For many years now, the litmus test of an American conservative has been whether he or she is committed to limited, constitutional government and to the proposition of the Declaration of Independence “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.” Although much maligned and often misunderstood, this tradition serves a vital purpose in our republican government: it keeps conservatives united around a set of concrete political and philosophical goals that every layman can understand.

Strange to say, then, that conservatism is increasingly under assault, not from the Left, but from within. This attack is driven by false narratives that blame the Founders’ natural-law liberalism for today’s cultural and political decay. By contrast, the life and work of Frederick Douglass can serve as an alternative model for the conservative movement—a way of upholding natural-law liberalism, and yet remaining introspective about our nation’s origins and future.