ABSTRACT
Conservatism is a body of thought that values tradition, history, and imagination. Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France is generally considered the first sustained defense of conservatism. Modern conservatism in America began shortly after the end of World War II. Conservatives confronted civil liberties questions from the beginning, and over the past half century have examined them in several areas. In the 1950s, many conservatives considered communism the greatest threat to American security. In the 1950s, many conservatives considered communism the greatest threat to American security. Conservatives opposed almost all of the actions by the courts, on the ground that the interpretation of the Constitution set out in the decisions was invalid. Specifically, many conservatives rejected what they saw as an overly individualistic reading of the Constitution, which placed sometimes ill-defined rights at the center of the text. Most conservatives grounded their belief in civil liberties to some sort of natural law.
