On the opponents of Whiggish and, worse, philosophy of history:

History has no sides. That this has been easily missed by modern conservatives arises, I suspect, from the dearth of conservative historical consciousness. The bulk of modern conservative intellectual energy has been devoted to politics, economic policy, and political philosophy; there has been no corresponding conservative historical theory, much less a natural law theory of history. But there should, and must, be one. We will need it, too, because all the major movements of the last century into tyranny and intellectual vacuity have been built on theories, not of economics or politics, but of history. Not Webster, not G.F.W. Hegel, not Leopold von Ranke or Jacob Burckhardt, but Lincoln, James Madison, Trenchard and Gordon, Samuel Johnson, and Emmerich de Vattel are the path we need to rediscover. Perhaps we shall soon enough do so.

Allen Guelzo’s ‘Black Dan’ in Claremont Review Winter 2022/23