On self-government

In his breathtaking new book, A History of the American People, English historian Paul Johnson writes, "The creation of the United States of America is the greatest of all human adventures....The great American republican experiment... is still the first, best hope for the human race" and "will not disappoint an expectant humanity." It is often noted that outside observers of the American experiment tend to express a more profound appreciation for the remarkable achievements of our nation's Founders than we do ourselves, Burke and Talleyrand rand, Gladstone and Tocqueville, Thatcher and Maritain have all marveled at the truth of a proposition that, before the exceptional birth of freedom here, had been considered at best problematic: that the people have the capacity to govern themselves.