The article defends the proposition that the distinctive diplomatic legacy of John Quincy Adams constitutes an important case study documenting the significance of moral reasoning in the statesman's obligation to uphold the national interest in a universal system of power politics. Recourse to political ethics afforded Adams a vantage point from which to evaluate the volatile problem of intervention—viewed in terms of the moral responsibilities and limits of American power—at a crucial turning point in the diplomatic history of the young republic. Important in this connection is how Adams attempted to reconcile the blessings of liberty with the methods and purposes of American diplomacy within and beyond the Western Hemisphere.An attempt is made to evaluate the sources and meaning of statesmanship for Adams who—as perhaps the nation's most experienced diplomat and accomplished Secretary of State—judged the limits and opportunities of American power from a perspective that considered moral precepts and international law as compatible with the prudent pursuit of American national interest in world affairs.

Some interpretations of James Madison tend to treat him as an enemy of “community,” or as indifferent to that concept. These interpretations also tend to base their argument on selected readings from the Federalist Papers. This approach is mistaken because it relies on a part of the Madisonian corpus to define the whole of the Virginian's thought. This mistake leads to a distortion of Madison's treatment of community. Close scrutiny of Madison's life, letters, and essays reveals a theorist-politician committed to building and nurturing community in the new United States, a community linked across time and miles by shared values, common institutions, and ongoing public dialogue.

Locke's doctrine of toleration is best understood in the context of his larger argument about the political significance of Christ. Christ, Locke argues, separated the spiritual and political realm. His argument for separating the two realms, his basis for insisting that magistrates be tolerant of religious heterodoxy, is essentially theological. This claim is further developed by exploring Locke's thoughts of the unconcealment of foundation of moral duty which Christ was purported to have brought about. The bearing this unconcealment has on Locke's thoughts of the necessity of toleration is also explored. Finally, some comparisons between Locke and Hobbes's understanding of the significance of Christ are made, with a view to providing a new theoretical approach to their thought.

In an oft-neglected section of the Summa Theologiae, Thomas Aquinas undertakes a detailed, point-by-point comparison of the political regime prescribed by the Mosaic law with the teachings of the then recently translated Politics of Aristotle, thereby comparing the perspectives of faith and philosophy on political issues such as rulers, property, citizenship, and families. Because it organizes political affairs in light of the divine, Thomas concludes that the polity of the Old Testament is in fact the answer to the question concerning the best regime. Despite Christianity's view of the Mosaic law as abrogated, Thomas attempts to salvage the political wisdom of the Old Testament by arguing that the Mosaic regime can still serve as a guide for Christian political thinkers.

Yves R. Simon was a French-born philosopher who studied with Jacques Maritain, came to America just before the Second World War, taught at the University of Notre Dame and then at the University of Chicago. He died in 1961. Perhaps his best known work is the Philosophy of Democratic Government, published in 1951 and still in print.

It is indeed fitting that the centennial year of the death of Cardinal John Henry Newman (1801–1890) should be marked by new attention to the life and writings of this remarkable man of letters who dominated the intellectual and religious life of nineteenth-century England and whose significance as a thinker transcends his time and culture. A brilliant definitive biography by Ian T. Ker is the new polestar without which no future scholarship on Newman will be undertaken, while Ker's satellite works, thematic and focused, translate to the broadest possible readership a Newman never before so fully and realistically portrayed in personality, achievement and genius.