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Charles Kesler’s Struggle for the Founders’ Constitution
Charles Kesler’s defense of the American Founding from its critics on the left and right alike can help us recover our most cherished principles.
American conservatism finds itself in a strange place. A resounding electoral victory was achieved in the 2024 election by a Republican party that, while modified from its Goldwater-Reagan standard, remains comprehensible to the conservative temperament. Conservatism is the form of the Republican party, or the party ceases to exist. Yet, conservatism has never agreed on the measuring rod of its activity. What precisely does it want to achieve, such that it knows the truth of its strategies and tactics?
One thinker who has been teaching, writing, and editing in ways that help us answer these essential questions is Charles Kesler, the founding editor of The Claremont Review of Books and a Dengler-Dykema Distinguished Professor of Government at Claremont McKenna College. His political essays and editorship of the CRB are widely known across conservatism. Kesler has also formed the minds of graduate students who have assumed leading roles in academia, politics, journalism, and non-profit work. A new book of essays, titled Leisure with Dignity, by former Kesler students bids us to consider Kesler’s career because his teaching and writing bear close study for the conservative cause and our constitutional republic.
We live in a season of thoughtful and, at times, highly contested grappling with the question of how conservatives recover an America paralyzed, if not broken, by progressive ideology. I interviewed Kesler and read his scholarly output to better understand his political thinking and what it means in this period of national tumult. Kesler’s distinctiveness is best understood through those who influenced him and shaped him to be a thinker capable of political writing who joins foundational principles with current events and circumstances to produce essays that enlighten our understanding, helping us understand pitfalls and opportunities.
Constitutionalism
Amicus Brief: Hon. William P. Barr and Hon. Michael B. Mukasey in Support of Petitioners
Former AGs Barr and Mukasey Cite Civitas in a SCOTUS Brief
Rational Judicial Review: Constitutions as Power-sharing Agreements, Secession, and the Problem of Dred Scott
Judicial review and originalism serve as valuable commitment mechanisms to enforce future compliance with a political bargain.
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What’s Wrong with a Military Campaign Against the Drug Trade
Trump’s boat strikes against the cartels risk crossing the line between law enforcement and war.
The Long History of Presidential Discretion
The Framers did not expect Congress to preauthorize every use of force or to manage military campaigns.
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Does Federal Law Extend to Portlandia?
Blue state leaders have decided to make a stand — against the President, not the violent rioters in the streets.
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Creed, Culture, and American Memory
Even immigrants who shared neither descent nor language nor culture nor religion could find a way to participate in the sense of America, not merely as an idea, but as a home, as a place where they could be “born again.”
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