There is no conservatism in the United States and never has been—at least, if by “conservatism” we mean what we ought to mean: the preservation of the ancien régime, a government of throne and altar, and a perpetual endowment of medieval privileges for certain families, guilds, and classes. A nation born in political revolution may not appeal to the traditions of the polis as it existed before the revolution. And like a logical argument against the force of logic—or a grammatical complaint about the oppressive structure of grammar—a conservative rebellion against rebellion would only manage to instance, again, the thing it claims to undo. If we are conserving anything in America, it is the Revolution of 1776 and the founding generation’s great experiment in freedom: an essentially anticonservative moment in human history.
(Joseph Bottum, "Social Conservatism and the New Fusionism," chap. 2 in Varieties of Conservatism in America, ed. Peter Berkowitz [Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 2004], 31-47, at 31)
Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D. 