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Richard Samuelson is Associate Professor of History at California State University, San Bernardino.

November 22, 2018|Alexander Hamilton, President, Proclamation for Thanksgiving, Thomas Jefferson

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

Editor’s note: This originally appeared on Thanksgiving Day, 2014.

Thanksgiving is a peculiar holiday, at least in the modern world. Its roots are religious, and the American nation is, at least in law, secular. Its very name speaks of thanks, or gratitude, and gratitude is an ancient virtue. Indeed Aristotle speaks highly of it. Even so, or perhaps for that reason, it is very American. In his Thanksgiving address in 1922, President Coolidge called it “perhaps the most characteristic of our national observances.” He was not wrong for, as Chesterton wrote, America is “a nation with the soul of a church,” and Abraham Lincoln called us an “almost chosen people.”

November 13, 2018|Birthright citizenship, Fourteenth Amendment, Jurisdiction, Michael Rappaport, Richard Epstein, U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark

Jurisdiction, Old Style and New

by Richard Samuelson|5 Comments

Image: Leena Robinson/Shutterstock.com

If we take the Fourteenth Amendment to mean what Michael Rappaport and others argue, some strange consequences follow for resident aliens.

September 14, 2018|Abortion, Brett Kavanaugh, Equality, George Washington, John Adams, Peter Singer, Roe v. Wade, Thomas Jefferson

Don’t Settle for Roe

by Richard Samuelson|24 Comments

Image: Coffeemill/Shutterstock.com

If Roe v. Wade is overturned, we will have to go back to the messy compromises of politics, which might actually avert a new disunion.

June 26, 2018|Amendment Process, James Madison, Lynn Uzzell, Madison's Hand, Originalism

Madison’s Originalism

by Richard Samuelson|12 Comments

James Madison by Gilbert Stewart, 1821 (shutterstock.com)

The rationale for what is now called “originalism” has chiefly to do with the legitimacy of the 1787 Constitution.

January 31, 2018|Executive Privilege, George Washington, Jay Treaty, State Secrets

President Washington: A Prudent Guardian of State Secrets

by Richard Samuelson|4 Comments

In 1796, in the midst of the donnybrook over the Jay Treaty, President Washington asserted what we now call “executive privilege .”

September 19, 2017|Federalist 10, Identity Politics, Immigration, James Madison, U.S. Census, Voltaire

Extend the Sphere of Identity Politics

by Richard Samuelson|31 Comments

Our identity politics could use some Madisonian wisdom.

August 29, 2017|EEOC, John Calhoun, Missouri Compromise, Plessy v. Ferguson, Taylor Swift, Thomas Jefferson

Today’s Missouri Compromise Is Bad News

by Richard Samuelson|16 Comments

Are our laws producing “identity politics” and the divisions it fosters?

A scientist, or perhaps it was an engineer, once asked the political philosopher Harry Jaffa for a general scientific rule about politics. After reflecting upon the bizarre request, Jaffa came up with the following:

S = 2P, where “S” = solution and “P” = problem. Politics is tragic; there are no final solutions.

May 22, 2017|

Critiquing the Administrative State Is Natural

by Richard Samuelson|1 Comment

In response to: What Is the Future of Conservatism?

Samuel Goldman has made a stimulating contribution to our political discussions. “What is the Future of Conservatism?” is thoughtful and thought-provoking. In light of the feud between Never Trump conservatives and Trump-supporting conservatives, it is well worth pondering if Goldman is right that we are witnessing a conservative “crack up.” This concern is not new. He might take a somewhat different line than did R. Emmett Tyrrell, founder of the American Spectator, but his language echoes Tyrrell’s The Conservative Crack-Up (1992). Despair is not new, either. Remember Russell Kirk’s original title for his 1953 classic The Conservative Mind was “The Conservative…

Don’t Take the Benedict Option

by David B. Frisk

Professor Goldman begins his Liberty Forum essay by urging a striking, but probably unworkable, reconception of the fundamental divide in conservative ranks. Rather than “the familiar distinctions between libertarianism and traditionalism, neoconservatism and paleoconservatism,” he proposes, it’s a conflict between “liberalism and reaction.” Reaction—meaning reactionary politics such as Trumpism—is, according to Goldman, not easily compatible with…

Creative Tension, Not Crack-Up

by John O. McGinnis

Samuel Goldman has written a bracing Liberty Forum essay suggesting that the Right side of the political spectrum is split, perhaps hopelessly and irrevocably, between classical liberalism and reaction. The roots of the divide are deep and enduring but what brings the problem into bold relief is our political moment and, above all, the rise…

Freedom Might Well Flourish Even If Conservatives Don’t

by Matthew Mitchell

Samuel Goldman has written a wide-ranging and thought-provoking Liberty Forum essay on the current sorry state of American conservatism. This sorry state is especially sorry for those of us who, like Dr. Goldman, believe that classical liberalism is the best part of American conservatism. It is an assessment, he says in conclusion, which he hopes…

Samuel Goldman Responds to His Critics

by Samuel Goldman

I am grateful to David B. Frisk, John O. McGinnis, Matthew Mitchell, and Richard Samuelson for their generous and thoughtful replies to my Liberty Forum essay. Speaking broadly, we agree that the American Right is in a bad way. We also think it would be a mistake to abandon classical liberal commitments to constitutional government,…

March 22, 2017|Benjamin Franklin, Medicaid, Obamacare, Philip Hamburger

How about a Liberal Option – And It Could Be Done Through Reconciliation

by Richard Samuelson|11 Comments

Could the market help us solve our healthcare problems? Market economists and theorists say of course it could; big government/Progressive types say no. Let’s find out. As Franklin said when discussing his famous Kite, “let the experiment be made.” When the Obama administration was debating just how heavily to regulate America’s healthcare system, many on the Left wanted a truly government-run health insurance scheme, or “public option.” As Progressives’ default assumption is that government programs work better than the alternatives, they believed a “public option” would demonstrate the wisdom of turning to fully socialized medicine in the United States. Average Americans reacted sensibly:…

A Compelling and Compassionate Book about Epilepsy

by Theodore Dalrymple

Our knowledge of the human brain is limited, but neuroscientist Suzanne O’Sullivan’s observation of her patients yields astute insights.

Andrew Roberts Takes the Measure of the “Populist” Aristocrat, Churchill

by Joao Carlos Espada

Yes, there is something new to be learned about Winston Churchill, and it's in the new 1,105-page biography by Andrew Roberts.