Much has been written about George Washington, our first American president: his command of the Continental Army, his leadership in the fragile birth of a new nation, and his presidency. But less attention has been paid to Washington the person, the private Washington, whose conduct set a standard that may be even more urgently needed today. At a time when...

Conclusion: The Words That Made Us and Still Must.  In December of 1776, the Revolution was not moving toward triumph. It was close to collapse. Washington’s army was exhausted. Enlistments were running out. Men who had already given much were being asked to give more. Then Thomas Paine’s words were read aloud… …  “These are the times that try men’s...

Part 2: Common Sense Are we still capable of that kind of clarity when it matters most? There was a moment in the birth of the country when uncertainty did not simply fade; it was confronted. Not with noise or outrage, but with moral clarity. A moment when a divided people were forced to face a harder question: not what...

For the most part, my high school history classes consisted of names, dates, documents, and battles. What I’ve learned since then — through historians like Doris Kearns-Goodwin, David McCullough, Ken Burns, and others — is that history comes alive when we discover the human stories behind the events. One of those stories belongs to John Hart of New Jersey, a...

Lately, I’ve been reading more history, mostly to educate myself. But the other night, I opened Lord Acton’s Lectures on the French Revolution and didn’t get far before I sat up in bed. I was reading about France two centuries ago, but I couldn’t stop thinking about the comparisons to Washington today. To be honest, most of what I remember...

Last August, I wrote that I was “stepping back from the chaos” of Donald Trump. I meant to write about his presidency only when his actions were significant. That was the naïve part. This is not Republican versus Democrat. This is democracy versus authoritarianism: 2025–2026 — Turned pressure on universities into national policy.After targeting individual universities with investigations and funding...

What kind of leadership… what kind of citizenship, will it take to restore and live the values we claim to believe? It begins with service. Leadership without service is merely power. Public office was never meant to be a stage for self-glorification. It was meant to be a trust.  A president’s first question shouldn’t be, “How do I win?” but,...

Walter Isaacson’s latest book, The Greatest Sentence Ever Written, has arrived at a pivotal moment for the country: the 250th anniversary of the American experiment. I found it especially meaningful at a time when we need to return to the words that first set America on the path toward democracy. This should be more than a season of fireworks and...

Two voices, both alike in reach and power, Speak into a divided world. One feeds grievance. The other calls for grace. Influence still carries power. What it often lacks now is responsibility. The contrast between Nick Fuentes and Pope Leo XIV makes that clear. Both command attention. Both reach people who feel ignored. But what they do with that attention...

Recently, I found myself returning to a question I’ve asked in different forms for years: what does it actually take to hold a country together when its people don’t agree? We like to believe the Constitution emerged from unity, shared purpose and a kind of moral alignment that made agreement certain. It didn’t. As Max Farrand makes clear in The...