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Rights and Duties: Reflections on Our Conservative Constitution
Explains who/what/where and when on who truly influenced our Framers to the Constitution and debunks the theory that Locke influenced the 55 Framers.
286 pages, Hardcover
First published January 15, 1989
2 people are currently reading
110 people want to read
About the author
Russell Kirk
178 books290 followersFor more than forty years, Russell Kirk was in the thick of the intellectual controversies of his time. He is the author of some thirty-two books, hundreds of periodical essays, and many short stories. Both Time and Newsweek have described him as one of America’s leading thinkers, and The New York Times acknowledged the scale of his influence when in 1998 it wrote that Kirk’s 1953 book The Conservative Mind “gave American conservatives an identity and a genealogy and catalyzed the postwar movement.”
Dr. Kirk wrote and spoke on modern culture, political thought and practice, educational theory, literary criticism, ethical questions, and social themes. He addressed audiences on hundreds of American campuses and appeared often on television and radio.
He edited the educational quarterly journal The University Bookman and was founder and first editor of the quarterly Modern Age. He contributed articles to numerous serious periodicals on either side of the Atlantic. For a quarter of a century he wrote a page on education for National Review, and for thirteen years published, through the Los Angeles Times Syndicate, a nationally syndicated newspaper column. Over the years he contributed to more than a hundred serious periodicals in the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia, Austria, Germany, Italy, Spain, Bulgaria, and Poland, among them Sewanee Review, Yale Review, Fortune, Humanitas, The Contemporary Review, The Journal of the History of Ideas, World Review, Crisis, History Today, Policy Review, Commonweal, Kenyon Review, The Review of Politics, and The World and I.
He is the only American to hold the highest arts degree (earned) of the senior Scottish university—doctor of letters of St. Andrews. He received his bachelor’s degree from Michigan State University and his master’s degree from Duke University. He received honorary doctorates from twelve American universities and colleges.
He was a Guggenheim Fellow, a senior fellow of the American Council of Learned Societies, a Constitutional Fellow of the National Endowment for the Humanities, and a Fulbright Lecturer in Scotland. The Christopher Award was conferred upon him for his book Eliot and His Age, and he received the Ann Radcliffe Award of the Count Dracula Society for his Gothic Fiction. The Third World Fantasy Convention gave him its award for best short fiction for his short story, “There’s a Long, Long Trail a-Winding.” In 1984 he received the Weaver Award of the Ingersoll Prizes for his scholarly writing. For several years he was a Distinguished Scholar of the Heritage Foundation. In 1989, President Reagan conferred on him the Presidential Citizens Medal. In 1991, he was awarded the Salvatori Prize for historical writing.
More than a million copies of Kirk’s books have been sold, and several have been translated in German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Korean, and other languages. His second book, The Conservative Mind (1953), is one of the most widely reviewed and discussed studies of political ideas in this century and has gone through seven editions. Seventeen of his books are in print at present, and he has written prefaces to many other books, contributed essays to them, or edited them.
Dr. Kirk debated with such well-known speakers as Norman Thomas, Frank Mankiewicz, Carey McWilliams, John Roche, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., Michael Harrington, Max Lerner, Michael Novak, Sidney Lens, William Kunstler, Hubert Humphrey, F. A. Hayek, Karl Hess, Clifford Case, Ayn Rand, Eugene McCarthy, Leonard Weinglass, Louis Lomax, Harold Taylor, Clark Kerr, Saul Alinsky, Staughton Lynd, Malcolm X, Dick Gregory, and Tom Hayden. Several of his public lectures have been broadcast nationally on C-SPAN.
Among Kirk’s literary and scholarly friends were T. S. Eliot, Roy Campbell, Wyndham Lewis, Donald Davidson, George Scott-Moncrieff, Richard Weaver, Max Picard, Ray Bradbury, Bernard Iddings Bell, Paul Roche, James McAuley, Thomas Howard, Wilhem Roepke, Robert Speaight
Dr. Kirk wrote and spoke on modern culture, political thought and practice, educational theory, literary criticism, ethical questions, and social themes. He addressed audiences on hundreds of American campuses and appeared often on television and radio.
He edited the educational quarterly journal The University Bookman and was founder and first editor of the quarterly Modern Age. He contributed articles to numerous serious periodicals on either side of the Atlantic. For a quarter of a century he wrote a page on education for National Review, and for thirteen years published, through the Los Angeles Times Syndicate, a nationally syndicated newspaper column. Over the years he contributed to more than a hundred serious periodicals in the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia, Austria, Germany, Italy, Spain, Bulgaria, and Poland, among them Sewanee Review, Yale Review, Fortune, Humanitas, The Contemporary Review, The Journal of the History of Ideas, World Review, Crisis, History Today, Policy Review, Commonweal, Kenyon Review, The Review of Politics, and The World and I.
He is the only American to hold the highest arts degree (earned) of the senior Scottish university—doctor of letters of St. Andrews. He received his bachelor’s degree from Michigan State University and his master’s degree from Duke University. He received honorary doctorates from twelve American universities and colleges.
He was a Guggenheim Fellow, a senior fellow of the American Council of Learned Societies, a Constitutional Fellow of the National Endowment for the Humanities, and a Fulbright Lecturer in Scotland. The Christopher Award was conferred upon him for his book Eliot and His Age, and he received the Ann Radcliffe Award of the Count Dracula Society for his Gothic Fiction. The Third World Fantasy Convention gave him its award for best short fiction for his short story, “There’s a Long, Long Trail a-Winding.” In 1984 he received the Weaver Award of the Ingersoll Prizes for his scholarly writing. For several years he was a Distinguished Scholar of the Heritage Foundation. In 1989, President Reagan conferred on him the Presidential Citizens Medal. In 1991, he was awarded the Salvatori Prize for historical writing.
More than a million copies of Kirk’s books have been sold, and several have been translated in German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Korean, and other languages. His second book, The Conservative Mind (1953), is one of the most widely reviewed and discussed studies of political ideas in this century and has gone through seven editions. Seventeen of his books are in print at present, and he has written prefaces to many other books, contributed essays to them, or edited them.
Dr. Kirk debated with such well-known speakers as Norman Thomas, Frank Mankiewicz, Carey McWilliams, John Roche, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., Michael Harrington, Max Lerner, Michael Novak, Sidney Lens, William Kunstler, Hubert Humphrey, F. A. Hayek, Karl Hess, Clifford Case, Ayn Rand, Eugene McCarthy, Leonard Weinglass, Louis Lomax, Harold Taylor, Clark Kerr, Saul Alinsky, Staughton Lynd, Malcolm X, Dick Gregory, and Tom Hayden. Several of his public lectures have been broadcast nationally on C-SPAN.
Among Kirk’s literary and scholarly friends were T. S. Eliot, Roy Campbell, Wyndham Lewis, Donald Davidson, George Scott-Moncrieff, Richard Weaver, Max Picard, Ray Bradbury, Bernard Iddings Bell, Paul Roche, James McAuley, Thomas Howard, Wilhem Roepke, Robert Speaight
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
July 29, 2013
This book was my turning point, leading me out of libertarianism.
March 6, 2020
If you are at all interested in understanding the real meat and depth of our Constitution, this is a must read book. Thought published in 1977, it is most applicable even today, in its rich and fulfilling assessment of the constitution, its amendments, and the interpretations that have been applied to it. Mr. Kirk presents some very interesting interpretations as to how jurists and especially the Supreme Court have interpreted this document which we all live and abide under.
I will have to say, Mr. Kirk gives you a lot to ponder on. After reading a chapter or a section, I had to ponder on it long and hard. Not that it was difficult to read, no not at all. It was instead the interpretation and meaning of a particular portion of the Constitution, which he presents and personally never seen it in the perspective he presents. It is not that he advocates something radical, but a deeper and fuller meaning, the intent of the originators, substituted by other legal interpretations as well as the Federalist Papers, and viewpoints from history.
Mr. Kirk appears to have taken great pains not to write a technical or complicated book. Instead, his writing was easy to read, flowed very well, and understandable. Now to the content, he challenges the reader to see a richer and deeper understanding of this principle document under which we choose to be governed, and the both the conflicts (federalism vs. state rights), property rights, and other perspectives. The reader is definitely enlightened and will walk away with a greater appreciation as to the virtues of our system of government, the enormity of what our founding fathers accomplished and the legacy they bestowed on us today.
With all the political activity of today, the issues confronting each of us, this is a must read book.
I will have to say, Mr. Kirk gives you a lot to ponder on. After reading a chapter or a section, I had to ponder on it long and hard. Not that it was difficult to read, no not at all. It was instead the interpretation and meaning of a particular portion of the Constitution, which he presents and personally never seen it in the perspective he presents. It is not that he advocates something radical, but a deeper and fuller meaning, the intent of the originators, substituted by other legal interpretations as well as the Federalist Papers, and viewpoints from history.
Mr. Kirk appears to have taken great pains not to write a technical or complicated book. Instead, his writing was easy to read, flowed very well, and understandable. Now to the content, he challenges the reader to see a richer and deeper understanding of this principle document under which we choose to be governed, and the both the conflicts (federalism vs. state rights), property rights, and other perspectives. The reader is definitely enlightened and will walk away with a greater appreciation as to the virtues of our system of government, the enormity of what our founding fathers accomplished and the legacy they bestowed on us today.
With all the political activity of today, the issues confronting each of us, this is a must read book.
January 25, 2021
“...an endeavor to examine the conservative ends of our basic federal law, the relationship between political economy and the Constitution, and the varying fortunes of conservative constitutional concepts over the years.”
This book will help you understand constitutional law, it’s origins, the role of natural law in government, rights and duties of the governed, and the role of the Supreme Court...
“It would be Congress and the state legislatures that would make the laws; the judges of the federal system would be restricted to applying the statutes passed by the Congress... a constitution is the fundamental law of the land. ...decisions and rulings of the courts... are interpretations and applications of the law.”
The justices should be “bound by the text” rather than turning to some “higher law”. They themselves are not the law of the land, “a kind of ius gentium court in perpetual session, an infallible and omniscient body of moral authorities elevated to the Court in some nonpartisan fashion.”
“If a reasonable attachment to the written text of the Constitution... is not retained or restored as the standard for interpretation of the basic law of the United States, we will be left with a most unpromising alternative: the domination of American public policy, and much of American private life, by the impulses, prejudices, and ideological dogmata of the nine justices of the Supreme Court.”
This book will help you understand constitutional law, it’s origins, the role of natural law in government, rights and duties of the governed, and the role of the Supreme Court...
“It would be Congress and the state legislatures that would make the laws; the judges of the federal system would be restricted to applying the statutes passed by the Congress... a constitution is the fundamental law of the land. ...decisions and rulings of the courts... are interpretations and applications of the law.”
The justices should be “bound by the text” rather than turning to some “higher law”. They themselves are not the law of the land, “a kind of ius gentium court in perpetual session, an infallible and omniscient body of moral authorities elevated to the Court in some nonpartisan fashion.”
“If a reasonable attachment to the written text of the Constitution... is not retained or restored as the standard for interpretation of the basic law of the United States, we will be left with a most unpromising alternative: the domination of American public policy, and much of American private life, by the impulses, prejudices, and ideological dogmata of the nine justices of the Supreme Court.”
February 11, 2015
Burke as the source of American ideas; should read again - revolution with a different name (difference between American & French rev.)
April 28, 2008
lets just say, exactly what i was looking for.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews