In this episode, our guest (an AP U.S. History teacher) and our host (an AP Government teacher) delve into the worthy American most likely missing from your U.S. history or government class.

Orestes Brownson was a nineteenth-century political thinker who wrote about the American project through his unique lens as a post-Civil War American-Catholic. He was well known in his time but is often only featured in the footnotes for the Election of 1840, the Transcendental Movement, and the Emancipation Proclamation. Brownson’s essays, though, belong in the classroom. They seek to answer with optimism and insightful reflection: what is this country all about? For what did our sons die in this great Civil War?

Chapters:

4:20 Why read Brownson?

10:11 A religious and political wanderer

14:01 Arrives at the Catholic Church

17:00 Magnus opus: The American Republic

21:57 “Territorial democracy”

27:44 History as human experience

28:51 Territorial democracy and American Union

32:31 Missteps of democracy

36:54 Brownson’s vision: “Freedom of each with advantage to the other”

37:41 Yet history repeats itself

41:47 America’s role in the story of history

44:55 “Unwritten constitution”

49:36 The task of the modern teacher

54:24 One’s development of ideas over time

Links:

The American Republic by Orestes Brownson

“Democratic Principle” by Orestes Brownson

Orestes Brownson Symposium hosted by the American Family Project

“Catholic Lives: Orestes Brownson, the American Newman” on Controversies in Church History

Featured opportunities:

On Faith and Beauty in Churches talk by Joe Cardenas at The Heights School (February 1, 2025)

Series for Heights Fathers: Accompanying Our Sons as They Grow in Understanding of Human Sexuality at The Heights School (Thursdays in February 2025)

Parents’ Conference: Freedom and Addiction at The Heights School (April 12, 2025) link coming soon

Teaching Men’s Conference at The Heights School (October 2025) link coming soon

Also on the Forum:

ChatGPT Holds These Truths to Be Self-Evident by Mark Grannis

The Importance of Ugly History by Mark Grannis

Keeping the Story in History by Mark Grannis

Seeing History: On Using Images in the History Classroom by Kyle Blackmer

Patriotism and Piety: Honoring Founders and Fathers featuring Matthew Mehan