Starting Points

The Place Where It All Starts

Christianity and the American Founding


Your new book Did America Have a Christian Founding? Separating Modern Myth from Historical Truth has been getting a lot of attention (as it should). Let me start by asking a basic question about the subtitle that I want you to answer, as if you were on Twitter, in 280 characters or less. What is [...]

The Influence of Global Crises on the United States


Jay, your new book A Nation Forged by Crisis is excellent. It has already been widely reviewed, including in the Wall Street Journal, and it was recently named the best history book of the year by World magazine. More reviews and accolades are sure to follow. I jotted down some notes as I was reading, [...]

Is the Administrative State Legitimate?


Reconciling expertise and representative government has always been a challenge in America. This is not a new problem, but we have dealt with this recurring problem in a problematic way over the past century, choosing expertise over republican government. The Framers of the Constitution didn’t emphasize expertise as a characteristic of good legislators. Instead, they [...]

Do We Need A Compass?


Why is there a need for a publication like Compass? ADAM SEAGRAVE There is nothing like it. There are journals that publish undergraduate essays – mostly (as far as we are aware) in print and not online. But there are no journals that aim to publish papers by undergraduates that are intellectual contributions to public [...]

What Did the Constitutional Convention Do with Slavery?


What do Madison’s Notes reveal about how the Constitution handled slavery? For example, what significance should we place on the strong condemnation of slavery we find in Madison’s re-telling of his June 6 speech, or on his account of his July 14 speech in favor of proportional representation in the legislature, where the institution of [...]