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Pillar

Politics & Law

The third pillar of a decent society is a just system of politics and law. Such a government does not bind all persons, families, institutions of civil society, and actors in the marketplace to itself as subservient features of an all-pervading authority. Instead, it honors and protects the inherent equal dignity of all persons, safeguards the family as the primary school of virtue, and seeks justice through the rule of law.

America’s Two Constitutions  

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America250

America’s Two Constitutions  

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Reflections on the nature of the American experiment in ordered liberty 
In the Land of Promise, Castle Garden

Immigration and the Declaration at 250  

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It is in accepting the poor and the wretched refuse that the greatness and promise of America are to be found.
First Amendment

Recovering the First Amendment—and a Fuller Conception of Rights and Human Nature 

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We should dedicate part of our political efforts over the next twenty-five years to restoring the original understanding of the freedom of the press in American culture and constitutional law. 
Bioethics

Bioethics at America250 

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There is no guarantee that the bioethics of our future will live up to America’s founding promises and insights. Those of us concerned that such a bioethics should exist must, as Lincoln said in honoring the dead of Gettysburg, “be dedicated to the unfinished work” of creating, sustaining, and defending that bioethics. It will be no small task, but I hope to have given some sense of what the shape of that task must be. 
declaration of independence

Are These Truths Really Self-Evident? A Q&A with Rémi Brague 

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Perhaps something in the American tradition could help us Europeans out of the lurch: the ability to change, to realize what had been wrongly done and understand that they urgently have to undo it.
womens march DC

American Apostasy at 250 

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Two hundred and fifty years since our nation’s founding, the public conscience has begun to replace its fidelity to inalienable rights and religious freedom with a state-enforced commitment to radical human autonomy.
labor unions

Voluntarism, Free Speech, and American Labor’s Growing Political Divide 

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What unions need is more internal flexibility. Workers need a way to voice their displeasure with union politics. And if voice isn’t enough, they need a realistic way out.
Independence Hall

A Plea for Strict Construction 

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The true beauty of the American Founding is that it is rooted on the hope that “societies of men are really capable … of establishing good government from reflection and choice.” Throughout this book, it is evident that our author wonders at how the almost providential wisdom of the Constitutional Convention of 1787 achieved that—and such wonder is the very basis of political philosophy. It is only by recovering such a sensibility that Americans may make our Constitution efficacious once again. 
American constitutionalism

Written Constitutions, Judicial Review, and the Limits of Constitutional Hope 

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From the covenants of seventeenth-century England and colonial America to the doctrine of judicial review developed by Madison, Hamilton, and Marshall, the visible institutions of modern constitutionalism owe more to Christian traditions of covenant, jurisdictional pluralism, and Augustinian anthropology than is commonly recognized. 
American constitutionalism

The Forgotten Foundations of Constitutional Law 

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Long before the separation of powers and judicial review were given written form, Greek philosophy, Roman law, Christian theology, and the medieval doctrine of paired jurisdictions laid the deeper architecture of constitutional government.  
John Adams

John Adams and the Structures of Liberty 

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As we approach the semiquincentennial, it is important to reflect on the spirit of 1776 and the principles of the Revolution that have shaped the American ethos. But it is also a time to reflect on how our various governmental structures uphold and preserve liberty. 
war

Pessimism Abroad 

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The broad acceptance by self-described conservatives of casual war, initiated without the approval of the clear constitutional authority of Congress, is in sharp contrast to the caution and prudence at the heart of the conservative disposition.
NC legislature

Imperfect Pro-Life Lawmaking in Post-Dobbs America 

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By re-energizing a state’s pro-life base and attracting enough swing voters to tip the scales, the movement can make real, even if “imperfect,” progress toward ending elective abortion in America.  
Church of the Assumption St. Paul MN

The Bookshelf: Why Catholics Should Celebrate America’s 250th Birthday  

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From the Gospel, to Acts, to the Church Fathers, to the doctrine of the two swords and the freedom of the Church, to the recognition in modern times of the freedom of conscience as an unalienable right at the foundation of a free society: the very ideas of human equality, freedom, and limited government would never have borne the fruit we see in American society without the Christian—and Catholic—intellectual tradition supplying the argument.
battlefield cemetery

War, Restraint, and the Christian Conscience 

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The church’s task is neither to baptize the sword nor to pretend the sword has no place in a fallen world. It is to stand beneath the cross, telling the truth. 
American revolution

Romans 13 and the American Revolution 

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As St. Augustine reminds us, “men build cities, and men destroy cities, but there is also the City of God, and that’s where we all belong.” Christians live in both. The task is not to sanctify our politics, but to order them rightly in light of that higher allegiance.
abortion pill

From Promised Autonomy to Delivered Harm: Structural Violence in the Era of Mail-Order Abortion Drugs 

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Government systems should be designed with care in mind, not weaponized to harm abortion-vulnerable women. 
MAGA rally

What’s Behind the Making of the MAGA New Right? 

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Field’s account is eye-opening. At the same time, as a professed “liberal,” she exhibits elements of excessive partisanship that weaken her argument. 
Pericles

Why the Left Must Recover a Sense of the Past 

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A left that developed a renewed appreciation for the past would have a rich political vision, deeper connection with popular traditions, and a more grounded set of values.
war

On Strategy, Speed, and Just War

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Life is such that doing right, attending to the very real and inescapable moral fabric of the universe, is not some hapless, wooly-headed foolishness. It is instead, or at least it can be, the most effective way of pursuing a just and decent order in a fragmented and fallen world.
Supreme Court of Canada

Who Best Protects Rights? 

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We tend to confuse the substantive protection of rights with the position that courts should always have the final word on what those rights are. But without slighting courts, we should also recognize the roles of the other two branches of government in defining rights. 
Church vs. state

What is Freedom of Religion? 

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We need philosophical arguments to counter the empty voluntarism of our time, and this is a challenge the Church should meet head-on.
Statue of liberty

The Founders’ Gift and Its New American Enemies 

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Religious freedom for everyone, everywhere? 
law and morality

The Moral Limits the State Cannot Create 

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The rule of law endures only where law acknowledges that the state is not the highest authority.

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