Restoring [r]epublican virtue: Mike Church Spreads the Good Word of John Taylor of Caroline

The Wisdom of John Taylor of Caroline

by Bradley J. Birzer, TIC co-editor

[Reposted with permission of The Imaginative Conservative, original article link is here] During the annual meeting of the Academy of Philosophy and Letters in Baltimore this summer, radio personality and [r]epublican man of virtue, Mike Church, called for a revival and remembrance of the thought of John Taylor of Caroline. Perhaps, Church persuasively argued, we might very well find some answers and solutions to our current problems in the work of this great man, this aristocrat of Virginian, this defender of order and liberty.

While Taylor (1753-1824) never embraced (or was possessed of, depending on one’s point of view) the eccentricities of his fellow Old Republican, John Randolph of Roanoke, he certainly defended much that we at TIC believe good with rigorous and elegant argumentation, steeped, unfortunately, in often rather stiff and poor prose.

Church is absolutely right, and we need to recover… [Read the rest of Brad Birzer’s Essay here]