Heritage Foundation Leadership for America

Location: The Heritage Foundation's Lehrman Auditorium

Conservatism has long been is driven by attachments to two different first principles or foundations, identified variously as creed and culture, or more accurately nature and history. This lecture will explore the origins of these two foundations in Eighteenth Century political thought and trace their development in American political history. Although these two principles have usually been considered alternatives or rivals, the lecture will inquire into whether there is a way to put them both to work to build a stronger and healthier conservative movement, and thereby contribute to the revival of foundational thinking in American politics.

James W. Ceaser is Professor of Government and Foreign Affairs at the University of Virginia, where he has taught since 1976. He has also held visiting appointments at Marquette University, The University of Basel, Claremont McKenna College, Harvard University, and Oxford University. Ceaser is the author of several books on American politics and American political thought, including Presidential Selection (1979), Reforming the Reforms (1982), Liberal Democracy and Political Science (1991), and Reconstructing America (1997).

This lecture is the sixth in a series to consider the meaning and status of America's common national identity, and to define an agenda for restoring that meaning as the central idea of America's politics and political culture.