[Download] "American Conservatism and the Old Republic (In DEFENSE OF THE OLD REPUBLIC)" by Modern Age # eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: American Conservatism and the Old Republic (In DEFENSE OF THE OLD REPUBLIC)
- Author : Modern Age
- Release Date : January 22, 2007
- Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines,Books,Professional & Technical,Education,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 196 KB
Description
As some renditions of American history would have it, the conservative pedigree in the United States begins with, or at the very least includes, Alexander Hamilton and his followers. In fact, the typical lineages are given thus: Federalist-Whig-Republican on the one hand and Jeffersonian-Jacksonian-Populist-New Deal on the other. This breakdown of the American political tradition was due in no small part to the work of Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.--who, like many liberals, was well-nigh desperate to identify a major strain of American thought that modern liberalism could claim as its ancestor. There is no reason for conservatives to adopt a dichotomy that was drawn up for them by their adversaries. All too many conservatives have misunderstood their own tradition because of their thoughtless acceptance of this Schlesingerian division. Russell Kirk certainly rejected it: in A Program for Conservatives, Kirk contended that Hamilton did not qualify as a conservative, and urged that "the liberal is mistaken, and the conservative ill-advised, if they try to make Hamilton into the founder of our conservative politics." (1) Likewise, nearly four decades ago these very pages carried a rather different assessment of where conservatives' sympathies should lie. In "The Jeffersonian Conservative Tradition," Clyde N. Wilson argued, correctly in my view, that the proper conservative position was that of Jefferson: strict construction of the Constitution, states' rights, and a relatively weak executive. (2)