When explaining the rise of politics and American political thought the differences between classical conservatism and classical liberalism must be explained. The best way to teach these ideas to students is to first describe what they are. The students can not use these terms or apply them to anything unless they know what they mean. The first thing that the students must be taught is that the terms conservative and liberal do not mean the same thing by today’s standards as they did during the time of the Revolution.

After giving the students an introduction to the two terms I would then explain what they meant and compare them to one another. In classical liberalism the emphasis is on society. Classical liberalists want to change society and they welcome change as a good thing. On the other hand classical conservatives resist change. They believe that change is bad. If anything should be changed they believe that it is the individual person. Classical conservatives also believe that a person’s place in society is defined by birth whereas in classical liberalism what you make of your life and how much wealth you accumulate determines place in society. In classical conservatism people are born innately bad and in classical liberalism people are born nuetral. Classical conservatists are very religious and believe in the doctrine of original sin. The classical liberalist becomes more involved with the secular worldview. This means that the classical liberalist is focused with things that are happening on earth at the present moment. One of the main differences between these two is that classical conservatists believed in a strong government and the classical liberalists believed in a limited government. This is a point that should be emphasized because today’s conservatives are just the opposite. They are actually advocates of a limited government.

After these two terms have been defined I would then give the students a writing assignment to make sure that they understand the terms. I would ask the students to write on whether or not they considered themselves to be a classical liberalist or a classical conservatist and why they thought they were a classical liberal or classical conservative. This assignment would help them to decipher the difference between the two terms and it would allow me to see if I was able to get the point across to them.

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