Coming Home ― Reclaiming America's Conservative Soul

Americans have been forced from their homes. Their jobs have been outsourced, their neighborhoods torn down to make room for freeways, their churches shuttered or taken over by social justice warriors, and their very families eviscerated by government programs that take over their functions and a hostile elite that deems them oppressive. These elements of a rooted life historically have been defended by conservatives—people dedicated to maintaining cultural continuity in the face of changing circumstances. Unfortunately, official “Conservatism” has become fixated upon abstract claims about freedom and the profits of “creative destruction.”

Conservatism has never been the only voice in America, but it is the most distinctively American voice, emerging from the customs, norms, and dispositions of its people and is grounded in the conviction that the capacity for self-governance provides a distinctly human dignity. Emphasizing the ongoing strength and importance of the conservative tradition, the authors describe our Constitution’s emphasis on maintaining order, balance, and protection of the primary institutions of local life. Also important, here, is an understanding of changes in American demographics, economics, and politics. These changes complicated attempts to address the fundamentally anti-traditional nature of slavery and Jim Crow, the destructive effects of globalism, and the increasing desire to look on the federal government as the guarantor of security and happiness.

To reclaim our home as a people we must rebuild the natural associations and primary institutions within which we live. This means protecting the fundamental relationships that make up our way of life. From philosophy to home construction, from theology to commerce, to the essentials of household management, our ongoing practices are the source of our knowledge of truth, of one another, and of how we may live well together.

Bruce P. Frohnen is Ella and Ernest Fisher Professor of Law at Ohio Northern University College of Law and Senior Fellow at the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal. His most recent book, Constitutional Morality and the Rise of Quasi-Law, was written with the late George W. Carey and published by Harvard University Press in 2016. His edited or co-edited volumes include Conservatism: An Encyclopedia, which was the subject of a frontpage article in the New York Times and a two-volume collection of American historical documents: The American Republic and The American Nation. He also has written over 100 articles, essays, book chapters, and reviews. His work has appeared in the Journal of Law and Politics at the University of Virginia, the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, American Journal of Jurisprudence, and a variety of online and print venues.

Frohnen has served as Charles Evans Hughes Professor of Jurisprudence at Colgate University, Thomas Bahnson and Anne Bassett Stanley Professor of Ethics and Integrity at the Virginia Military Institute, Visiting Scholar at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, Legislative Aide to a United States Senator, and Senior Fellow at Liberty Fund. He serves on the Advisory Board of Cluny Media and the Board of Editors of The University Bookman. He holds a Ph.D. in Government from Cornell University and a J.D. from the Emory University School of Law.

Ted V. McAllister is the Edward L. Gaylord Chair and Associate Professor of Public Policy at Pepperdine University. He is an Intellectual Historian whose research interests focus on modernity and its discontents, historical consciousness, and the history and nature of American conservatism. The author of Revolt Against Modernity: Leo Strauss, Eric Voegelin, and the Search for a Post-Liberal Order, McAllister has written and lectured on a wide range of themes from Alexis de Tocqueville and Eric Voegelin to the debate about the nature of American identity. He co-edited Why Place Matters: Geography, Identity and Civic Life in Modern America with Wilfred McClay.