# The Sharon Statement (1960) The **founding declaration of principles** of the American conservative movement, adopted on September 11, 1960, by approximately 90 young conservatives gathered at the Sharon, Connecticut, estate of [[William F. Buckley Jr.]] for the founding conference of [[Young Americans for Freedom]]. The statement was primarily drafted by **M. Stanton Evans** (then a 26-year-old journalist and editor of the *Indianapolis News*), with significant intellectual influence from [[Frank Meyer]]'s fusionist framework. The Sharon Statement is movement conservatism's equivalent of a party platform or manifesto — a brief (~370 words), declarative statement of first principles that attempted to articulate the common ground between the traditionalist, libertarian, and anti-communist wings of the emerging coalition. It functioned for fifty years as the movement's self-definition — what conservatives agreed on, or at least what they told themselves they agreed on. ## The Text's Architecture The statement's brevity is part of its genius — it says enough to bind the coalition without saying enough to fracture it. The key declarations: **Moral order:** "That foremost among the transcendent values is the individual's use of his God-given free will, whence derives his right to be free from the restrictions of arbitrary force." This sentence performs the fusionist synthesis: it affirms transcendent values (traditionalist), individual freedom (libertarian), and links them through the concept of God-given free will (Meyer's formula that virtue must be freely chosen). **Limited government:** "That the Constitution of the United States is the best arrangement yet devised for empowering government to fulfill its proper role, while restraining it from the concentration and abuse of power." Standard conservative constitutionalism, acceptable to all three wings. **Free market:** "That the market economy, allocating resources by the free play of supply and demand, is the single economic system compatible with the requirements of personal freedom and constitutional government." Pure libertarian economics, framed as compatible with (rather than in tension with) the statement's earlier moral claims. **Anti-communism:** "That the forces of international Communism are, at present, the greatest single threat to these liberties" and "that the United States should stress victory over, rather than coexistence with, this menace." The anti-communist leg, phrased in Burnham-influenced "rollback" rather than Kennan-style containment language. ## Significance The Sharon Statement matters as a **coalition document** — a text that defined movement conservatism's self-understanding: 1. **It codified fusionism.** Meyer's formula — liberty as the precondition for virtue — appears in the statement's opening sentences. By adopting it as a founding document, YAF (and by extension the conservative movement) accepted fusionism as its operating ideology. 2. **It excluded by omission.** The statement says nothing about race, immigration, conspiracy theories, or the specific grievances of the JBS base. This silence was deliberate: by defining conservatism in terms of liberty, moral order, free markets, and anti-communism, the statement implicitly excluded Welch-style conspiracism without naming it — a quieter version of the excommunication Buckley would perform explicitly in 1962. 3. **It provided a litmus test.** For decades, the Sharon Statement functioned as a test of conservative identity — "do you agree with these principles?" was a shorthand way of asking "are you one of us?" that could include the entire fusionist coalition while excluding the conspiratorial fringe. 4. **It froze a moment.** The statement is a Cold War document. Its anti-communist framing assumed a permanent existential threat that would bind the coalition's legs together. When the Cold War ended in 1989–1991, the statement's binding agent evaporated — and the coalition it described began to fragment along exactly the lines the statement had papered over. ## Post-Cold War Obsolescence The Sharon Statement's fusionist formula — liberty + virtue + anti-communism — lost its coherence after the Cold War. Without the communist threat, the coalition's three legs had no shared enemy, and the underlying tensions (Kirk vs. Meyer, traditionalism vs. libertarianism, cultural conservatism vs. free-market globalism) resurfaced. Trump's 2016 victory rejected virtually every element of the Sharon Statement's framework: Trump was hostile to free trade, indifferent to constitutional restraint, unconcerned with moral order in the Kirk/Chambers sense, and replaced anti-communism with anti-immigration populism. The Sharon Statement survives as a historical document — the conservative movement's founding declaration — but not as a living ideology. The movement it described no longer exists in the form it described. ## See Also - [[Young Americans for Freedom]] — The organization founded at the Sharon conference - [[Frank Meyer]] — The fusionist architect whose ideas the statement codified - [[William F. Buckley Jr.]] — The host of the Sharon conference - [[Barry Goldwater]] — The presidential candidate the Sharon generation mobilized for - [[Movement Conservatism]] — The coalition the statement defined - [[National Review]] — The magazine whose intellectual framework the statement reflected