What the American Revolution Secured: Order, Justice, and Freedom (Russell Kirk Center, Mar 15, 2026)
The moral and political principles Americans defended in 1776 were already generations, even centuries, old. The moral principle of the dignity of man carried forward the convictions of the ancient Hebrews through the religious impulse of the Puritan settlers. From those convictions arose protections for natural rights, tempered by the needs of circumstance.
Yet the same religious inheritance that affirmed the glory of man also recognized the stain of original sin. Human dignity existed alongside human imperfection. Seen in this light, the supposed “split personality” of Publius in The Federalist disappears. The tension between a sober view of human nature requiring institutional restraint and a confidence in the possibility of public virtue simply reflects the Framers’ religious understanding of the human heart. Humane order accounts for both tendencies: the glory of the Imago Dei rising toward the heavens and the weight of original sin pulling toward the abyss.
The political principle of ordered liberty likewise emerged through historical development, growing out of the constitutional experience of medieval and early modern England. Through English constitutional institutions—often more fully developed in the American colonies—order, justice, and freedom were sustained.