When historians 30 or 50 years from now look back on 2018, what will they find most noteworthy? It won’t be three government shutdowns, Michael Wolff’s Fire and Fury, or the end of the illustrious Senate career of Joe Donnelly.

We can rarely ever be sure, from the too-close perspective of the present, what events will prove most important decades from now. But we can guess. And we believe that the most significant events in the realm of politics and government this past year were those involving federal courts and freedom of conscience.