Editor’s note: The Washington Examiner is honored to publish the unedited remarks of this year’s Bradley Prize honorees. The below speech was given by James Piereson.
Friends, we are gathered this evening at the beautiful headquarters of the Daughters of the American
Revolution. Our European friends smile when they learn that one of the most conservative
organizations in America is called the Daughters of the American Revolution.
It is one of the ironies that goes with being an American, and an American conservative. We inherit a revolutionary tradition.
The historian Clinton Rossiter wrote a book in the 1960s titled, Conservatism in America, but subtitled, “The Thankless Persuasion.” The United States is a revolutionary society, he wrote, constantly churning and changing, so that in this country the conservative is doomed to disappointment and defeat.
But, in answer to the historian, the United States is governed by the world’s oldest and longest surviving written Constitution. Other advanced countries can make no such claim. All have been through several constitutional systems since our Constitution was ratified.
Continue reading the entire piece here at The Washington Examiner (paywall)
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James Piereson is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute.
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