Liberalism and Its Critics

When Thomas Jefferson declared that each generation must water the tree of liberty with the “blood” of rebellion, and then later defined the life-span of the “will” of a generation as lasting 19 years, James Madison reminded him that members of each generation are not born on the same day of the same year. Perhaps this is all that needs to be said of ideology’s attempt to defy reality.

The differences between Jefferson and Madison could well describe the two tendencies of American liberalism that continue down to our time in what might be regarded as a dialogue between the heart and the head. On the one side stands the liberal as democratic moralist, convinced that the problems of freedom and justice ...