps what we have here is progress of a kind.
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July 6, 2020 — Steven Hayward
In my podcast with Fred Siegel a few weeks back about the rioting and deterioration of New York and other American cities, Fred remarked that the real cause of our current trouble is that “the sixties never ended.” And a lot of people have been saying that 2020 reminds them of 1968—the year when everything went wrong and the country seemed to be on the brink of coming apart. It may
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July 5, 2020 — Scott Johnson
As I listened to President Trump’s July 3 speech at Mount Rushmore (White House text here, video below), I couldn’t believe how good it was. One measure of the speech is the campaign of falsehood undertaken by the press condemning it in unison. As I wrote here yesterday morning, I had only my own reaction to go on. Now I can commend the following columns to the attention of interested
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July 4, 2020 — Scott Johnson
RealClearPolitics has made available its Independence Day Series for publication with attribution. Below is Dan Mahoney’s column “What Does Our Nation Mean to Us? Rejecting the Culture of Hate,” followed by Steve Hayward’s podcast with Professor Mahoney on the themes of this column. Daniel J. Mahoney holds the Augustine Chair in Distinguished Scholarship at Assumption University. He has written numerous books, essays, and reviews on statesmanship, religion and politics, totalitarianism,
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July 4, 2020 — Scott Johnson
In the vicious culture war that is dividing our nation, President Trump has taken the side of the United States. This is what I get out of Trump’s speech at Mount Rushmore last night in South Dakota. For this — for his advocacy of the United States in the culture war — Trump will never be forgiven by the our cultural arbiters. This is what I get get out of
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July 4, 2020 — Scott Johnson
President Calvin Coolidge celebrated the 150th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1926, with a speech providing a magisterial review of the history and thought underlying the Declaration. His speech on the occasion deserves to be read and studied in its entirety. The following paragraph, however, is particularly relevant to the challenge that confronts us in the variants of the progressive dogma that pass themselves off today
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July 4, 2020 — Scott Johnson
On July 9, 1858, Illinois Senator Stephen Douglas gave a campaign speech to a raucous throng from the balcony of the Tremont Hotel in Chicago. Abraham Lincoln was in the audience as Douglas prepared to speak. Douglas graciously invited Lincoln to join him on the balcony to listen to the speech. In his speech Douglas sounded the themes of the momentous campaign that Lincoln and Douglas waged that summer and
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July 2, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
Princeton has dropped Woodrow Wilson’s name from its school of public policy due to the racism of the 28th U.S. president. However, Princeton hasn’t come to grips with a more fundamental problem — the name of the college itself. A woke graduate informs us that Princeton, both the town and the school, takes its name from King William III, the Prince of Orange. The famous Nassau Hall, which is still
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July 1, 2020 — Steven Hayward
When I heard the news that the nihilist mob plans to take down the statue of Theodore Roosevelt astride his horse in front the Natural History Museum in New York City, I knew I had to ring up Jean Yarbrough, the Gary Pendy Sr. Professor of Social Sciences at Bowdoin College, and author of the best book on TR’s political thought and legacy, Theodore Roosevelt and the American Political Tradition.
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June 30, 2020 — Steven Hayward
Not long ago I had occasion to write an article for the Bipartisan Policy Center lamenting the decline in the discipline of history, noting, among other things: [C]onservatives in history departments are scarce and dwindling. . . conservative-minded historians are likewise alienated from both the ideological center of gravity and the dominant methodological focus of American history today. . . The effect of this is not simply a further narrowing
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June 29, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
I doubt that I agree with the Black Justice League about much. However, I agree with some of what it argues in this statement in response to the removal of Woodrow Wilson’s name from Princeton’s school of public policy. I agree that: 1. The Wilson-related name change is a “symbolic gesture” that does not address Princeton’s “racist status quo”; 2. “Diversity training” would not accomplish anything; 3. Princeton’s actions are
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June 28, 2020 — Scott Johnson
The relationship between the former slave Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln provides deep insight into both men. Douglass’s recollection of his first meeting with Lincoln — “I shall never forget my first interview with this great man” — is a highlight of the 1892 version of Douglass’s autobiography (The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass). In the Claremont Review of Books celebration of the bicentennial anniversary of Lincoln’s birth in
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June 26, 2020 — Scott Johnson
In the adjacent post I prefaced the dedicatory speech by Frederick Douglass at the unveiling of the Freedmen’s Memorial with a quote from David Blight’s Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of Douglass. I was prompted to post Douglass’s speech by Professor Blight’s current Washington Post column that I passed over in silence in my post. Our friend Ken Masugi is not so inclined. He comments: “Unfortunately, Blight threw away his scholarship to
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June 26, 2020 — Scott Johnson
David Blight opens his Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of Frederick Douglass with the unveiling of The Freedmen’s Memorial in Lincoln Park in Washington, D.C., on April 14, 1876. At the heart of Blight’s opening is his account and analysis of Douglass’s Oration in Memory of Abraham Lincoln at the unveiling. In the speech, Blight writes, Douglass “had named the pain and betrayal of ages. Now he entered the celebration….He recognized how
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June 23, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
Victor Davis Hanson has criticized conservatives for agreeing that Confederate statutes should be taken down if local city councils authorize doing so. In an interview with Tucker Carlson, he explained: The mob says back to them [some conservatives] “you want it gone, why waste the city council vote?” It’s sort of like the Soviet Duma has to ratify a prejudged conclusion and it’s not “let the city council come to
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June 21, 2020 — Scott Johnson
United States Ambassador to Mexico Christopher Landau wrote last night to add to our chronicle of the tear down all the things phase of the leftist mob violence: I’m a loyal reader of your site and, needless to say, have been following you with even greater intensity lately given the recent rash of insanity in our beloved country. In reference to John Hinderaker’s post “Grant, Too” I just wanted to
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