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The Conservative Tradition: America's Enduring Political Philosophy
When Ronald Reagan took office in 1980, few Americans realized they were witnessing not merely a presidential transition but the culmination of decades of intellectual groundwork. The conservative movement, once dismissed by literary critic Lionel Trilling as intellectually moribund, had completed a remarkable journey from the periphery to the center of American political life. What makes this transformation particularly fascinating is how conservatism, unlike communism with its clear manifesto, represents a complex tapestry of often competing ideas united by common concerns about tradition, order, and liberty. Today, this political philosophy that once struggled for academic respect has become a dominant force shaping American discourse, embraced by figures from Supreme Court justices to talk radio hosts. The story of American conservatism is not just about political victories but about a rich intellectual tradition that has profoundly influenced how Americans understand their nation's purpose, values, and future.
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The Conservative Renaissance: From Periphery to Power
The conservative ascendancy that culminated in the 1994 Republican takeover of Congress began decades earlier amid the cultural upheaval of the 1960s. While Kennedy and Johnson administrations raised hopes that government action could eliminate poverty and racism, the decade's street protests, campus unrest, and cultural rebellion created deep anxiety about America's direction. Against this backdrop of social turmoil, conservatives offered an alternative vision emphasizing stability through time-tested institutions rather than rapid change.
The intellectual resurrection began with seminal works in the 1940s: Friedrich von Hayek's "The Road to Serfdom" (1944), Richard Weaver's "Ideas Have Consequences" (1948), and W. Peter Viereck's "Conservatism Revisited" (1949). Between 1950 and 1953, eight more influential conservative works appeared, including Russell Kirk's "The Conservative Mind" and William F. Buckley Jr.'s "God and Man at Yale." By 1955, Clinton Rossiter's "Conservatism in America" won the prestigious Charles A. Beard Memorial Prize, signaling to academia that conservative thought deserved serious consideration.
New institutions emerged to support this intellectual revival. National Review magazine, founded by Buckley in 1955, provided a forum for diverse conservative voices, while think tanks like the American Enterprise Institute offered policy alternatives to liberal orthodoxy. These institutions revived interest in classic conservative thinkers like Edmund Burke and Alexis de Tocqueville, who emphasized custom and order as essential protectors of social morality.
Conservatives drew powerful parallels between the excesses of the New Left in the 1960s and those of the French Revolution's Jacobins, arguing that human reason unchecked by tradition inevitably produces disastrous consequences. Scholars like Leo Strauss and Allan Bloom traced conservative thought to Plato's concept of an "ordered society" and contended that America's rapid social changes in civil rights, women's liberation, and street confrontations had caused the nation to lose its cultural anchor.
By the 1970s, America's political landscape had fundamentally changed. The parties increasingly represented two ideologically different sets of upper-middle-class voters: Republicans representing the more conservative wing and Democrats the more leftist wing of what was called the "new class." Reagan's political success in 1980 marked the beginning of a new political era that supplanted the liberal Democratic ethic with an emphasis on private and local initiatives rather than federal solutions.
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The Conservative Worldview: Ten Essential Principles
At its core, conservatism defends the political, economic, religious, and social status quo against abrupt change, valuing established customs and traditions for providing continuity and stability. Unlike liberalism's focus on individual rights and equality, conservatism emphasizes duties, community values, and the wisdom embedded in historical institutions. This worldview can be understood through ten fundamental principles that define the conservative tradition.
First, conservatives value continuity and order above all else. They revere tradition as essential for good government, seeing societal structures as repositories of past wisdom and possibly divine guidance. Edmund Burke, writing about the French Revolution, criticized radicals who sought to remake society based solely on reason: "We are afraid to put men to live and trade each on his own private stock of reason; because we suspect that this stock in each man is small." While not opposing change entirely, conservatives believe it should occur in accordance with accepted principles and at a measured pace.
Second, conservatives maintain a nuanced view of authority and government power. They support robust defense and law enforcement while opposing government overreach in social planning. This apparent contradiction stems from their belief that the state's primary function is maintaining order and security. M. Stanton Evans argues that "government is morally obligated to protect America's interests" abroad, while Friedrich von Hayek warns that "central direction of all economic activity according to a single plan" leads to "dictatorship" and "suppression of freedom."
Third, conservatives emphasize the importance of community and decentralized social institutions. They believe government should diffuse power through society's organic institutions-churches, unions, universities, civic organizations-rather than concentrating it. Robert Nisbet warns of the "advancing power" of the state and argues that "a truly free and stable society" requires "revival of the prestige of the private as contrasted with the public." Conservatives maintain that local community institutions better meet societal needs than government programs.
Fourth, conservatives place great importance on religious faith and moral values. Richard Weaver argues that "Man has an irresistible desire to relate himself somehow to the totality..., and through religion [he] reveals his profoundest intuition regarding his origin, his mission on earth, and his future state." The conservative worldview centers on the doctrine of original sin-the belief that humans are morally flawed and imperfectible-which leads to skepticism about human capacity for moral consistency or wise governance.
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Duty, Democracy, and the Constitutional Order
The fifth principle of conservatism prioritizes duties over rights, rejecting Rousseau's view that humans flourish in a "state of nature" unbound by society. Instead, conservatives believe human nature requires restraint, and that obligations to God and fellow humans should outweigh personal entitlements. As Clinton Rossiter explains: "Rights are something to be earned rather than given.... The duties of man-service, effort, obedience, cultivation of virtue, and self-restraint-are the price of rights."
This emphasis on responsibility has been challenged since the New Deal by public policies focusing on rights without corresponding responsibilities. Conservatives argue this encourages Americans to focus more on government benefits than self-reliance, undermining both individual responsibility and the corporate responsibilities of local communities.
Sixth, conservatives advocate a particular understanding of democracy and constitutional government. While liberal scholars like Charles Beard criticize the Founders for creating a Constitution protecting their wealth and power, conservatives argue the document was based on principles rather than material gain. They advocate strict constitutional interpretation according to the Founders' "original intent," arguing that changing interpretations make law unstable and uncertain.
Conservatives describe America's system as a "constitutional democracy" or "federal republic" to emphasize the constitutional limitations placed on democracy by the Founders. They reject direct democracy in favor of representative governance with inherent limits on government scope and power, believing the Constitution deliberately moderates change by requiring numerous hurdles before economic, political, or social reforms can be implemented.
Seventh, conservatives view private property as essential to liberty. Russell Kirk asserted that "property and freedom are inseparably connected," with property being more than material possessions-it's the means to develop one's personality by changing external surroundings. Most conservatives advocate laissez-faire capitalism with minimal government interference, allowing supply and demand to guide profitable decisions. They fear economic leveling-government's arbitrary redistribution of wealth-and distrust extensive government planning.
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Liberty, Merit, and Opposition to Totalitarianism
The eighth principle centers on the tension between liberty and equality. These concepts naturally oppose each other-achieving equality requires taking from some to give to others, infringing on liberty, while unrestricted liberty creates inequality. Conservatives favor liberty in this equation, believing people deserve equality of opportunity and suffrage but are entitled to find rewards without government redistribution.
Conservatives cite three reasons why prioritizing liberty has low costs: government remains limited rather than becoming oppressive to enforce equality; people maintain incentives to excel; and moral equality under God matters more than material equality. Burke wrote that wealth isn't the true source of happiness, and civil order benefits both poor and rich.
Ninth, conservatives value meritocracy and leadership based on ability rather than birth. While traditional conservatism valued aristocracy, American conservatism transformed this concept into a "natural aristocracy" based on merit rather than titles. Despite this difference from the English model, the fundamental purpose remains the same: an elite class provides social order. Russell Kirk notes that "Civilized society requires orders and classes," with elected officials in America's republican democracy representing the people while protecting against the tyranny of the majority.
Finally, anticommunism has been central to modern conservatism's growth. George Nash identifies anticommunists as one of three major groups reviving conservatism since 1945, including figures like Whittaker Chambers, James Burnham, and Frank Meyer who once embraced communism before turning against it. This antipathy encompasses virtually every conservative principle, as communism represents the ultimate manifestation of conservatives' fear: a powerful central government crushing freedom to impose its plans while obliterating traditional values through "godless communism."
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The Classical Roots of Conservative Thought
Conservative thought emerged as a response to the excesses of rationalistic zeal unleashed by 18th-century radicals like Rousseau. The term "conservative" itself derives from the French "conservateur," referring to writers who sought to return to pre-French Revolution conditions. All political action balances between preservation and change, with conservatism fundamentally believing that good societies revere proven values while integrating new ideas through time-tested institutions.
In ancient Greece, political philosophy centered on ideals directly applicable to political life, guided by considerations of "goodness" and "justice." Plato's Republic exemplifies this approach, arguing that knowledge is virtue and just government requires leaders educated in objective good. Though never realized, these ideals of harmony, proportionality, and structured activity guided by reason remain influential centuries later.
Modern political thought rejected classical idealism as unrealizable. Machiavelli, modern political philosophy's founder, abandoned virtue-based governance for practical objectives like prosperity and empire. He viewed religion merely as an instrument of political domination, positioning himself in the amoral camp while questioning whether the state should be a moral organism or simply a power structure.
The Renaissance shifted from medieval Christian views of man as flawed to positioning humans at the center of all things. Leonardo da Vinci exemplified this shift, rarely mentioning God while constantly referencing nature. Machiavelli defined modern nation-state philosophy by idealizing ruler power, viewing organized force and supreme state authority as regulating all other societal institutions.
While the Renaissance flourished in southern European city-states, the Reformation characterized northern European nation-states. Luther challenged church practices with his "Sola Scriptura" doctrine, rejecting Aristotelian influence and human reason in favor of biblical authority. Both Protestant and Catholic conservatives reject Renaissance humanism, though they differ fundamentally on authority-Catholics vest it in Church tradition while Protestants find it in Scripture.
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The Enlightenment's Dual Legacy
Though we inherit much from ancient Greece, Rome, the Middle Ages, Renaissance, and Reformation, we are direct descendants of the Enlightenment. However, two distinct Enlightenment traditions emerged with profoundly different implications for conservatism.
The French Enlightenment, championed by Voltaire and Rousseau, envisioned mankind's universal regeneration through reason, creating perfectible secular beings. Meanwhile, the Anglo-Scottish Enlightenment, represented by Locke, Hume, and Smith, pursued gradual human improvement with individual responsibility rather than salvation "from above." This more moderate tradition proved decisive for America, leading to constitutional compromise rather than revolutionary terror. While French thinkers pursued utopian visions, Anglo-Scottish temperance favored limited government and religious tolerance, creating viable institutions rather than destroying the old order.
The French revolutionaries aimed to create a new man through education, persuasion, and if necessary, force and terror. Inspired by Rousseau, they attacked the patriarchal family, restricted property rights, and attempted to erase people's past to refashion society. By 1794, divorces exceeded marriages in France. This romantic preference for passion over reason, virtue over peace, and liberty associated with wildness resulted in bloodshed and eventual authoritarian rule under Napoleon.
This spectacle prompted Edmund Burke to articulate English constitutionalism's principles, arguing that civilization belongs not to individuals but to communities, whose inherited spiritual possessions shouldn't be ransacked in the name of change. Burke's response to the French Revolution's excesses became the foundation of modern conservative thought.
The twentieth century witnessed the rise of violent revolutions and authoritarian excesses through fascism, Nazism, and communism. Conservatives resist labeling conservatism an "ideology" precisely because the term suggests utopian schemes like communism and socialism. While ideologues pursue uniformity and manipulate people to achieve abstract dogmas, conservatives value diversity, complexity, and community institutions.
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America's Conservative Heritage: From Colonies to Constitution
America's development as "the first new nation" succeeded in building an industrial economy with stable democratic institutions without societal disintegration. However, this achievement wasn't born from nothing but rooted in values transferred from Europe. The American economy flourished through hard work, frugality, self-discipline, and individual initiative-values stemming from the Protestant work ethic.
American conservatism's first era spans from colonial times through the Civil War. During this period, Puritanism dominated American political and intellectual life, with approximately three-quarters of colonists being of Puritan extraction. These settlers established conservative values emphasizing respect for established order, leadership by the favored few, community importance, and preference for gradual change. Puritan influence gave America institutions like written constitutions, regular elections, and the secret ballot, along with principles like the work ethic and federalism.
The American Revolution was "reluctant" and conservative, protecting social institutions rather than destroying them. The resulting constitutional republic established limited government with checks and balances, division of power between national and state authorities, and requirements for extraordinary majorities-all designed to restrain action and allow only gradual change.
The Founders shared common values rooted in the English common law tradition of limited government and individual protection. Three exemplary conservative personalities of this period were John Dickinson, who believed experience must guide governance rather than reason; James Madison, whose conservative instincts manifested in his preference for separation and balancing of powers; and John Taylor, who viewed the Constitution as an instrument to protect state power from central government domination.
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From Civil War to New Deal: Conservatism in Transition
The Civil War created a lasting political divide, with Union supporters becoming Republicans and Confederacy supporters becoming Democrats. Conservatives in both parties grew concerned about the central government's expansion. The era saw massive European immigration bringing new ideas like Darwinism and Marxism, along with Catholics and Jews whose values challenged established American society.
Liberalism emerged as a dominant force advocating individual development free from government, religious, and social restraints. Labor movements, Social Gospel advocates, muckrakers, and progressive intellectuals campaigned for social restructuring, while mainline Protestant denominations and universities embraced liberal European theologies. Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson advanced liberal government expansion.
Conservative writers reacted strongly against these changes and the threat of alien ideas to American institutions. Irving Babbitt and Paul Elmer More were pivotal conservative writers who called their beliefs "humanist"-distinct from liberal humanism they opposed. Babbitt described humanism as exercising "the will to refrain" to subject expansive desires to "the law of measure." He blamed Rousseau for the myth of man's inherent goodness and for glorifying control over nature as "progress."
Southern "Agrarians" like Allen Tate, Robert Penn Warren, and John Crowe Ransom defended their region against progressive scorn of rural values. In "I'll Take My Stand" (1930), these Vanderbilt University professors denounced technology and modernism's effects on the South, urging southerners to take pride in their past and reject industrialism. They argued culture springs from local sources and resented "culture poured in from the top."
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Modern Conservative Thought: From New Deal to Reagan
Post-Civil War industrialization transformed American conservatism as conservatives embraced laissez-faire economics, believing a government-free economic system was America's only suitable option. Conservatism became the business class ideology and dominated 1920s thinking. The Great Depression ended this conservative dominance, bringing Franklin Roosevelt's election and the New Deal's welfare programs.
Conservative values became increasingly marginalized as government intervention expanded through the New Deal, Fair Deal, New Frontier, and Great Society. As liberalism became an accepted part of American life, conservatives responded with critiques of government policies. Gradually, as liberal assumptions guiding government expansion showed weaknesses, conservative writers gained a wider and, by 1980, substantial audience.
Russell Kirk and Peter Viereck pioneered traditional conservative thought's reemergence. Kirk, perhaps the most prolific modern conservative writer, authored twenty books, edited journals, and wrote numerous articles. His work "The Conservative Mind" provided a genealogy of conservative thinkers that demonstrated a viable tradition in American political history as an alternative to ascendant liberal ideas.
William F. Buckley Jr. founded National Review, publishing articles by diverse conservatives including traditionalists, economic conservatives, and anticommunists. Buckley's greatest service to conservatism was orchestrating brilliant but diverse minds into a coherent political movement through his personality and ability to find workable common ground.
Since Friedrich A. von Hayek's "The Road to Serfdom" (1944), economic conservatives have experienced internal disagreements. The "Austrian School" of economic thought views the economy not as a predictable machine but as individuals making choices in uncertain markets. They critique Keynesian economics by arguing no centralized bureaucracy can possess sufficient knowledge to regulate the economy.
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The Conservative Religious Tradition
At America's core lies a moral and political tradition that Walter Lippmann called "the forgotten foundations of democracy." As James Reston noted, America's founding liberties were established by leaders who derived their conception of human nature from Western civilization's central religious tradition.
From colonial times through recent history, Christianity profoundly influenced American institutions and daily life. Robert Bellah observed that the Bible was the one book literate Americans across three centuries could be expected to know well, with Biblical imagery providing the framework for American thought.
This religious influence was particularly evident in the Founders' conception of human nature. Richard Hofstadter concluded they viewed humans as essentially self-interested atoms requiring constitutional control. James Madison spoke of mankind's "depravity" and "infirmities," John Jay referenced man's "personal interest," and Hamilton noted humanity's "folly and wickedness." Even Jefferson, while championing freedom, warned against trusting power without constitutional restraints.
The religious imperative permeates America's founding documents and early history. From Columbus's diary entry stating his purpose was "to bring the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the heathens," through numerous colonial charters, a continuous thread of religious purpose shaped the nation. Key documents reveal this heritage: the 1606 Virginia Charter dedicated the colony "to the glory of his divine Majesty"; the Mayflower Compact established a covenant "for the glory of God"; and Connecticut's Fundamental Orders sought to "mayntayne and preserve the liberty and purity of the Gospell."
The Christian heritage established two critical elements in American culture. First, it emphasized self-regulation and moral responsibilities over government rights, with cultural practices stressing moral values in education and social behavior as more important than governmental activity. Second, by historical standards, this Christian culture proved exceptionally tolerant of minorities and dissent. While imperfect-with racial oppression and discrimination-the Christian conscience ultimately condemned slavery's excesses and worked toward its elimination.
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Conservatism in the Twenty-First Century
Contemporary American conservatism addresses fundamental questions about national character that Lincoln raised at Gettysburg when he asked if "this nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, [can] long endure?" Many observers believe America's greatest weaknesses lie in civic, cultural, and moral domains where government proves deficient. Jack Kemp notes that "a society that is indifferent to its moral and spiritual life is indifferent to its future."
Conservatives believe Americans fundamentally want civic revitalization grounded in morality. They argue this cultural renaissance must emerge from local communities built upon family, neighborhood, church, and synagogue-what conservatives call the "tripod of character, community and culture." The conservative worldview acknowledges government limitations, recognizing many aspects of life as more important than politics: "religion, art, study, family, friends, music, fun, duty."
Conservatism suffered major defeats in the 1960s-70s when government programs began interfering with these societal pillars, damaging community coherence. The intrusion of government power led to what conservatives describe as a collapse of moral order. They argue that family, religious association, and local community are essential supports for belief and conduct, not merely products of human behavior.
Conservatives believe democratic renewal begins with recognizing that religious faith is more fundamental to good society than government action. They argue no society has ever survived long without a strong moral code informed by religious truth. The conservative vision emphasizes limited, representative government restrained by laws difficult to alter. The Founding Fathers applied the maxim "Freedom is political power divided into small fragments" through separation of powers and federalism. This dispersion of governmental power allows intermediary institutions to flourish.
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Conservatism in the Postmodern Era
As Western culture enters the twenty-first century, a postmodern worldview emphasizing indeterminacy, chance, and the absence of absolute meaning gains dominance in American universities and culture. This relativism, based on the view that all meaning is socially constructed, threatens the very foundation of conservative values.
Postmodernism launched a frontal assault on the meaning of words during the 1970s. Following Jacques Derrida and Paul de Man, this literary criticism theory questions historic understanding of language, belittles consistency and coherence in meaning, and fosters an increasingly relativistic society. Postmodernism essentially accelerates democracy's linguistic downslide.
Both modernism and postmodernism challenge conservatism, but for different reasons. Modernism neglects experience, which conservatives revere, while postmodernism rejects objective, universal truth, which conservatives respect. Conservatism offers balance between these extremes, harmonizing modernism's cerebral emphasis with postmodernism's experiential focus.
In this era of rapid technological change influenced by postmodernism, conservatism serves as a stabilizing force. Despite potential for rapid change, political discourse remains locked in slow-moving dialogues along campaign trails, in courtrooms, and inside legislative chambers. These extended dialogues, which mirror and mold culture, allow conservatism significant opportunities to restrain inappropriate change.
Both in belief and attitude, conservatism opposes poststructuralist views of language and the impact of relativism on contemporary culture. American democracy, which evolved from long-held traditions and "self-evident" truths, carefully balances individual rights with majority rule and government power with individual freedom. Postmodernism subverts these traditions and disrupts these essential balances, intensifying into an outright cultural war over the nature of truth and role of words.
The future of conservatism depends on how cultural values relate to political ideas. To improve marketability, conservatism must attract Blacks and other minorities, with Roman Catholics and the South remaining crucial to the movement's viability. The values of family, church, and neighborhood school will be major political issues in the decade ahead.
To sustain power, an indictment of liberalism isn't enough. Conservatism requires the qualities of Western tradition that make civilization possible-values rooted in biblical experience rather than purely secular ideals. As America enters the twenty-first century as the heir apparent to Western culture, the cultural struggle, long neglected in the United States, will determine the fate of free societies.
