Not far from the home of George Washington, leaders of major conservative organizations signed “the Mount Vernon Statement” on 17 February, the day before their annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) began in Washington, D.C.  The statement was billed in the press as something of a manifesto or list of principles similar in scope to the Sharon Statement of 1960, a statement by conservative intellectuals which gave rise to Goldwater’s takeover of the GOP and eventually to Reagan’s national triumph in 1980.  If the Mount Vernon Statement is like the Sharon Statement, and there are differences, let’s hope it doesn’t take as long to reach electoral fruition.  The country may not have as long to wait. 

 Among those who signed the statement and indeed helped to orchestrate the event, was former Attorney General Edwin Meese III.  Other signatories read like a Who’s Who of conservative thinkers and activists: Ed Feulner, Jr., president of the Heritage Foundation; Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council; Alfred Regnery, publisher; David Keene, president of the American Conservative Union; David McIntosh, co-founder of the Federalist Society; Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform; William Wilson, president of Americans for Limited Government; Richard Viguerie of direct mail fame, who also chairs ConservativeHQ.com; and many others.  Their coming together is a symbolic gesture of unity to be sure, but it is also a material step towards formation of a new conservative consensus.  It is the start of the next phase, as it were, in the history of an impressively resilient and adaptive movement in American politics.  The next phase in the life of the conservative movement is turning out to be Constitutional Conservatism.  Said another way, the neo-conservatism of the Bush years has given way to neo-federalism, reminiscent of Reagan but more forceful in terms of states rights and separation of powers. 

 The content of the Mount Vernon Statement is less intellectual than that of the original Sharon Statement.  Signers of the Mount Vernon Statement would presumably find most if not all of the Sharon Statement, as true today as when it was written in 1960.  Indeed, the Sharon Statement was about “transcendent values” and tenets of American conservatism that change but little over time.  That said, national priorities have dramatically shifted in the intervening 50 years, and of course communism is no longer “the greatest single threat to [our] liberties.”  What the Mount Vernon Statement lacks in detail and sophistication, however, it makes up for in clarity.  Moreover, it explicitly announces a declaration of political war, which stakes the future of the conservative movement on “retaking and resolutely defending the high ground of America’s founding principles.” 

 Signatories of the Mount Vernon Statement in effect, “recommit [themselves]…to the ideas of the American Founding.”  They contend that, “Through the Constitution, the Founders created an enduring framework of limited government based on the rule of law…[and likewise] sought to secure national independence, provide for economic opportunity, establish true religious liberty and maintain a flourishing society of republican self-government.”  The signatories further assert that it is these very principles most responsible for the unparalleled prosperity and justice of our nation and as such, the principles constitute “our highest [political] achievements.”  Yet according to the Statement, “Each one…is presently under sustained attack”!  In an oblique reference to modern progressives and possibly to president Obama himself, the Mount Vernon Statement makes reference to “Some [who] insist that America must change, cast off the old and put on the new,” suggesting that those who do, deal in “empty promise or … dangerous deception.” 

 The Mount Vernon Statement is helping to draw the battle lines for 2010 and 2012, and quite possibly beyond.  No less than the future of the Republic—or its end, will be determined in our own time.  The case made by the Mount Vernon Statement is so simple and fundamentally clear, it calls every citizen to witness again the miracle of Constitutional Convention and to either accept or reject its eternal thesis.  Either we shall renew our Spirit and advocate for ancient American rights and liberty, or else we shall fail in our role as Posterity to free and brave men and succumb to the lure of command. 

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Wesley Allen Riddle is a retired military officer with degrees and honors from West Point and Oxford.  Widely published in the academic and opinion press, he ran for U.S. Congress (TX-District 31) in the 2004 Republican Primary.  Email: wes@wesriddle.com.