Curated News from The Virginia Council 1/25/26

"Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interest of the man, must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place. It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government. But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature?" James Madison in Federalist 51 Human Nature and the Constitution - onlinecoursesblog.hillsdale.edu

Road to Liberty: Lafayette Comes To Help America | PragerU

The Reviews Are In: “Rage and the Republic is Jonathan Turley’s Birthday Gift to America to Mark its 250 Years of Independence” – JONATHAN TURLEY

America’s 250th: A Rare Opportunity for Unity By Ryan L. Cole "That’s what made the Montgomery County gathering noteworthy. Attendees didn’t pretend that disagreements didn’t exist, but they found agreement in the Declaration’s ideals and in honoring not only Revolutionary veterans who settled in their county but also other Americans who worked to carry on the Founders’ work, from abolitionists to suffragists to civil rights leaders."

Rocky Mount unveils monument to Black Civil War soldiers - Cardinal News By Lindsey Hull

Virginia now has two mobile museums devoted to the American Revolution. One is exclusively for Southwest Virginia. - Cardinal News By Carolyn Wilson

Why America’s Founding Principles Still Matter 250 Years Later By Matthew Spaulding

Oak Hill State Park Bill Clears Senate Committee | News | loudounnow.com By Norman K. Styer "Oak Hill is a mansion and plantation located in Aldie, Virginia that was for 22 years a home of Founding Father James Monroe, the fifth U.S. President."

The Constitution, Bill of Rights, and Liberty

Dismantling The Left’s Argument For Gun Control By Nick Freitas

John Peter Muhlenberg, A Member Of The American Revolution’s Black Robed Regiment - American Thinker By Craig Seibert 'In the Revolutionary era, brave and patriotic pastors took seriously the Bible’s emphasis on morality and individual liberty.'

Supreme Court to take up cellphone location tracking warrants | AP News By Mark Sherman

Here’s Why Ellingburg Is a Win for Originalism Justices Unanimously Hold That Restitution Under Victim Act Is Part of the Punishment By Cully Stimson

Federal judge allows Va. inmates rights’ lawsuits to move forward • Virginia Mercury By Charlotte Rene Woods

The Farbman-Turley Debate: The Video and Results – JONATHAN TURLEY The debate conducted at the Virginia Military Institute over the question of whether “the U.S. is experiencing a constitutional crisis” on October 1st, 2025.

Special guest editorial from Don Smith:

Don Smith was raised in Richmond and attended UVA. His mother was born in a cabin outside of Lexington, Virginia--a cabin her grandfather, a veteran of the 14th Virginia Calvary, built after the Civil War.

Thomas J., “Stonewall” Jackson, was unique in many ways.

He came from a disadvantaged background. He lost his parents in his childhood and was raised by an indifferent uncle. He was dirt-poor. He represents the vast majority of Virginians in the 1900s, who had to work hard just to stay alive. He was not a “First Family of Virginia” Cavalier.

He was a self-made man. Jackson was ranked at the very bottom of his class when he entered West Point. He was one of the worst-performing students in his plebe class. Yet, through sheer will and incredibly hard work, he eventually graduated near the top of his class, especially in mathematics. While teaching at VMI, he invested wisely and made himself into a relatively prosperous man. He did not inherit huge plantations or sums of wealth.

His battlefield exploits were extraordinary. Stonewall Jackson was, and still is, one of America’s most accomplished battlefield generals. This is from the cover of Rebel Yell, a biography of Jackson written by S.C. Gwynne. Gwynne was a bureau chief and senior editor for Time magazine, and a Pulitzer Prize finalist: In April 1862 Jackson was merely another Confederate general fighting for what seemed to be an increasingly desperate cause. By June he had engineered perhaps the greatest military campaign in American history and was one of the most famous men in the Western world. Jackson’s strategic innovations shattered the conventional wisdom of how war was waged: he was so far ahead of his time that his techniques would be studied generations in the future.”

During World War II, George Patton told Eisenhower that he wanted to be Ike’s Stonewall Jackson. Marine hero Chesty Puller carried a biography of Stonewall with him. Garnet Wolsey, who later commanded the British Army in the late 19th century, interviewed Jackson n 1862, and later wrote this about him: ”With such a leader men would go anywhere, and face any amount of difficulties; and for myself, I believe that, inspired by the presence of such a man, I should be perfectly insensible to fatigue, and reckon upon success as a moral certainty.”

His support for African-Americans, given the times he lived in, was extraordinary. Jackson founded, funded and operated a Sunday School for slaves, at a time when (a) it was illegal to help slaves learn to read and write in Virginia and (b) many whites remembered the deadly Nat Turner raid in the 1830s. Prominent Lexington citizens threatened Jackson with legal action if he kept the school open---and Jackson refused! He put himself and his family at personal, financial and professional risk for African-Americans. Jackson’s Civil War service was, first and foremost, for Virginia. Personally, Jackson opposed secession. But he was loyal to his state---Virginia was, in his mind and heart, his country.

Curated News from The Virginia Council 1/25/26

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