On June 12, 1776, Virginia’s Fifth Revolutionary Convention unanimously passed the Virginia Declaration of Rights. A trenchant, post-colonial statement affirming humankind’s inherent rights, limited government, and republican principles, the Declaration is arguably the nation’s most imitated founding document and a pillar of American founding principles. George Mason, the Declaration’s principal draftsman, boasted that it was the first of its kind...

　　Americans today are filled with angst about the state of “our democracy.” A March 2024 Georgetown Institute of Politics and Public Service poll found that 81 percent of Americans believe democracy in the United States is threatened. A November 2025 survey conducted by the Johns Hopkins SNF Agora Institute found that “84% say democracy is either in crisis or facing...

　　On June 7, 1776, Richard Henry Lee rose in the Continental Congress and offered the resolution that would set the colonies irreversibly upon the path to independence. Not all the delegates were ready. Several colonies had yet to authorize so decisive a step, and Congress postponed the final vote. Yet even as it delayed declaring independence, it prepared to justify...

　　The celebrations of the 250th anniversary of independence will be a bit dimmer now with the sudden passing of the greatest historian of the American founding, Gordon S. Wood. Since the 1960s, Wood stood at the pinnacle of the historical profession. The list of awards and accolades he received over his sixty-year career, including the National Medal of the Humanities,...

　　Historian Gordon Wood had a deep love of America, and of freedom, but also of the truth. He believed in doing history honestly, giving sober attention to the real concerns, motivations, and beliefs of the people studied. But he believed it was possible to do that without losing our pious attachment to our nation and its political traditions. In this...

　　Post-9/11—and indeed all twenty-first-century—military veterans owe a debt of gratitude that they increasingly cannot pay to their “Greatest Generation” forebearers. Nearly every day now, the Socials announce the passing of yet another of the last survivors of a particular battle or campaign or front of WWII, from 102-year-old D-Day survivor turned TikTok star “Papa Jake” Larson on August 25, 2025,...

　　Law professors have finally found a positive aspect of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the case that overruled Roe v. Wade’s creation of constitutionally protected abortion rights. They claim that its jurisprudential logic requires overruling two of the cases most hated by the left-liberal legal academy—Buckley v. Valeo, which recognized the right of citizens to spend money on candidates...

　　The British Labour Party is currently shrouded in leadership shenanigans, which overshadowed the King’s Speech at the State Opening of Parliament last month. His Majestys speech was not like the ones delivered during the state visit to the United States. These were filled with a Kirkian view of the American and British relationship, their cultures and history, and were delivered...

　　A system of constitutional checks and balances has never won a popularity contest among figures on both the Right and the Left who seek to use the state as an instrument for the salvation of society. This idea, however, is not new; it has ancient roots in the writings of Polybius and found modern expression in Montesquieu’s defense of checks...

　　If Zohran Mamdani intended to come across as an Ayn Rand villain when he pledged to “replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism,” he succeeded. Unfortunately, socialism continues to appeal to young people on the left, as both parties jettison free market principles. 　　If there is one author who has inspired young people to think differently...

　　Being chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, which includes being its chief executive, is one of the very top jobs not only in the country, but in the world. In the US, the Fed is the central bank, money printer, inflation-creator, and emergency lender to the world’s most important economy and financial markets; it is also all of those to...

　　Editor’s Note: The following essay was previously published in The Washington Post on May 11, 2026. 　　For years, I kept a favorite cartoon in my desk and pulled it out to open the annual business-plan meeting at the unit I led. It showed a frazzled executive standing in front of a screen displaying his multiyear sales projections. The line ran straight horizontally,...