Conserving America

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MATTHEW SPALDING

Vice-President, Hillsdale College

Dr. Matthew Spalding, vice president for the College’s Washington, D.C. operations and dean of the Van Andel Graduate School of Government, has been appointed executive director of the Commission by the Trump Administration.

The Commission was created by executive order in November 2020 to advise the President about teaching future generations about the history and principles of the founding of the United States in 1776 and correcting the rising tide of anti-American scholarship that rejects that history and those principles.

The Goal of Conservatism

  • To recover, to restore, to conserve, and to save our country.

Two Pivotal Periods in America’s Founding

  1. Between 1775 (Battle of Lexington) and 1783 (Treaty of Paris)
  2. Between 1785 and 1797 (The Constitutional Period)

Fundamental Rights

  • Life, Liberty, Pursuit of Happiness

The Right of the People

  • To alter or abolish government when government becomes destructive of its ends. Namely, securing rights.

NO GOVERNMENT POSSESSES RIGHTS, THEY ONLY HAVE LIMITED POWERS

Principles of the Early Progressives

  • No absolute truth or first principles
  • System based in relativism
  • No principle stands the test of time

The beginnings of Conservatism is a Rejection of Progressivism.

The Cardinal Virtue of PRUDENCE

  • TRANSLATES ABSTRACT TRUTHS and fundamentals and how we apply them in particular circumstances

The Principles We’re Working to Save

  1. Equal rights for all, special privileges for none
  2. Under the laws of nature and nature’s god
  3. The right to life, liberty & the pursuit of happiness
  4. The right to property
  5. Religious liberty
  6. Legitimate government is based on the consent of the governed
  7. All government stems from the rule of law
  8. Our government is a limited constitutional government with delegated powers