National Review: Attacking The Declaration of Independence Is Not Conservatism

August 28, 2022 Hunter Wallace Conservatism, Culture, Politics, Populists, Progressives 10

Just get it over with.

George Fitzhugh and Jefferson Davis was right. Admit it.

National Review:

“Recently, a friend of mine asked me to read a writing by Michael McKenna entitled “Preserve and protect U.S. Constitution from all enemies.” The author’s argument is that one becomes an enemy of the Constitution when using the Declaration of Independence, the document that initiated and explained why we sought our independence from England, as a guide to understanding “the foundation of who Americans are as a people.” According to McKenna, this understanding can come only from the Constitution. That argument, which ignores how the Declaration enhances our understanding of the legal rights that are provided in the Constitution’s amendments, is just plain wrong and is incompatible with our understanding of conservatism — a political philosophy that respects a country’s unique traditions. …”

McKenna begins his argument by trying to diminish the significance of the Declaration: “The Declaration was the product of one man. The [Second] Continental Congress considered it for about three days and agreed. The bulk of it was a list of mostly lawyerly grievances directed at the crown.” In sum, the Declaration should only be viewed as “an excellent bit of wartime propaganda, hastily prepared and hastily approved.”

This is well-trodden ground.

The Confederates believed the Union was created by the Constitution, not the Declaration of Independence. George Fitzhugh wrote volumes criticizing Thomas Jefferson and the Enlightenment.

10 Comments

    • He seems like a boomertard:

      Jun 26 2022 — Of course, Rep. Mary Miller’s quote that the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade was a “historic victory for white life” has a very unambiguous meaning: the fear that white people in the U.S. are losing their majority. Dobbs is going to help reverse that.

      That is nutty — it’s a fact that Whites are becoming a minority population in the US, and it’s more than appropriate for Whites to have concern about that, even to fear it, since the consequences are unknown (and lack of good will toward Whites is obvious) — moreover, in practice Dobbs will do nothing to prevent that, so Whites whose concern about becoming a minority is lessened by Dobbs are stupid.

      Jul 26 2020 — Sadly, we have not had such leadership in the White House over the past four years. That is why I plan to vote for Mr. Biden in November. I just hope he will reconsider his view of shareholder capitalism.

      The sooner his generation shuts the fuck up the better.

  2. When I first discovered actual “Right dissident” thought in the late 90s the real red pill was discovering the Anti-Federalists were right, and the Articles of Confederation were the “true” sentiment of the people, the closest system to the true American character. Charles Beard, etc., as HW says this is all well trodden ground, but every generation has to discover things for themselves. The South wanted to restore the Articles more or less in spirit.

    The problem is technology – railroads, telegraphs, jets, the internet – made state borders irrelevant first and now even national borders are irrelevant.

    Plus libertarian autism obscures the death fight over money and banking there since the very beginning. No state government is sovereign without its own money and obviously not sovereign if they can’t control their own borders.

    The question for America is if decentralization is viable going forward, or if Empire is inevitable. Traditionalists are right that history is circular, but progressives are right that technology makes history linear.

    One thing we can say for certain, no boutique “ideology” one can summarize kn comment sections, podcasts, or activists performance theater matters at all. Including “Christian nationalism” which is just a euphemism for “white Americans sick of leftist shit and White Genocide.”

    Why not Ride the Tiger, isn’t that what the fashtards say? You don’t have any choice anyway.

  3. The Federalists were the minority. The anti-federalist was the majority. However, as always a organized minority is always more powerful than a disorganized majority. Anti-federalists did not like the constitution and warned it had insufficient safeguards against taxation and rule by judicial fiat…and here we are.

  4. Nonsense! The Declaration and Constitution were written perfectly. The Founding Fathers are beyond reproach. It doesn’t matter how brown our country becomes as long as we worship these pieces of parchment!

  5. A bunch of wealthy Plantation owners, slave owners and New England merchant Free Masons mouthing off about universal human equality at least for male born children.

    Might as well play John Lennon’s “Imagine” and pass the MJ bong hits around when this was written.

    🙂

  7. Unlike NR writers I studied original texts in library stacks. We were independent states and that was the only way for us to “confederate” into a union.

  8. Someone needs to explain Judah Benjamin to me before I will agree Jefferson Davis was right. Seems like it was rigged all along.

  9. We went from “these” united States of America in pre-Lincoln America to “The” United States of America after Lincoln. Or as Lee would say a Consolidated Union. PS: As much as some might hate Judah Benjamin, he died help fud the original Ku Klux Klan in its fight against Carpetbaggers and Scalawags in Reconstruction via funds from London.

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