| Last week’s curation at RealClear’s American Civics portal leads off with Steele Brand’s intriguing piece at RealClearReligion, “The Declaration of Independence Founded a Theistic Republic.” Brand, a Jack Miller Center faculty partner, responds to critics of Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, who seem to understate just how intertwined religion and politics have been throughout American history. He points out that the Declaration speaks of God four times in its justification of separating from the British. “Individual founders differed in their doctrines,” Brand writes, “and yet they unanimously advocated for a theistic republic.” He ends by noting that America was clearly “built on the premise that a good God not only created the world but demanded justice, liberty, and equality from those who govern it. Remove its foundation, and a republic such as this is doomed to fracture and collapse.” At Law & Liberty, Ken Masugi reviews sections of historian David Hackett Fischer’s newest work, “African Founders.” Masugi writes that Fischer rightly details “the brutality of slavery, but he also insists on keeping in mind the abiding character traits exhibited by the slaves from different regions of Africa.” “African Founders,” Masugi says, “forces corrections in perception created by the ideological uses of black American history then and now.” This means that Fischer’s project can be an “invaluable weapon against ‘Woke’ nonsense,” he writes. Another important aspect of Fischer’s work is in understanding “one of the great paradoxes” of the Declaration: on one hand, declaring “the equality of all men” but on the other, condemning “the King’s incitement of slave revolts.” Masugi argues that the “earliest slave revolts” often reflected the slaves’ “African warrior ancestry as an expression of the natural right of liberty.” In other words, “They were revolutionaries for freedom.” Ultimately, Masugi says that we should understand this seeming paradox by acknowledging that slavery’s ultimate demise “required war, yet one conducted for the promise of ‘safety and happiness’ within the boundaries of self-government.” Essential Reading Steele Brand, RealClearReligion Mike Johnson opened his tenure as Speaker of the House with a speech citing the creator God... In the News Jacob Hess, Deseret News Kimball Yeates, Salt Lake Tribune Austin Sarat, The Hill Anna Bailey, Northwest Missourian Paul G. Summers, Tennessean Lynn Uzzell, Law & Liberty John F. Doherty, Public Discourse Newswire Ken Masugi, Law & Liberty Sarah McCammon, NPR Liz Mair, RealClearPolitics Pew Research Center Vincent Schilling, History.com Elliott Drago, Jack Miller Center John Hood, Bladen Journal Learning Curve This week The Learning Curve, guest co-hosts Charlie Chieppo and Prof. Albert Cheng interview Pioneer's Chris Sinacola... PragerU No American led a more eventful life than Ulysses S. Grant, the 18th President of the United... Carl Cannon's Great American Stories Good morning. It's Friday, the day of the week when I share a quote meant to be informative or enlightening. ... Good morning, it's Tuesday, Election Day in Virginia and New Jersey (Ohio also has a much-watched referendum), which means we ... Good morning. It's Friday, the day of the week when I share a quote meant to be informative or enlightening. ... | 