The James Wilson Foundation on Natural Rights and the American Founding

Our own Managing Director and a Distinguished Fellow for Save Our States, Michael Maibach, co-authored an op-ed with Professor Patrick Garry, a professor at the University of South Dakota Law School. The authors address a bill before Virginia General Assembly that seeks to have Old Dominion join the National Popular Vote Compact. The essay introduces […]

Yuval Levin, a friend of the James Wilson Institute, wrote an excellent piece for the Wall Street Journal recently. In this article, titled Unchosen Obligations, Levin reviewed the book What it Means to be Human, authored by Prof. O. Carter Snead of the University of Notre Dame. Levin praises Professor Snead’s book as an example […]

JWI affiliated scholar and Newsweek opinion editor, Josh Hammer, published an article in The American Mind titled: Who’s Afraid of the Common Good? This essay comes as a fiery response to C. Bradley Thompson’s argument that America’s Founding was not rooted in any “authority, order, stability, community, social cohesion, continuity, solidarity, sacrifice, duty, law, orthodoxy, […]

In the latest article for The Catholic Thing, JWI Founder and Director Prof. Hadley Arkes writes about the nature and roots of the American Regime. Professor Arkes points out that the moral roots of the American Founding are in both reason and faith. The Founding Fathers invoked Natural Law to justify their cause because they […]

On November 19, the James Wilson Institute hosted a webinar with Michael Maibach, an expert on the Electoral College. Michael Maibach is a Distinguished Fellow for Save Our States where he manages outreach to academics, policy professionals, and allied organizations. Mr. Maibach is also JWI’s Managing Director and a member of the JWI Board of […]

In this piece, Catherine Glenn Foster (James Wilson Fellow 2016), Chad Pecknold, and Josh Craddock (James Wilson Fellow 2019) explore a way in which a pro-life president could protect the right to life of prenatal persons through an executive order. The executive branch – being co-equal to the legislative and judicial branches – also has […]

In this piece, JWI Founder and Director Prof. Hadley Arkes touches upon the election debacle before turning his attention to former Vice President Joe Biden and his declaration that his administration will respect the claims of “science.” Arkes points out that while the Democratic Party claims to be the party of science, their leading figures […]

In this article, Prof. Arkes expresses his hope to “wake up” from the “dream” that Joe Biden may actually be elected President. He describes Biden as an empty vessel for the Democratic party, as well as a gift to the party that keeps on giving, as he pursued the policies that laid the groundwork for […]

On October 20th, 2020, Joshua Craddock, JWI Fellow ’19 and Affiliated Scholar, was featured as a speaker on a webinar hosted by the Federalist Society at the University of Virginia School of Law. The webinar centered on Mr. Craddock’s recent article in the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy titled, Protecting Prenatal Persons: Does […]

In this piece, JWI Founder and Director, Prof. Hadley Arkes addresses the recent Supreme Court confirmation hearings of Amy Coney Barrett. He points out that there were not always hearing for Supreme Court nominees in the past and elaborates that the hearings became far more frequent and contentious once the Supreme Court placed abortion laws […]