How to Think About the American Revolution

Essays by the Lincoln scholar Harry Jaffa arguing that the Revolution’s principles are stated in the Declaration of Independence, and that they are philosophical claims about equality and natural right rather than merely legal claims about inherited English liberties. Several pieces are polemics — against historians who read the founding as an accident of interests, and against conservatives who would keep the Constitution while discarding the Declaration’s premises, which Jaffa argues is the move Lincoln refused to make.

Why it’s on the list: The sharpest statement of the natural-right reading of the founding, and the opening move in a long intra-conservative argument about what the Declaration is for.

Where I saw it: On @j_bambrick’s September 26, 2025 compilation of every book Charlie Kirk recommended across his episodes and videos.

Connections

• Declaration of Independence — the text Jaffa argues is the founding’s philosophical core.
• Abraham Lincoln — Jaffa’s subject everywhere else, and the reader of the Declaration he defends.
• The Federalist (Dawson edition) — the other half of the founding argument, already in the anti-library.
• Ideological Family Tree — where this sits on the tree: an internal dispute, not an external one.