When Republicans were warned not to give Sonia Sotomayor the drubbing Democrats gave Robert Bork and Sam Alito—lest they be perceived as sexist and racist by women and Hispanics—the threat was credible, for it underscored a new reality in American politics. The Supreme Court, far from being the last redoubt of the White Anglo-Saxon Protestant...
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Rediscovering Philadelphia
“There is no liberty if the power of judging be not separated from the legislative and executive powers.” —Montesquieu The theme that unites the short, somewhat disparate eight chapters of this book is the use by the Supreme Court of unenumerated rights—that is, rights beyond those specifically enumerated in the Bill of Rights—to invalidate state...
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Panic on the Left
President Bush’s nomination of Judge John Roberts to the U.S. Supreme Court has caused something just a little short of panic on the left. The day after the announcement, the New York Times told its readers that Roberts and his wife, Jane Sullivan Roberts, are “devout Catholics.” The following day, a front-page headline proclaimed that...
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A “Containment Policy” for the New Cold War
Americans regularly accept expropriations—legal, moral, and economic—from the central government that would have driven our 18th- and 19th-century ancestors to arms. The Constitution reserves to the states and local communities all powers necessary to provide legal protection for valuable ways of life. These rights have been usurped by the central government, especially by the Supreme...
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We’ve Only Just Begun
The Left is not generous in victory. The ink on the Supreme Court decision in Obergefell v. Hodges was barely dry before a vicious assault on organized religion in this country was launched, a multipronged offensive with the clear intention of marginalizing Christians and banishing them from the public square. The first shot was fired...
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Rediscovering Philadelphia
“There is no liberty if the power of judging be not separated from the legislative and executive powers.” —Montesquieu The theme that unites the short, somewhat disparate eight chapters of this book is the use by the Supreme Court of unenumerated rights—that is, rights beyond those specifically enumerated in the Bill of Rights—to invalidate state...
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How Conservatives Can Finally Get Judicial Nominations Right
It is past time that conservatives actually play to win at the U.S. Supreme Court.
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Geographical Diversity May Be The Next Affirmative Action Trojan Horse
Affirmative action advocates aren't likely to stop trying to implement their racial politics even after the Supreme Court's decision. A "geographical diversity" law in Arkansas may be the model for the left's next move.
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Thanks, Christine
The ugliness displayed by the media and Democrats during the fight over Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court is yet another indicator of how far we have come from Hamilton’s conception of the federal judiciary as “the least dangerous branch.” Kavanaugh was nominated to replace Anthony Kennedy, who used his perch on the...
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Neoconservative Choicers
Polly Williams, a black Democrat in Wisconsin, has been hailed by the Wall Street Journal, Reason, and other neoconservative organs for her school choice legislation. And the Wisconsin Supreme Court has approved it: underclass public school students can now get more welfare, in this case free tuition, at “nonsectarian” private schools. Neoconservative choicers hail the...
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Sotomayor and the Last of the WASPS
If Judge Sonia Sotomayor is confirmed, the U.S. Supreme Court will consist of six Catholics, two Jews and precisely one white Anglo-Saxon Protestant in the form of Justice John Paul Stevens, who is 89 years old and boasts of two important WASP insignia: inherited wealth and a bow tie. He also thinks that Shakespeare’s plays...
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On Sovereigntists
Sean Scallon’s analysis of Quebec sovereignty (Cultural Revolutions, June) misses the point. In Reference on certain Questions concerning the Secession of Quebec from Canada (1998), the Supreme Court of Canada held that the people of Quebec have a constitutional right to press for independence by all means allowed in parliamentary democracy; that the people of...
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Flies in the Ointment
Supporters of school vouchers are jumping for joy over a Wisconsin Supreme Court verdict, handed down this summer, that permits tax dollars to be used at religious schools. They hope the decision will be the basis of a vast expansion of vouchers (four other states are debating this same question), eventually leading to a federal...
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Classic Colonialism
Almost alone among the peoples of the world, the United States has largely been spared—at least until recently—the bitter conflicts that plague countries whose citizens do not share a common language. Since the early 17th century, immigrants from diverse backgrounds have settled here. In the past, it was understood that in exchange for enjoying opportunities...
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Anarcho-Tyranny, U.S.A.
While violent criminals are given a pass to victimize and reoffend, the everyday American finds himself under the heel of an increasingly invasive and oppressive state.
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THE PARTY STATE
In Washington, D.C., access and influence go hand-in-hand; they are the stock and trade of the lobbyist, the lawyer, and the political advisor. They are, as well, the biggest “skill” current officeholders and staff members can take with them when they leave the government. —from Pat Choate, “Puppets for Nippon,” May...
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Our Constitutional Covenant With Death
“The compact which exists between the North and the South,” proclaimed William Lloyd Garrison in an abolitionist declaration of 1843, “is a covenant with death and an agreement with hell.” When the Southern states concluded that they were no longer bound by what their enemies regarded as a compact with the devil. Garrison and his...
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Polemics & Exchanges: February 2024
Chronicles readers discuss Taki's controversial December column on Palestinian misery, also, some praise for Stephen Presser's recent review, "Scalia Gets the Biography He Deserves."
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How Can You Befriend a ‘Semi-Fascist’?
President Joe Biden recently accused Trump voters of embracing "semi-fascism." Friendships can be forged across partisan lines, but it's rather difficult to befriend a "semi-fascist," isn't it?
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Obama’s Trampling on God’s Turf Now
Yes, Virginia, there is a religious war going on. It is for the soul of America. And traditional Christianity is besieged. In a January visit to the Vatican, American bishops were warned by Benedict XVI that “radical secularism” posed “grave threats” to their Catholic faith. Your religious freedom is being circumscribed, said the pope....
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Sunni Arab Prisoners Freed
American soldiers stumble upon a secret dungeon and discover dozens of emaciated prisoners—173 of them, to be precise—who had simply vanished from the face of the Earth over the previous weeks and months. Horrified GIs walk wide-eyed through the stinking chamber of horrors whose inmates grasp with difficulty that their ordeal is over. Most of...
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Dante’s Human Comedy
Prima sedes a nemine iudicatur: “The First See is judged by no one.” Thus reads Canon 1404 of the current Code of Canon Law of the Latin Rite of the Catholic Church, and Canon 1556 of the previous code. Romanus Pontifex a nemine iudicatur: “The Roman Pontiff is judged by no one.” That is Canon...
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Two American Lives
“Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might.” —Ecclesiastes 9:10 The Gilded Age still exerts a strange pull on the American imagination. It was a time of larger-than-life people and larger-than-life business entities. It featured conspicuous consumption—including palatial mansions, yachts, international travel, and international scandal—that seems almost to exceed anything we have...
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The Four Biggest Problems with Biden’s Vaccine Order
Back in December of 2020, then President-elect Biden said that he would not make vaccines against COVID-19 mandatory, nor did he think they should be mandatory. Given the new vaccine mandate by the White House, set to affect nearly 100 million Americans by some estimates, one reasonably conclude that Biden misled the people. However, Biden’s...
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Gay “Marriage” Fantasy
You really can’t have “gay marriage,” you know, irrespective of what a court or a legislature may say. You can have something some people call gay marriage because to them the idea sounds worthy and necessary, but to say a thing is other than it is, is to stand reality on its head, hoping to...
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If God Ran the State Department
“In the Name of the most Holy & undivided Trinity.” A Thus begins the Treaty of Paris (1783) by which Great Britain formally conceded the existence of the independent United States of America. This matter-of-fact invocation of the Triune God of Christianity stands in sharp contrast to the stirring tributes to human authority in the...
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John Roberts Makes His Career Move
For John Roberts, it is Palm Sunday. Out of relief and gratitude for his having saved Obamacare, he is being compared to John Marshall and Oliver Wendell Holmes. Liberal commentators are burbling that his act of statesmanship has shown us the way to the sunny uplands of a new consensus. If only Republicans will...
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Private Faith & Public Schools
A Martian attending Inauguration Day ceremonies might be curious about the book upon which the President lays his hand as he takes the oath of office. “That,” we would tell him, “is the Bible, a book of Scripture sacred to most American citizens.” “I see,” our alien friend responds, “and therefore your President is obligated to...
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The Fainting Irish
Yes, the Irish caved in and reversed their vote against the European Union’s Lisbon Treaty. Gutless? Of course. But I’ve spent too many years in Dublin and Cork to be surprised. The Irish did the same thing when they voted no to an earlier treaty in June 2001. The next year they gave in to...
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Islam in France
When the French historians of our epoch apply their magnifying glasses to the momentous developments of the first two months of this year, most of them, I think, are likely to conclude that the decisive factor leading to the historic National Assembly vote of February 10—when a massive majority of 494 deputies, compared with only...
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Property Rights Redefined
Years ago, a Christian evangelist friend of mine complained about doing the Lord’s work in the South. Everyone is a Christian there, he lamented, whether or not they really are one. His point was well taken. It is hard to separate the wheat from the chaff, which is a problem not just for Christian evangelists...
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With the GOP—Or Without It
Donald J. Trump is the political issue of our time. Yet Mr. Trump is, in a very real sense, peripheral to present events. He is a result, not the effective cause; a symptom, not the disease. The significant thing is not the rebel candidate but the crisis of the Republican Party, so long arriving, which...
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The Final Choice: Civilizational Arson Versus Civilizational Sanity
It is not an exaggeration to say that everything is on the line this Tuesday.
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The Real American Dilemma
This remarkable editorial by Chronicles’ longest-serving editor offered one of the first and best analyses of America’s immigration problem.
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The (New) Ugly American
The regime we live under—the regime of the United States Constitution—began with a set of clear understandings. One was that the federal government was to be the servant of the people. It was to be confined to the specific powers the people “delegated” to it, pursuant to the general welfare and common defense of the...
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Recent and Permanent
When the people’s fundamental law is ignored by the legislature, the remedy is typically to elect new representatives to set things right. If the people’s fundamental law is transgressed by the courts, the correction is often not so easy. Many judges are appointed for life and never have to face the electorate. Others are appointed...
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Fighting Drugs, Taking Liberties
In the early 1980’s, the Reagan Justice Department announced a far-reaching “war” to free the United States from illicit drug use. There was skepticism at the time that government actions could cause such a fundamental change in entrenched public attitudes and behaviors, and there were different views about the means by which such a war...
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Redskins and Palefaces
The America First Committee emerged nationwide in the summer of 1940 from the initial efforts of Gerald Ford, Potter Stewart, and other Yale Law School students, seconded by law professor Edwin Borchard. It evolved amid the American political cataclysm following Franklin Roosevelt’s landslide election to a second term in November 1936. The mandate to institute...
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How, When, Do We Come Together Again?
America suffers from a great divide that goes far beyond our clashing views of Jan. 6 and the Mar-a-Lago raid. Americans need to find common ground again.
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Restore the Constitution!
In recent years, American politics has been preoccupied with moral questions, or what are now called “social issues”: sexual immorality, sodomy, abortion, pornography, and recreational drugs. Some conservatives want the federal government to play a role in opposing these evils. Many libertarians, on the other hand, want the government, state and federal alike, to treat...
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The Biggest Issue in This Election
Harris has been an enemy of the First Amendment throughout her career.
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The Politics of Life—and Politics
“If a woman of her own accord drops that which is in her, they shall crucify her and not bury her.” —The Assyrian Code, c. 2000 B.C. Ancient history is worth keeping in mind when confronting the claims of the pro- and anti-abortion and euthanasia camps, since both tend to couch their arguments in terms...
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The Case Against Political Consensus
Jeffrey Bell is perhaps the most experienced conservative political advisor in Washington, D.C. Once a key Reagan campaign advisor, Bell later became a political candidate himself, scoring a stunning primary upset against a seated Republican senator in New Jersey only to lose in the general election to Democrat Bill Bradley. Bell, a graduate of Columbia...
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Trump’s Fainthearted SCOTUS Picks Could Doom Him in D.C. Election Case
If Trump loses outright on the immunity issue, he will have himself to blame. He had the opportunity to nominate three Thomas/Alito-esque stalwarts. He whiffed.
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Santorum, the Supreme Court, and Sodomy
Sen. Rick Santorum is the latest Republican political leader to walk down Trent Lott’s trail of tears. Why do Republicans continue to make these gaffes? Most politicians, after all, have spent their entire lives since elementary school telling people what they want to hear, and they ought to realize that the power they hold in...
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The Courage to Defy Prudence
On February 22, the South Dakota Senate, by a vote of 23-12, approved legislation banning nearly all abortions in the state. On February 24, the vote in the South Dakota House of Representatives was 50-18 (H.B. 1215). Twelve days later, Gov. Mike Rounds signed the measure into law. President Bush criticized the law as too...
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What Lies Beneath
According to an article in the New York Times on September 10, “In 2005, more people from Muslim countries became legal permanent United States residents—nearly 96,000—than in any year in the previous two decades.” Moreover, many of these are not simply Muslims who had been here on guest visas but now have been granted permanent...
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Ron Sims
People call me up and say they want to beat me to a pulp. I am, they tell me, a lowlife muckraker, and obviously a racist to boot. Some of my closest friends express doubts about my sanity. An apparently well-subscribed website appears to be devoted to my downfall and calls for my books to...
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A Dissenting Voice
Judge Danny Boggs of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit is, for believers in the rule of law, a hero. Judge Boggs, in an extraordinary dissenting opinion published in May, revealed profound problems with the majority of his court’s approach to law in an affirmative-action case and pointed out that his chief...
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Jack Smith, Democrat-Lawfare Complex Hit Man
By now any reasonable prosecutor—or so-called prosecutor—would have conceded defeat and dropped the lawfare madness.