From the historic campus of Hillsdale College in Hillsdale, Michigan, where the good, the true, and the beautiful are taught, nurtured, and honored, this is the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour, bringing the activity and education of the college to listeners across the country.

Be absolutely vigilant, and when you see an assault on freedom, you pick up the telephone or you email the great friends of religious freedom, and the good news is there are so many of them.

This is your host, Scott Bertram, and that's Ken Starr, author of the new book, Religious Liberty

in Crisis. We'll talk at length with Ken a bit later on in today's program.

Our first guest today is Dr. Will Morrissey, Professor Emeritus of Politics at Hillsdale

College, author of self-government, the American theme.

Also a book review site, Will Morrissey Reviews.com.

Dr. Morrissey, thanks for joining us.

Thanks for inviting me, and I'm glad to be here.

We talked today about a piece you wrote over at Real Clear, Public Affairs.com, part of their 1776 series, titled Civic and Moral Virtues, The American Way.

What did the founders understand about virtue that might be missing in contemporary America?

Contemporary America, I think we've forgotten what virtue really is. We tend to confuse it with

sentiments or emotions or even passions. So, for example, we'll think of a person who is virtuous

as someone who is outraged or someone who shows compassion, which is, after all, a compassion,

or respect, which is, again, it's a sentiment.

It's not a virtue.

Virtue really means strength.

That's the Latin root of it.

And it means strength of character.

A strength of character for a human being means the display of the distinctive human characteristic, which is reason. So moral, moral reasoning.

It's not, a morality isn't just a matter of sentiments or emotions. It's a matter of reasoning.

And that's why the declaration of independence is not just a list of assertions. It's a matter of reasoning. And that's why the declaration of independence is not just a list of assertions.

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