republic

July 27, 2016

George Washington’s principles for the nation revisited

In a recent article titled “George Washington’s Constitutional Morality,” Samuel Gregg explores the views of the first President on the founding principles and guiding influences of the United States. Gregg identifies three key elements of Washington’s political wishes for the new nation: Washington identified a distinct set of ideas that he thought should shape what he and others called an “Empire of Liberty”—classical republicanism, eighteenth-century English and Scottish Enlightenment thought, and “above all” Revelation. Continue Reading...

April 22, 2016

Ben Sasse on the Path to Ordered Liberty

Americans are growing in their distrust of the U.S. government and its leaders, with polls typically showing approval of Congress somewhere around 11%. As Senator Ben Sasse put it in his first remarks to the U.S. Continue Reading...

June 03, 2015

Now Available: ‘The Mosaic Polity’ by Franciscus Junius

CLP Academic has now released The Mosaic Polity, the first-ever English translation of Franciscus Junius’ De Politiae Mosis Observatione, a treatise on Mosaic law and contemporary political application. The release is part of the growing series from Acton: Sources in Early Modern Economics, Ethics, and Law. Continue Reading...

August 05, 2009

Acton Commentary: Healthcare, Democracy, and Freedom

With health care continuing to be a hot button issue, Hunter Baker brings to light a new argument in his commentary. While Baker provides us with many prudential reasons to oppose the expansion of government health care, such as the currently proposed government plan not having any provision for preventing the trial lawyer windfalls that have helped contribute to medical inflation, he also articulates the fundamental problems that arise with the expansion of government health care: If we move from being a republic where certain freedoms (not only freedom of speech and religion, but also freedom of contract and freedom to own private property) are basically non-negotiable, to a simple mass democracy in which shifting coalitions of voters extract resources from their opponents, then we have lost the American genius of ordered liberty. Continue Reading...