The Declaration of Independence audaciously declares certain “truths” to be “self-evident”.  And, in so doing, offered a justification for not only a break with Great Britain and Revolutionary War, but the foundation upon which a new nation could be built.  But how uniformly were these “truths” held and understood by the Founding Fathers?  Were they disparate views that were ultimately incoherent or inconsistent?  Did the divergent cultures of the American North and South have fundamentally different ideas of what they conceived of America to be?  Were the Founders simply protecting their material interests and reaching for any argument at hand that seemed useful to that end?

Who was most responsible for the ideas of the American founding?  John Locke?  Scottish Enlightenment thinkers?  Egalitarianism?  Modernity?  Scientific rationalism?  Christian teachings?  Joining Saving Elephants host Josh Lewis is historian Hans Eicholz who argues it was actually a harmonization of many of these different, but not incompatible, sentiments that lead to the founding of America.

About Hans Eicholz

Hans Eicholz is a historian and Senior Fellow at Liberty Fund.  Much of his work has been in the history of economic thought, looking initially at the influence of market ideas in the American founding period, but also extending up through the 19th century.

Hans is the author of Harmonizing Sentiments: The Declaration of Independence and the Jeffersonian Idea of Self-Government (2001; Second Edition, 2024), and a contributor to The Constitutionalism of American States (2008).

In this era of polarization and partisan bickering, Americans of all political persuasions are calling for the nation to come together.  National unity is certainly in high demand and highly praised.  But what is unity?  As Yuval Levin argues in his latest book, American Covenant, “unity doesn’t mean agreement…disagreement does not foreclose the possibility of unity.  A more unified society would not always disagree less, but it would disagree better—that is, more constructively and with an eye to how different priorities and goals can be accommodated.  That we have lost some of our knack for unity in America does not mean that we have forgotten how to agree but that we have forgotten how to disagree…Unity does not mean thinking alike; unity means acting together.”

Joining Saving Elephants host Josh Lewis is Yuval Levin himself who contends that the American Constitution is ideally designed to address our need for unity.  And becoming better acquainted with the intentions and insights of those who put our system of government together could bring us together the durable and cohesive unity we lack today.

About Yuval Levin

Yuval Levin is a political analyst, public intellectual, academic, and journalist. He is the founding editor of National Affairs, director of Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies at the American Enterprise Institute, a contributing editor of National Review, and co-founder and a senior editor of The New Atlantis. He also holds the Beth and Ravenel Curry Chair in Public Policy.

Yuval served as a member of the White House domestic policy staff under President George W. Bush. He was also executive director of the President’s Council on Bioethics and a congressional staffer at the member, committee, and leadership levels.

Yuval’s essays and articles have appeared in numerous publications, among them, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Commentary. He is the author of many books which include American Covenant, A Time to Build, and The Great Debate.  Yuval discussed the last two books when he was previously on the podcast in Episode 73 – Formative Institutions with Yuval Levin