Justice Clarence Thomas: Progressivism ‘Incompatible’ With America’s Founding Documents

Justice Clarence Thomas: Progressivism ‘Incompatible’ With America’s Founding Documents

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas spoke at the University of Texas at Austin this week, and while his talk covered a number of topics, the segment on progressivism stands out in an extraordinary way.

Thomas spoke extensively about the roots of progressivism, especially as it pertains to American politics, and made it clear that he believes it is a philosophy that is fundamentally incompatible with America’s founding documents and principles.

Fans of history will absolutely love this.

Partial transcript via Real Clear Politics:

SUPREME COURT ASSOCIATE JUSTICE CLARENCE THOMAS: At the beginning of the 20th century, a new set of first principles of government was introduced into the American mainstream. The proponents of this new set of first principles, most prominently among them the 28th president, Woodrow Wilson, called it progressivism. Since Wilson’s presidency, progressivism has made many inroads in our system of government and our way of life. It has coexisted uneasily with the principles of the Declaration. Because it is opposed to those principles, it is not possible for the two to coexist forever.

Progressivism was not native to America. Wilson and the progressives candidly admitted that they took it from Otto von Bismarck’s Germany, whose state-centric society they admired. Progressives like Wilson argued that America needed to leave behind the principles of the Founding and catch up with the more advanced and sophisticated people of Europe. Wilson called Germany’s system of relatively unimpeded state power “nearly perfected.” He acknowledged that it was “a foreign science, speaking very little of the language of English or American principle,” which “offers none but what are to our minds alien ideas.” He thus described America, still stuck with its original system of government, as “slow to see” the superiority of the European system.

Progressivism was the first mainstream American political movement—with the possible exception of the pro-slavery reactionaries on the eve of the Civil War—to openly oppose the principles of the Declaration. Progressives strove to undo the Declaration’s commitment to equality and natural rights, both of which they denied were self-evident. To Wilson, the inalienable rights of the individual were “a lot of nonsense.” Wilson redefined “liberty” not as a natural right antecedent to the government, but as “the right of those who are governed to adjust government to their own needs and interests.” In other words, liberty no longer preceded the government as a gift from God, but was to be enjoyed at the grace of the government. The government, as Wilson reconceived of it, would be “beneficent and indispensable.” Progressives such as John Dewey attacked the Framers for believing that “their ideas [were] immutable truths good at all times and places,” when instead they were “historically conditioned, and relevant only to their own time.” Now, Dewey and the progressives argued, those ideas were to be repealed.

Progressivism seeks to replace the basic premises of the Declaration of Independence, and hence our form of government. It holds that our rights and our dignities come not from God, but from the government. It requires of the people a subservience and weakness incompatible with a Constitution premised on the transcendent origin of our rights.

Watch the entire video, this is outstanding.

Clarence Thomas goes HAM on progressivism and it's "rejection of the Declaration's vision of universal, unalienable rights." pic.twitter.com/JznvTGerFw

— Libby Emmons (@libbyemmons) April 16, 2026

This speech should be shown in every single American school, and if we had an education system that was not run almost exclusively by people who identify as progressives, it would be.

Featured image via Twitter/X video.

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