John Agresto - Rediscovering America: Liberty, Equality, and the Crisis of Democracy

Advance Praise for Rediscovering America

A brilliant analysis of the current political crises we face at home and abroad and how we might extricate ourselves by returning to our Founding principles. All who value freedom and believe in the American Experiment should read this book. Linda Chavez, Fox News analyst and Chairman, Center for Equal Opportunity

John Agresto cuts through the fog of present-day debates to remind Americans that the way forward in the 21 st century must be through a renewed commitment to the nation's founding ideals and institutions. This is a book that will inspire and inform every thoughtful American. James Piereson, President, William E. Simon Foundation

An elegantly written and cogently argued account of how the recovery of America's first principles, rightly understood in the way the Founders themselves understood them, would go a long way toward alleviating the serious problems we face today. This book should be required reading for all university students and concerned citizens. Edward J. Erler, Senior Fellow, The Claremont Institute

If you want to understand why we should be patriots, and how to make America lovely and lovable once again, start with this pithy, accessible, instructive book. Matthew Franck, Director, William E. and Carol G. Simon Center on Religion and the Constitution

Eloquent, lucid, and persuasive [Agresto] guides the reader to understand that America stands, first and foremost, for the principle of equality, a principle he then admirably defends from contemporary critics on both the right and the left. Ralph A. Rossum, Salvatori Professor of American Constitutionalism, Claremont McKenna College

Books by John Agresto

Mugged by Reality: The Liberation of Iraq and the

Failure of Good Intentions

The Supreme Court and Constitutional Democracy

The Humanist as Citizen:
Essays on the Uses of the Humanities

Tomatoes, Basil, and Olive Oil

An Italian American Cookbook

Rediscovering

America

___________

Liberty, Equality, and the Crisis of

Democracy

John Agresto

Asahina and Wallace

Los Angeles

2015

http://www.asahinaandwallace.com

Copyright 2015 by John Agresto

Published in the United States by Asahina & Wallace, Inc. ( http://www.asahinaandwallace.com )

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, digital, or any information strategy and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a writer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review or feature written for inclusion in a periodical or broadcast.

ISBN: 978-1-940412-17-7

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015937980

For

Walter Berns and Harry Jaffa

Contents

We find ourselves under the government of a system of political institutions conducing more essentially to the ends of civil and religious liberty than any of which the history of former times tells us. We, when mounting the stage of existence, found ourselves the legal inheritors of these fundamental blessings. We toiled not in the acquirement or establishment of them; they are a legacy bequeathed us by a once hardy, brave, and patriotic, but now lamented and departed, race of ancestors. Theirs was the task (and nobly they performed it) to possess themselves, and through themselves us, of this goodly land, and to uprear upon its hills and its valleys a political edifice of liberty and equal rights; 'tis ours only to transmit these the former unprofaned by the foot of an invader, the latter undecayed by the lapse of time and untorn by usurpation to the latest generation that fate shall permit the world to know. This task of gratitude to our fathers, justice to ourselves, duty to posterity, and love for our species in general, all imperatively require us faithfully to perform. Abraham Lincoln Address before the Young Mens Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois January 27, 1838

Preface

I HAVE BEEN , my whole adult life, a student and teacher of politics, history, and the American Constitution. Over these more than 40 years Ive seen public interest in the Constitution and the principles of our Founding grow significantly. Yet, at the same time, Ive watched the ability of our schools and universities to teach the Constitution and explain our beliefs decline dramatically. Its not that our students have no interest in these ideas. We all know that young American men and women are full of passionate intensity when it comes to matters of equality, justice, freedom, and rights, especially as they think these topics affect them personally. But whats missing is what our nations deepest and most comprehensive thinkers, our Founders, said and thought about these matters, and what Americas best minds might contribute to our awareness and understanding. So our students rely on their teachers, the media, or contemporary opinion to guide them with the obvious result that all they are taught is whatever is in the air or spouted by their peers, or by celebrities or singers. And little of it is thoughtful.

In order to understand liberty and equality, justice and rights, more clearly and comprehensively, I thought best to take us back to a time when these ideas were first developed, back to when Americas Founders wrote our Declaration of Independence and hammered out the Constitution. Because these were then new ideas, revolutionary ideas, our Founders were compelled to defend them, explain them, and think them through with a thoroughness and commitment that has been unrivaled since.

On one level, this is a book written by an old professor for his students, past and future, to help us all better understand the meaning of our principles and the character of our great American experiment.

But I also think that our current political crises both international upheavals and domestic unrest have become so overwhelming that only (as the Founders would say) a recurrence to first principles will help us all, not simply students but citizens and voters as well, find our way back.

To do so, this book needs to be more than a philosophical or historical review. While I consider myself first and foremost a university administrator and professor, I have never shied away from jumping into politics and policy battles. So, while I might have been tempted to keep this book strictly on a historical, theoretical, or simply academic level, I think I owe it to everyone interested in our common political life and our contemporary problems to speak more broadly as well. If I can make the Founders thoughts relevant to our life today, or if through them we can work towards viable solutions, I will have accomplished much.

Finally, I have always considered myself as fairly conservative and traditional, and so I intend to direct much of this book not only to Americans in general but to my fellow conservatives in particular. Much has changed in American conservatism over the last half century, not all of it for the better. If I can help conservatives to become not just partisans of the Constitution but knowledgeable of its principles and thoughtful about its philosophy, I will be content.

Despite all my concerns over the future of Americas grand experiment in liberal democracy, there is one small but real cause for optimism: With our current crisis of liberty, equality, and government and no doubt because of it the American public seems to be all the more ready to think seriously about the meaning of constitutional government, the intent of the Founders, the requirements for proper liberty, and the true nature of our rights. Contrary to an easygoing belief that history is generally progressive and that we surely know more than people dead for almost two centuries, a large swath of the public now thinks that guidance, even wisdom, might be found in the writings of people who wore britches and never heard of a telephone or a car, much less an iPad or a space station.

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