On 28 March, 1606, Fr. Henry Garnet, an English Jesuit, went on trial in London. He was accused of involvement in the famous “Gunpowder Plot” the previous year in which Guy Fawkes and his co-conspirators attempted to blow up the Houses of Parliament and assassinate King James I. Continue Reading »
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis famously wrote that the answer to objectionable speech “is more speech, not enforced silence.” This seems a most reasonable proposition. If you are offended by someone’s position, you can counter it with your own arguments and expose their error for the world to see and reject. It is a concept that has served our Republic well in the fight for liberty and freedom. Continue Reading »
Scholars have long recognized that the Bible supplied what Mark Noll has called the “common coinage of the realm” in early America. Eran Shalev of Haifa University thinks that historians have not gone far enough. They have failed to grasp just how, and how deeply, the Bible formed the American imagination. Shalev argues in American Zion that early America was not simply a biblical republic. It was, quite self-consciously, a Hebrew republic. Continue Reading »
In 1787, at the age of eighty-one, Benjamin Franklin addressed the Constitutional Convention: “I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth: that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his . . . . Continue Reading »
In his 1782 book Letters from an American Farmer, John de Crèvecœur asked the most famous and important question in American history: “What then is the American, this new man?” The authentic American leaves behind him “all his ancient prejudices and manners, receives new ones from the new . . . . Continue Reading »
One of the persons the Boston Marathon bombers murdered was Lu Lingzi, a Boston University graduate student from China. From Shenyang, where her parents now mourn the loss of their only child. So far there are two other murder victims, a child named Martin Richard, and the young woman Krystle . . . . Continue Reading »
I wore black today. Black suit, black tie, and a black shroud over the Romney-Ryan sign in my yard. No, I do not think, contrary to countless heartfelt comments one sees on the conservative blogs today, that the republic died today. But make no mistake: something did die today. Obama voters, you . . . . Continue Reading »
The transatlantic divide might not run through the Atlantic but through the societies on either . . . . Continue Reading »
Americans have always been an intensely patriotic people. Most of them love their country without reserve and without need for reflection. Devotion to the nation and its symbols is a cultural given, one that politicians ignore at risk of prompt return to private life. Our national parties stage a . . . . Continue Reading »
What were the religious beliefs of the founding fathers? That question is at the heart of many of the most contentious debates about the role of religion in the American public square. Countless arguments are centered on claims that the founders were either God-fearing Christians or Deistically-inclined secularists. But while historical documents are often mined for justifying quotes, few people bother to muster historical evidence to shore up their claims with the necessary academic rigor… . Continue Reading »
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