As we launch National Review’s Spring Webathon on this sixth day of April, I could not resist looking back on this date in history to see: Was there an event that might inspire my humble request — that you show your support for conservative principles by supporting the magazine and website that are conservatism’s most articulate defenders (especially at this time when the very meaning of “conservative” is under assault)?

Alas, my little research turned up disappointments. Today, in 1453, the siege of Constantinople began. (The city would fall to massacring Muslim invaders within weeks.) And in 1793, the Committee of Public Safety took formal charge of the French Revolution’s Reign of Terror. (More massacres.)

But there is something inspiring to be found in these historical calamities: The fight for principles — the fight to define them, to refine them, to articulate them, to teach them, to defend them — must never cease and can never cease.

As we conservatives know too well, “been there, done that” is not an operating procedure that leads to success; that ensures the blessings of liberty on the current generation and bestows it upon the next. We true conservatives are in, and always will be in, a relentless and diligent fight for our principles. Outside of the Second Coming, and the uphill battle to make Andy McCarthy a Yankees fan, this is the most important long-term game there is, and we need to be in it.

Who is this “we?” It is National Review. And it is you. We care about conservative principles, enough to fight for them, tooth and nail and blood and life if need be.

Our pal, Pete Hegseth, has a new book coming out. It’s titled In the Arena, and that’s where we need to be, and that’s indeed where National Review is and has been for over 60 years. With God’s help, and yours too, we will be in the arena for another 60 years, and another 60 after that. And you’ll be right there with us. (Of course, you’ll be 150 years old . . . )

When it comes to the defining, refining, articulating, and teaching of conservative principles, no other organization, periodical, or website matches National Review’s band of brothers and sisters — smart, sharp, talented writers and essayists and wits and polemicists without whom our movement and the principles that underlie it would be gravely harmed.

You need to support the home of Hanson, Goldberg, McCarthy, Williamson, Cooke, Nordlinger, Johnson, Tuttle, Lowry, Ponnuru, Timpf, Geraghty, Charen, Alberta, French, Lopez, Sowell, Prager, Will, and so many more. A place where talented men and women come together to make a profound difference, especially in difficult times when so many have succumbed to Conviction Fatigue.

Thomas Paine may as well have been writing today, because these indeed are the times that try men’s souls. Has yours been tried? Here’s the rest of his famous statement: “The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.”

If you’re an all-weather patriot, please stand by National Review, your beliefs, and your country now, when it’s needed most. Your generous donation will keep NR in the fight on behalf of you and yours and, most important, conservative principles.

Make your contribution to support the magazine and website here.

— Jack Fowler is the publisher of National Review.