nial peoples to rise up against an imperialnpower. A people has a right tonindependence not because of a nationalnright to self-determination but becausenof the natural rights of men—rightsnbased on the fundamental truth “thatnall men are created equal.” This rightnestablishes that the just powers of governmentnderive from the consent ofnthe governed and exist to secure thenrights of the governed. It is when governmentnbecomes destructive of thesenends that revolution is justified.nWilliams criticizes Henry Kissingernfor his “imperial evangelicalism” innintervening “to overthrow an electedngovernment in Chile”—as if any electedngovernment were just or even nonimperial.nBut as Thomas Jefferson said,n”an elective despotism was not the governmentnwe fought for.” No people hasna right to cast off colonial governmentnor to new-model its own government ifnits intention is to institute a regimenthat does not respect men’s unalienablenrights and rest on the consent ofnthe governed. Kissinger’s judgment onnChile (“I don’t see why we need to standnby and permit a country to go Communistndue to the irresponsibility of itsnown people”) is perfectly intelligiblenwhen set within this theoretical context.nUnfortunately Kissinger never employednthis context, for reasons thatnwould be quite agreeable to Williamsn(since both men are in the uncomfortablenposition of constantly denouncing angreat evil without being able to say whynit is wrong). What they share, fundamentally,nis the language of German socialnscience and philosophy of history,nwhich leads them to denounce particularnWeltanschauungs without regardnto the fact that all “world views” arencreated equal. Williams denies, in othernwords, that there is an objective differencenbetween right and wrong; consequently,nmorality can only be measurednby proximity to the ideal of “community,”nwhich can be realized only in ansociety organized on quite differentnprinciples from the present “capitalistnmarketplace society.” In particular thenS6inChronicles of Cttlturen”principles of private property,” whichnare unavoidably in tension with the idealnof community, will have to go.nJ. he extent of Williams’s radicalismncan be gathered from his misrepresentationnof Madison’s argument for thenextended sphere (contained in ThenFederalist No. 10), which he portraysnas an argument for a limitless empire.nNot only does this ignore the politicalnproblem that Madison thought the extendednsphere could partially solve—nthe tendency of a republican governmentnto fall prey to majority faction—nbut it ignores the important qualificationsnon the efficacy of the sphere revealednin The Federalist No.’s 49, 51nand 63. But then there is no need tonworry about a majority faction or theninsecurity of minority rights in a “community”nin which all selfishness andnlove of honor—manifested in privatenproperty and politics—have been abolishednand all liberty reduced to servingnthe perfection of this new community.n”Turn away from empire and beginnto create a community,” Williams exhortsnus. But the community we are toncreate among ourselves will also enablenus to be “citizens … of the world.”nHow are we to be a separate communitynunited by bonds of locality, history andnpractice and yet be open to citizenshipnin the world.” It cannot be that the rightsnproclaimed in the Declaration are universal,nso that the American Revolutionnhas universal significance, for Williamsndenies that these natural rights are anythingnmore than conscious inventions ofnJefferson and the other revolutionaries,ndesigned to legitimize their revoltnand justify their new empire. He condemnsnthem as a “transformation ofnthe specific Rights of Free Englishmen,nrooted in communal experience, intonan abstract, unlimited assertion of leadershipnof all humankind.” The verynsame criticism, in almost the same language,nwas made by John C. Calhoun inn1848 and echoed by Chief Justice Taneynin the Dred Scott decision in 1857, andnhas been revived in this century bynnnsuch friends of the Confederacy as WillmoorenKendall and M. E. Bradford.nThat a Marxist historian should agreenwith the father of the “positive good”ntheory of Negro slavery, the author ofnthe Supreme Court’s most infamousndecision, and two influential modernnconservatives may seem odd; but leftnand right meet in opposition to thencentral idea of the Western tradition:nthat man’s reason is capable of knowing,nby the nature of things, the differencenbetween just and unjust, good andnevil, noble and base, and that man isncapable of guiding human action accordingnto these distinctions.nToday both left and right walk inndarkness, though each walks in a differentndirection—the left toward the future,nthe right toward the past. In neitherndirection will they find the principlesnof human freedom or humannhappiness, and America cannot trustneither to rescue it from its present peril.nTo defend ourselves against the tyrannicalnempire of the Soviet Union, whichnlives only to destroy us and grows onlynat our expense, will require not onlynthe kind of “global superiority” that wenearned in World War Two, but also thenwisdom to use that superiority. To winnthe victory and to deserve the victory,nthe “empire of liberty” must fight innthe light of reason and in the name ofnjustice. nn”One can be one’s true self only innthe community of others. The familynis for most people the crucible innwhich their humanity is forged… .nIn giving we receive. In binding ourselvesnwe are made free. In linkingnour own personalities with those ofnothers we discover who we trulynare.”n—James Hitchcock speaking atnThe Rockford Institute’s ‘ThenFamily: America’s Hope”nConferencenFor copies of this address and ninenothers from our “Family” conferencensend $4.00 plus 50