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The easiest way to misunderstand Justice Clarence Thomas\u2019s recent\u00a0speech<\/span><\/a>\u00a0at the University of Texas\u00a0is as a conventional swipe at contemporary progressives. His target was instead deeper and older: the capital-P Progressive challenge to the American Founding itself.<\/p>\n Appearing in Austin as part of a celebration of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas framed the issue as one of first principles. \u201cThe Constitution is the means of government,\u201d he said, and \u201cit is the Declaration that announces the ends of government.\u201d<\/p>\n Indeed, the American system is bigger than mere elections or policy outcomes. It\u2019s defined by a moral claim about human equality and natural rights, and by a constitutional structure designed to secure them.<\/p>\n Thomas\u2019s critics<\/a><\/span>\u00a0seem eager to collapse his argument into today\u2019s partisan disputes. They miss the broader view of his speech, with its focus on the long intellectual revolt against the Declaration\u2019s premises and the Constitution\u2019s architecture. As Thomas put it, \u201cAt the beginning of the 20th century, a new set of first principles of government was introduced into the American mainstream.\u201d Its leading apostle was Woodrow Wilson, and the movement was progressivism.<\/p>\n Since then, Thomas said, progressivism has \u201ccoexisted uneasily with the principles of the Declaration.\u201d Because it\u2019s opposed to those principles, \u201cit is not possible for the two to coexist forever.\u201d<\/p>\n The original Progressives really did reject the Founding\u2019s understanding of liberty, rights, and constitutional structure. Wilson proposed more than modernizing technical improvements around the edges. He argued for a different theory of government, based on his study of German bureaucracy.<\/p>\n That view dates back to his 1887 journal article \u201cThe Study of Administration<\/span><\/a>,\u201d where\u00a0he insisted that \u201cadministration lies outside the proper sphere of politics,\u201d and that \u201cAdministrative questions are not political questions.\u201d He praised expert administration as distinct from ordinary constitutional politics and suggested that Montesquieu did not \u201csay the last word\u201d on the distribution of authority \u2014 meaning there was more to governance than checks and balances.<\/p>\n Thomas summarized the point bluntly. \u201cProgressivism seeks to replace the basic premises of the Declaration of Independence, and hence our form of government,\u201d he said. \u201cIt holds that our rights and our dignities come not from God, but from the government.\u201d<\/p>\n That gets to the heart of the matter: a dispute over the nature of rights, not merely whether the government should act here or there. If rights are granted only by positive law, then liberty becomes contingent and revocable \u2014 and ultimately political.<\/p>\n And structure is where that dispute cashes out. The Progressives regarded separation of powers, federalism, and bicameralism as mere impediments to enlightened administration. The New Deal accelerated that tendency, consolidating policymaking and enforcement inside sprawling agencies that would\u2019ve struck the Framers as a dangerous concentration of power.<\/p>\n Thomas was thus right to make an argument about regime-level principles. A country that forgets the Declaration\u2019s account of man and government will not preserve the Constitution\u2019s structure for long. Why bother, after all, with rival institutions, limited jurisdictions, and procedural friction if rights come from benevolent experts rather than from \u201cthe Laws of Nature and of Nature\u2019s God\u201d?<\/p>\n That\u2019s why the speech also matters given the increasingly fevered speculation over possible Supreme Court retirements. Justice Thomas turns 78 in June, while Justice Samuel Alito turned 76 earlier this month. Both men are at the top of their game, enjoying more influence than they\u2019ve ever had \u2014 as the most senior associate justices, with Thomas set to become the longest-serving justice in history if he stays through May 2028. Neither has indicated a desire to leave and, while they\u2019re aware of the crass political calculus, Republicans\u00a0are still narrowly favored<\/span><\/a>\u00a0to keep the Senate in this fall\u2019s midterms.<\/p>\n But the actuarial tables underscore what\u2019s at stake. A hypothetical replacement needs to be not just smart, credentialed, and temperamentally suited for the high court. He or she needs to understand our constitutional order: that government exists to secure pre-political rights, and that constitutional structure is itself a guarantor of liberty. The late Justice Antonin Scalia\u00a0captured<\/span><\/a>\u00a0the point memorably: \u201cEvery tinhorn dictator in the world today has a bill of rights. It isn\u2019t the Bill of Rights that produces freedom. It\u2019s the structure of government that prevents anybody from seizing all the power.\u201d<\/p>\n Justice Thomas\u2019s Austin speech was a reminder of that forgotten truth. The American Founding was a claim about human nature, political power, and the institutions needed to keep freedom alive. Any successor worthy of his seat should understand that, too.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n Ilya Shapiro is director of constitutional studies at the Manhattan Institute, contributing editor of City Journal, senior counsel to Burke Law Group, PLLC, and author, most recently, of <\/i>Lawless: The Miseducation of America\u2019s Elites<\/i><\/span><\/a>. He also writes the\u00a0<\/i>Shapiro\u2019s Gavel<\/i><\/span><\/a>\u00a0newsletter.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n