The Stump

Teddy Roosevelt’s Prophetic Speech: The Perpetual Relevance of “The Man in...

Roosevelt delivered an oration he entitled “Citizenship in a Republic,” but which the world would soon come to call “The Man in the Arena.” Every fresh reading of the speech brings something new into bold relief.

Coming to Ourselves in 2020

Of course, Amash may well not win, but that really is not the point. The prodigal son had limited hopes when he said goodbye to the pigs, but he had come to himself and he was heading home regardless.

In Our Memory Lock’d: Memorial Day and the Need to Remember

One of the arts of statesmanship is the use of language, of rhetoric, to reshape the architecture of people’s souls and orient them towards political truths.

Clearing Ground

The romantic impulse toward wholeness, or the longing for when things were better—take a few bad turns in that mood, and you find yourself chanting hymns to blood-and-soil. People can start out defending Berry’s proper prejudices and end up celebrating prejudice itself.

What He Saw in America: G.K. Chesterton’s View of the United...

Front Royal, VA. “Who is the American, this new man?” Crevecoeur famously asked. Since the discovery and settlement of the continent across the Atlantic,...

The Diseases that Kill Republics: Insights from Ancient Rome’s Epidemics

Italy’s tragic status as one of the worst-hit nations is a reminder of its predecessor, the Roman Republic, which endured dozens of epidemics in a history that lasted from 509 to 42 BC. Rome’s survival amidst so much death and disease shows how epidemics, both biological and political, threaten republics.

Forget Karen, Think Lisa

It was the reaction I had seen so often in public school classrooms from teacher's pets: Conformity is always the right course. Rocking the boat is disruptive. Teachers and principals know what's best.

Common Good or Common Fear

In times of crisis a common fear can elicit behavior that appears similar to actions born of a commitment to the common good.

Coming Home, COVID-19 Style: A Moment to Reconsider the Natural Family

The lengthy drift from family to individual as the primary social unit carries an alluring promise of autonomy and individualism which sounds so good, so freeing, but it comes up lacking in times of crisis.

“And the Word Was Made Flesh”: Placing Ethnicity in the Gospels...

It is a recognition of the beauty and goodness of ethnic diversity combined with a message of universal love and mercy that should be at the heart of a true Christian politics.