s adams (1722–1803) · 2018. 5. 22. · 06 028-039 found2 adamss 9/13/07 11:01 am page 29. i....

Founders and the Constitution: In Their Own Words—Volume 2

Samuel Adams(1722–1803)

Of how much importance is it, that theutmost pains be taken by the public tohave the principles of virtue earlyinculcated on the minds even of children, andthe moral sense kept alive.

—Samuel Adams, 1775

IntroductionThough his name today is most often associated with a modern brand of beer, SamuelAdams was a prime actor in the American independence movement. A leader of the Patriotmovement in Boston, Adams was instrumental in convincing other colonies to joinMassachusetts in its resistance to British rule. A master propagandist and organizer, Adamsstirred the hearts of his Boston readers through his writing and sparked them to take to thestreets. A revolutionary in spirit, Adams was also an architect of government, having a rolein the writing of the Articles of Confederation and the Massachusetts Constitution of 1780.But he played no role in the Constitutional Convention of 1787, for he feared that strengtheningthe central government would result in the diminution of the people’s liberty. Adams did,however, support the Constitution after the Bill of Rights was added.

Adams was perhaps the archetype of the “old republican” of the Revolutionary era. APuritan, he believed deeply in private virtue, which he defined in the political world as self-denial for the common good. Convinced that virtue was the key to American victory overthe British, Adams advocated boycotts of British “fopperies” and “baubles,” which had thepleasant double effect of aiding Americans morally and hurting the British economically.Adams himself lived out the Puritan-republican ideal, often wearing the same rumpled suitand dilapidated powdered wig. So disheveled did he appear that anonymous friends boughthim a new suit to wear to the Continental Congress so as to not embarrass himself andMassachusetts. John Adams described his second cousin as a man who had “the most thoroughunderstanding of liberty.” Though Adams’s vision of a nation of ascetic, self-sacrificingrepublican citizens was slipping away even before he died, his legacy of Americanindependence and liberty would endure.

Relevant Thematic Essays for Samuel Adams• Liberty• Republican Government

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In His Own Words:Samuel Adams

AND RESISTANCE TO TYRANNY

Samuel Adams

StandardsCCE (9–12): IIA1, IIC1, IIIA1, IIIA2NCHS (5–12): Era III, Standards 3A, 3BNCSS: Strands 2, 5, 6, and 10

MaterialsStudent Handouts

• Handout A—Samuel Adams(1722–1803)

• Handout B—Vocabulary andContext Questions

• Handout C—In His Own Words:Samuel Adams and Resistance toTyranny

• Loaded word/phrases cardsAdditional Teacher Resource

• Answer Key

Recommended TimeOne 45-minute class period.Additional time as needed forhomework.

OverviewIn this lesson, students will learn about Samuel Adams.They should first read as background homeworkHandout A—Samuel Adams (1722–1803) and answerthe Reading Comprehension Questions. Afterdiscussing the answers in class, the teacher should havestudents answer the Critical Thinking Questions as aclass. Next, the teacher should introduce the primarysource activity, Handout C—In His Own Words:Samuel Adams and Resistance to Tyranny in whichAdams calls his fellow colonists to unify against Britishtyranny. As a preface, there is Handout B—Vocabularyand Context Questions, which will help the studentsunderstand the document.

There are Follow-Up Homework Options, whichask students to write their own “Circular Letters,” orreflect further on Adams’s opinions on self-denial for thepublic good. Extensions asks students to read persuasivespeeches from various historical periods and comparethe rhetorical strategies they find to those used by Adams.

ObjectivesStudents will:

• appreciate Adams’s role as a leader in theAmerican opposition to British tyranny.

• understand Adams’s hopes for the new Americangovernment.

• identify rhetorical strategies and their goals.• compare historical methods of persuasion to

modern examples.• analyze Adams’s methods of persuasion for the

Revolutionary cause.


I. Background HomeworkAsk students to read Handout A—Samuel Adams (1722–1803) and answer theReading Comprehension Questions.

II. Warm-Up [10 minutes]A. Review answers to homework questions.B. Conduct a whole-class discussion to answer the Critical Thinking Questions.C. Ask a student to summarize the historical significance of Samuel Adams.

Samuel Adams could be called the “Father of the American Revolution.” He formedthe Sons of Liberty, organized the Boston Tea Party, and mobilized independenceefforts in Massachusetts and other colonies. He signed the Declaration of Independence,helped write the Articles of Confederation, and served as governor of Massachusetts.

III. Context [5 minutes]Explain to students that the British had imposed the Coercive Acts as punishment forthe colonists’ actions at the Boston Tea Party—which Samuel Adams had instigated.Adams countered with a letter to all the American colonies, calling for unity against theBritish.

IV. In His Own Words [20 minutes]A. Before class, copy and cut out enough of the loaded word/phrases cards so that

there are approximately double the number of cards as students in the class.B. Divide students into groups of four and give each group eight “loaded word” cards

and a dictionary.C. Ask students to define the terms and then put the words into categories based on

their intended effect on the audience. Students should decide on their owncategories by discussing how each term or phrase makes them feel.

Suggested categories: Designed to provoke anger; to elicit sympathy; to produceindignation; to motivate action; to create feelings of unity and solidarity.

D. When students have finished, ask a spokesperson from each group to report theirwords and categories to the class. Write the chosen categories on the board.

E. Distribute Handout B—Vocabulary and Context Questions and Handout C—InHis Own Words: Samuel Adams and Resistance to Tyranny.

F. Still working in their groups, have students read Handout C and completeHandout B.

G. Once everyone has finished, ask students to underline examples of individualword choices and phrases Adams uses to rouse his audience’s emotions.

H. Put a transparency of Handout C on the overhead, and have each group in turnreport one example of emotionally charged speech. Underline the example on theoverhead for the class.

I. Continue with all groups until all examples have been reported.

LESSON PLAN



V. Wrap-Up Discussion [10 minutes]Reconvene the class and ask students if they believe Adams’s writing achieved his goalof stirring his audience’s emotions. (Compare to the student-chosen categories writtenon the board from the activity.) Why or why not? Ask the class to brainstorm instancesin their own lives in which they could encounter emotionally charged rhetoric. Is itimportant to be aware of the techniques speakers and writers use?

Suggested examples of emotionally charged speech: Announcers talking before a sportingevent; politicians on the campaign trail; lawmakers convincing citizens of the need for acertain policy; activists protesting a law or an organization; union members calling for a strike;friends imposing peer pressure to those who do not want to follow the crowd.

VI. Follow-Up Homework OptionsA. Have students choose a topic that is important to them and write their own

“Circular Letter” to spur others to action, using at least four of the loaded words andphrases from the class activity. They should underline the other terms andtechniques they use specifically to arouse emotion.

B. Samuel Adams was a strong advocate of private virtue and self-denial for thecommon good. Have students keep a journal for twenty-four hours, making note ofeach time they deny themselves an immediate desire for the sake of others. Havethem address their findings in a personal narrative, in which they also address thequestion: Do you believe our society encourages self-denial for the common good?Why or why not?

VII. ExtensionsHave students read at least two famous speeches from various periods of Americanhistory: students may choose Patrick Henry’s “Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death”speech to the citizens of Virginia; Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech;Ronald Reagan’s “Tear Down This Wall” speech, or others of similar caliber. Whatrhetorical strategies are used most often? How have these techniques to arouseemotion changed, and how have they remained the same? Speeches can be found usingthe links below.

Patrick Henry .Martin Luther King, Jr. .Ronald Reagan .

Samuel Adams

LESSON PLAN


ResourcesPrintAlexander, John K. Samuel Adams: America’s Revolutionary Politician. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002.Beach, Stewart. Samuel Adams: The Fateful Years, 1764–1776. New York: Dodd & Mead, 1965.Cushing, Harry Alonzo. The Writings of Samuel Adams. New York: The Free Press, 2003.Maier, Pauline. The Old Revolutionaries: Political Lives in the Age of Samuel Adams. Reprint. New York: W.W.

Norton, 1990.Miller, John C. Sam Adams: Pioneer in Propaganda. Reprint. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 1994.

Internet“Circular Letter of the Boston Committee of Correspondence, May 13, 1774.”The Avalon Project at Yale University.

.“Samuel Adams, 1722–1803.” USHistory.org. .“Resolutions of the Boston Town Meeting; September 13, 1768.” The Avalon Project at Yale University.

.“Speech Delivered at the State House in Philadelphia, August 1, 1776.” Boston History and Architecture.

.“The Rights of the Colonists.” Constitution.org. .

Selected Works by Samuel Adams• Massachusetts Circular Letter (1768)• Resolutions of the Boston Town Meeting (1768)• The Rights of the Colonists (1772)• Circular Letter of the Boston Committee of Correspondence (1774)

LESSON PLAN



The country shall be independent, and we will be satisfied with nothing short of it.

—Samuel Adams, 1774

The sharp knock on the door startled Samuel Adams. Huddled over hisdesk, attired in a worn shirt, he was composing yet another article forthe Boston Gazette about the plan of the British government to reducehis fellow American colonists to slavery. As he tried to ignore thedisturbance and finish the sentence on which he was working, asecond knock, more insistent and louder, echoed through his house.Grumbling, Adams put his pen down and walked to the front door.Upon opening it, he recognized a local merchant, who held a brand-new gentleman’s suit made of fine silk and red in color.

Adams, knowing that he had not purchased such an item, lookedcuriously at the man. The merchant informed Adams that the suit was ananonymous gift, purchased by Adams’s friends. They hoped that the greatPatriot leader, who considered luxuries like fine clothes un-republican, wouldwear the suit to the Continental Congress, to which Adams had recently beenelected. The clothier handed the suit to the surprised Adams, who absent-mindedly shutthe door and stood there stunned, staring at the splendid suit, which seemed so out ofplace in his modest home.

BackgroundSamuel Adams was born on September 22, 1722, in Quincy, Massachusetts. He enteredHarvard College at the age of fourteen. After graduating from Harvard, he began tostudy law but soon turned to a career in business instead. When Adams’s father died in1748, he took over the family brewery. But Adams was a poor manager, and the brewerywent bankrupt. Adams next took a job as a colonial tax collector, but he failed in thisposition too.

The Rights of the ColonistsDuring the 1760s, Adams became a leader of the Patriot resistance to the Britishgovernment’s attempt to tax the American colonies. With John Hancock and James Otis,Adams organized the Sons of Liberty. This group worked to oppose the new taxes enactedby the royal governor of Massachusetts, Thomas Hutchinson. The Sons of Liberty tookthe lead in opposing the Stamp Act of 1765 and the Townshend Duties of 1767. SoonAdams had become famous throughout the colony and beyond.

In defending the liberty of his fellow colonists, Adams appealed to both natural andEnglish rights. In 1768, Adams authored “Resolutions of the Boston Town Meeting.” Inthis document, he argued that the law of nature dictated that “no law of the society canbe binding on any individual without his consent, given by himself in person, or by hisrepresentative of his own free election.” The colonists of Massachusetts, Adams held,were not represented in Parliament. Therefore, the British government could not taxthem. Adams also argued that the colonists by English law were entitled to “all libertiesand immunities of free and natural subjects” of England. Adams’s arguments helpedspark the rallying cry of “No taxation without representation.”

Samuel Adams

SAMUEL ADAMS (1722–1803)

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In 1772, Adams composed a pamphlet entitled “The Rights of the Colonists.” In thisessay, Adams again appealed to the idea of natural rights. Adams claimed that theAmerican colonists were “entitled, to all the natural, essential, inherent, and inseparablerights, liberties, and privileges of subjects born in Great Britain.” Though Adams did notgo so far as to call for American independence outright, he asked frankly,“how long suchtreatment will or ought to be borne.”

The RebelIn 1772, Samuel Adams helped to organize Committees of Correspondence acrossMassachusetts. These formed a network that coordinated resistance to British rule. Thefollowing year, Adams obtained letters written by Governor Hutchinson that asked theBritish government to crack down on the American resistance. Adams published theletters. The governor was furious.

When Parliament passed the Tea Act in 1773, which lowered the price of British tea,thereby undercutting American merchants and smugglers, Adams organized the BostonTea Party. This was a nighttime raid in which some one hundred fifty members of theSons of Liberty, disguised as Native Americans, boarded a docked merchant ship andthrew three hundred forty-two chests of British tea into Boston harbor. The water in theharbor was brown for days afterward.

In response to the Boston Tea Party, the British Parliament passed the Coercive Actsas punishment for the action of the Bostonians. Adams countered with a letter in whichhe called for Americans to unite “in opposition to this violation of the liberties of all.”

The Call for IndependenceHutchinson was recalled to England in 1774. General Thomas Gage became governor ofMassachusetts. Gage offered pardons to all members of the American resistance inBoston, except Adams and Hancock. In 1775, Adams and Hancock narrowly escapedarrest, and certain trial for treason, as British troops marched to Lexington.

Adams was elected to the Continental Congress in 1774. In that body he became achampion of American independence. “I am perfectly satisfied,” he wrote in April of1776, “of the necessity of a public and explicit declaration of independence.” In a speechto the Congress after independence was declared, Adams expressed his hope that thecountry would forever be an “asylum on earth for civil and religious liberty” and “nevercease to be free and independent.” Adams proudly affixed his name to Congress’Declaration of Independence.

Service to State and NationAdams served on the committee that drafted the new Massachusetts Constitution of1780. As a member of the Continental Congress, he also helped write and signed theArticles of Confederation.

Adams did not attend the Constitutional Convention of 1787. He rejected thepurpose of the Convention, which was to strengthen the central government. Adamsfeared that a stronger government would infringe on the people’s liberty.

Though he attended the Massachusetts ratification convention in 1788, Adams tooklittle part in the debates. His silence could be attributed to the grief he felt at the deathof his son that year. He also felt little sympathy for either of the two parties in the


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contest, the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists. Adams eventually supported theConstitution after the Bill of Rights was added.

Adams served as lieutenant governor of Massachusetts from 1789 to 1793. He thensucceeded his friend Hancock as governor of the state. In 1797, Adams retired to hishome. As the eighteenth century came to a close, he worried that the old republicanspirit of virtuous self-sacrifice for the common good was passing away and that thefederal government was growing too strong. Adams, one of the last of the “old republicans,”died on October 2, 1803.

Samuel Adams

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Reading Comprehension Questions1. What careers did Adams pursue before entering politics?

2. What arguments did Adams use to defend the rights of Americans?

3. What important American Founding documents did Adams sign and/or havea role in creating?

Critical Thinking Questions4. What kind of nation did Adams hope that America would become?

5. George Washington is called “The Father of Our Country,” James Madison iscalled “The Father of the Constitution,” George Mason is called “The Fatherof the Bill of Rights.” Why could Samuel Adams be called “The Father of theAmerican Revolution”?


The Circular Letter of the Boston Committee of Correspondence (1774)

1. Vocabulary: Use context clues to determine the meaning or significance of each ofthese words and write their definitions:

a. ignominious

b. inimical

c. subsistence

d. hitherto

e. barbarous

f. infamous

g. approbation

h. effectually

2. Context: Answer the following questions.

a. Who wrote this document?

b. When was this document written?

c. What type of document is this?

d. What were the two purposes of this document?


VOCABULARY AND CONTEXT QUESTIONS

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The Circular Letter of the Boston Committee of Correspondence (1774)

Directions: As you read Adams’s letter, underline words and phrases he uses which aredesigned to rouse his audience’s emotions.

We have just received the copy of an Act of the British Parliament passed in the presentsession whereby the town of Boston is treated in a manner the most ignominious, cruel,and unjust. The Parliament have taken upon them, from the representations of ourgovernor and other persons inimical to and deeply prejudiced against the inhabitants, totry, condemn, and by an Act to punish them, unheard; which would have been inviolation of natural justice even if they had an acknowledged jurisdiction. They haveordered our port to be entirely shut up, leaving us barely so much of the means ofsubsistence as to keep us from perishing with cold and hunger; and it is said that [a] fleetof British ships of war is to block up our harbour until we shall make restitution to theEast India Company for the loss of their tea, which was destroyed therein the winterpast, obedience is paid to the laws and authority of Great Britain, and the revenue is dulycollected. This Act fills the inhabitants with indignation. The more thinking part ofthose who have hitherto been in favour of the measures of the British government lookupon it as not to have been expected even from a barbarous state. This attack, thoughmade immediately upon us, is doubtless designed for every other colony who will notsurrender their sacred rights and liberties into the hands of an infamous ministry. Nowtherefore is the time when all should be united in opposition to this violation of theliberties of all. Their grand object is to divide the colonies. We are well informed thatanother bill is to be brought into Parliament to distinguish this from the other coloniesby repealing some of the Acts which have been complained of and ease the Americantrade; but be assured, you will be called upon to surrender your rights if ever they shouldsucceed in their attempts to suppress the spirit of liberty here. The single question thenis, whether you consider Boston as now suffering in the common cause, and sensibly feeland resent the injury and affront offered to here. If you do (and we cannot believeotherwise), may we not from your approbation of our former conduct in defense ofAmerican liberty, rely on your suspending your trade with Great Britain at least, whichit is acknowledged, will be a great but necessary sacrifice to the cause of liberty and willeffectually defeat the design of this act of revenge. If this should be done, you will pleaseto consider it will be, though a voluntary suffering, greatly short of what we are called toendure under the immediate hand of tyranny.

We desire your answer by the bearer; and after assuring you that, not in the leastintimidated by this inhumane treatment, we are still determined to maintain to theutmost of our abilities the rights of America, we are, gentlemen, Your friends and fellowcountrymen.

Source: “The Circular Letter of the Boston Committee of Correspondence (1774).” The Avalon Project at YaleLaw School. .

Samuel Adams

IN HIS OWN WORDS: SAMUEL ADAMS AND RESISTANCE TO TYRANNY

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Samuel Adams

SAMUEL ADAMS:“LOADED WORDS AND PHRASES” CARDS

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Ignominious Cruel

Unjust Affront

Subsistence Barbarous



SAMUEL ADAMS:“LOADED WORDS AND PHRASES” CARDS

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“Suppress the spirit of liberty”

“Common Cause”

“Great but necessary sacrifice”

“Natural justice”

“Perishing with cold

and hunger”

“Hand of tyranny”


Liberty was the central political principle of theAmerican Revolution. As Patrick Henry, one of itsstaunchest supporters, famously intoned, “Give meliberty or give me death.” Henry was not alone in his rhetorical fervor. Indeed, no ideal wasproclaimed more often in the eighteenth-centuryAnglo-American world than liberty.

The idea of liberty defendedby the American Founders camefrom several sources. The mostvenerable was English commonlaw. Beginning in the latemedieval period, writers in thecommon law tradition developedan understanding of libertywhich held that English subjectswere free because they livedunder a system of laws whicheven the Crown was bound torespect. Leading English juristsargued that these legal limits onroyal power protected thesubject’s liberty by limiting the arbitrary use ofpolitical power.

Under English common law, liberty alsoconsisted in the subject enjoying certain fundamentalrights to life, liberty and property. William Blackstone(1723–1780), the leading common lawyer of theeighteenth century, argued that these rights allowedan English subject to be the “entire master of hisown conduct, except in those points wherein thepublic good requires some direction or restraint . . .”For Blackstone, these English rights further protectedthe subjects’ liberty by making them secure in theirpersons from arbitrary search and seizure, and byensuring that their property could not be takenfrom them without due process of law.

In order to preserve these fundamental rights,the English common law allowed the subject theright to consent to the laws that bound him byelecting representatives to Parliament whose consentthe monarch had to obtain before acting.

Common lawyers in the seventeenth andeighteenth centuries did not view these rights andthe liberty they protected as the gift or grant of themonarch; rather, they believed that they were anEnglishmen’s “birthright,” something that inheredin each subject and that therefore could not betaken away by royal prerogative.

This common law understanding of libertywas central to the seventeenth-century strugglesagainst the Stuart monarchy. Prominent jurists andParliamentarians such as Edward Coke (1552–1634)took the lead in the attempt to limit what they sawas the illegal and arbitrary nature of the Stuarts’ rule.This struggle culminated in the Glorious Revolution

of 1689 and the triumph ofParliamentary authority over theCrown. For champions of Englishliberty, the result of this century-long struggle was the achievementof political liberty. They furtherargued that, as a result of thisstruggle, Britain in the eighteenthcentury had the freest constitutionin the world. According to theFrench writer Montesquieu(1689–1755), Britain was “theonly nation in the world, wherepolitical and civil liberty” was “thedirect end of the constitution.”

This seventeenth century struggle betweenroyal power and the subject’s liberties made a greatimpression on the American Founders. Theyabsorbed its lessons about the nature and importanceof liberty through their reading of English historyas well as through their instruction in English law.

A second and equally influential understandingof liberty was also forged in the constitutionalbattles of the seventeenth century: the idea thatliberty was a natural right pertaining to all. Theforemost exponent of this understanding of libertyin the English-speaking world was John Locke(1632–1704). Locke’s political ideas were part of awider European political and legal movement whichargued that there were certain rights that all menwere entitled to irrespective of social class or creed.

Like the common lawyers, Locke saw liberty ascentrally about the enjoyment of certain rights.However, he universalized the older Englishunderstanding of liberty, arguing that it applied toall persons, and not just to English subjects. Lockealso expanded the contemporary understanding ofliberty by arguing that it included other rights—in particular a right to religious toleration (orliberty of conscience), as well as a right to resistgovernments that violated liberty. In addition,Locke argued that the traditional English common

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law right to property was also a natural right, andwas an important part of the subject’s liberty.

Locke began his political theory by arguing thatliberty was the natural state of mankind. Accordingto Locke, all men are “naturally” in a “State ofperfect Freedom to order” their “Actions, anddispose of their Possessions, and Persons as theythink fit, within the bounds of the Law of Nature,without asking leave, or depending upon the Willof any other Man.”

However, Locke did not argue that this naturalliberty was a license to do whatever we want.“Freedom is not,” he argued,“A Liberty for every Man todo what he lists (For whocould be free, when everyother Man’s humour mightdomineer over him?).”Rather, Locke held that sinceall men are “equal andindependent, no one oughtto harm another in his Life, health, Liberty, orPossessions.” According to Locke, each of us has“an uncontroulable Liberty to dispose of ourpersons and possession,” but we do not have theright to interfere with the equal liberty of others todo the same.

In Locke’s political theory, men enter intosociety and form governments to better preservethis natural liberty. When they do so, they create apolitical system where the natural law limits onliberty in the state of nature are translated into alegal regime of rights. In such a system, Lockeargued, each person retains his “Liberty to dispose,and order, as he lists, his Person, Actions,Possession, and his whole Property, within theAllowance of those Laws under which he is; andtherein not to be subject to the arbitrary Will ofanother, but freely follow his own.”

For Locke, as for the common lawyers, the ruleof law was necessary for liberty. In Locke’s view,“the end of law is not to abolish or restrain, but topreserve and enlarge Freedom.” According to Locke,“Where there is no Law, there is no Freedom. ForLiberty is to be free from restraint and violence fromothers which cannot be, where there is no law.”

Building on both the English common law andon Locke’s ideas, the eighteenth-century Englishwriter Cato argued “that liberty is the unalienableright of mankind.” It is “the power which everyMan has over his own Actions, and his Right toenjoy the Fruit of his Labour, Art, and Industry, asfar as by it he hurts not the Society, or anymembers of it, by taking from any Member or by

hindering him from enjoying what he himselfenjoys.” Cato was the pseudonym for two Britishwriters, John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon.Their co-authored Cato’s Letters (1720–1723) werewidely read in the American colonies.

On the eve of the American Revolution, then,the received understanding of liberty in the Anglo-American world was a powerful amalgam of boththe English common law and the liberal ideas ofwriters like Locke and Cato. On this view, libertymeant being able to act freely, secure in your basicrights, unhindered by the coercive actions of others,

and subject only to thelimitation of such laws as youhave consented to. Central tothis idea of liberty was theright to hold property and tohave it secure from arbitraryseizure. In addition, under theinfluence of Locke, liberty wasincreasingly being seen on

both sides of the Atlantic as a universal right, onenot limited to English subjects. Equally influentialwas Locke’s argument that if a government violatedits citizens’ liberty the people could resist thegovernment’s edicts and create a new politicalauthority. However, despite the gains that had beenmade since the seventeenth century, manyEnglishmen in the eighteenth century still worriedthat liberty was fragile and would always beendangered by the ambitions of powerful men.

Since the first settlements were established in the early seventeenth century, the Americancolonists shared in this English understanding ofliberty. In particular, they believed that they hadtaken their English rights with them when theycrossed the Atlantic. It was on the basis of theserights that they made a case for their freedom ascolonists under the Crown. In addition, in theeighteenth century, the colonists were increasinglyinfluenced by the Lockean idea that liberty was anatural right. As a result, when they were confrontedwith the policies of the British Crown and Parliamentin the 1760s and 1770s to tax and legislate for themwithout their consent, the colonists viewed them asan attack on their liberty.

In response, the colonists argued that theseBritish taxes and regulations were illegal because theyviolated fundamental rights. They were particularlyresistant to the claims of the British Parliament, asexpressed in the Declaratory Act of 1766, to legislatefor the colonies “in all cases whatsoever.” By 1774,following the Boston Tea Party organized by SamuelAdams and John Hancock, and the subsequent


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No ideal was proclaimed more often in the eighteenth-century

Anglo-American world than liberty.


Coercive Acts, many leading colonists such asThomas Paine and James Otis argued that they hada natural right to govern themselves, and that sucha right was the only protection for their liberty. Inaddition to several essays in defense of rights,including Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania,John Dickinson wrote the first patriotic song, “TheLiberty Song.”

This colonial thinking about liberty and rightsculminated in the Declaration of Independenceissued by the Continental Congress in 1776, whichproclaimed that, because their liberty wasendangered, the colonists had a natural right toresist the English King and Parliament.

Having made a revolution in the name of liberty,the American challenge was to create a form ofgovernment that preserved liberty better than thevaunted British constitution had done. In doing so,the founders turned to the ancient ideal of republicanself-government, arguing that it alone could preservethe people’s liberty. They further argued that themodern understanding of liberty as the possession ofrights needed to be a central part of any properrepublican government. Beginning in 1776, in themidst of the Revolutionary War, all of the formercolonies began to construct republican governmentswhich rested on the people’s consent and whichincluded bills of rights to protect the people’s liberty.

Since there was widespread consensus amongthe Founders that liberty required the protection ofrights and the rule of law, much of the politicaldebate in the crucial decades following the AmericanRevolution revolved around the question of whichinstitutional arrangements best supported liberty.Was liberty best protected by strong stategovernments jealously guarding the people’s libertiesfrom excessive federal authority, as leading Anti-Federalists like George Mason contended; or, wasan extended federal republic best able to preservethe freedom of all, as leading Federalists like JamesMadison and Alexander Hamilton argued?

The era of the American Revolution also gavebirth to a further series of important debates aboutliberty. Was slavery, as some Americans in theeighteenth century were beginning to recognize, anunjust infringement upon the liberty of AfricanAmericans? Were women, long deprived of basiclegal rights, also entitled to have equal liberty withtheir male fellow citizens? By making a Revolutionin its name, the Founders ensured that debatesabout the nature and extent of liberty wouldremain at the center of the American experimentin self-government.

Craig Yirush, Ph.D.University of California, Los Angeles

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Suggestions for Further ReadingBailyn, Bernard. The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1967.Kammen, Michael. Spheres of Liberty: Changing Perceptions of Liberty in American Culture. Madison:

University of Wisconsin Press, 1986.Reid, John Phillip. The Concept of Liberty in the Age of the American Revolution. Chicago: University of

Chicago Press, 1988.Skinner, Quentin. Liberty Before Liberalism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.Wood, Gordon. The Creation of the American Republic, 1776–1787. Chapel Hill: University of North

Carolina Press, 1969.


As Benjamin Franklin left Philadelphia’s ConventionHall in September 1787, upon the completion of thework of the Framers of the Constitution, a womanapproached him and asked the old sage of theRevolution what the delegates had created. Franklinresponded, “A republic, Madame, if you can keepit.” The woman’s reaction to Franklin’s reply is left unrecorded by history,but she might well haveasked Franklin for a moredetailed answer. Thoughthe word “republic” wascommon currency inAmerica at the time, themeaning of the term wasimprecise, encompassingvarious and diverse formsof government.

Broadly, a republicmeant a country not governed by a king. The rootof the word is the Latin, res publica, meaning “thepublic things.” “The word republic,” Thomas Painewrote, “means the public good, or the good of thewhole, in contradistinction to the despotic form,which makes the good of the sovereign, or of oneman, the only object of the government.” In arepublic, the people are sovereign, delegatingcertain powers to the government whose duty is tolook to the general welfare of society. That citizensof a republic ought to place the common goodbefore individual self-interest was a key assumptionamong Americans of the eighteenth century.“Every man in a republic,” proclaimed BenjaminRush, “is public property. His time and talents—his youth—his manhood—his old age, nay more,life, all belong to his country.”

Republicanism was not an American invention.In shaping their governments, Americans looked tohistory, first to the ancient world, and specifically tothe Israel of the Old Testament, the Roman republic,and the Greek city-states. New Englanders inparticular often cited the ancient state of Israel as theworld’s first experiment in republican governmentand sometimes drew a parallel between the TwelveTribes of Israel and the thirteen American states. In1788, while ratification of the Constitution wasbeing debated, one Yankee preacher gave a sermonentitled,“The Republic of the Israelites an Example

to the American States.” Indeed, the Bible was citedby American authors in the eighteenth centurymore often than any other single source.

Americans not only knew their Bible, but alsothe history of the Greeks and Romans. The eliteclass mastered ancient languages and literature, arequirement of colleges at the time. To these men

of the eighteenth century,ancient languages were notdead, nor were ancientevents distant; rather,the worlds of Pericles and Polybius, Sallust andCicero were vibrant and near. The relativelyminor advancements intechnology across 2,000years—people still traveledby horse and sailing ship—

served to reinforce the bond eighteenth-centuryAmericans felt with the ancients.

Like the Greeks and Romans of antiquity,Americans believed that government must concernitself with the character of its citizenry. Indeed,virtue was “the Soul of a republican Government,”as Samuel Adams put it. Virtue had twoconnotations, one secular and the other sacred.The root of the word was the Latin, vir, meaning“man,” and indeed republican virtue often referredto the display of such “manly” traits as courage andself-sacrifice for the common good. These qualitieswere deemed essential for a republic’s survival. “Apopular government,” Patrick Henry proclaimed,“cannot flourish without virtue in the people.” Butvirtue could also mean the traditional Judeo-Christian virtues, and many Americans feared thatGod would punish the entire nation for the sins ofits people. “Without morals,” Charles Carrollproclaimed, “a republic cannot subsist any lengthof time.” New Englanders in particular sought tohave society’s institutions—government andschools as well as churches—inculcate such qualitiesas industry, frugality, temperance, and chastity inthe citizenry. The Massachusetts Constitution of1780, for example, provided for “public instructionsin piety, religion, and morality.”

The second ingredient of a good republic was awell-constructed government with good institutions.

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“If the foundation is badly laid,” George Washingtonsaid of the American government,“the superstructuremust be bad.” Americans adhered to a modifiedversion of the idea of “mixed”government, advocatedby the Greek thinker Polybius and later republicantheorists. A mixed republic combined the threebasic parts of society—monarchy (the one ruler),aristocracy (the rich few), and democracy (thepeople)—in a proper formula so that no one partcould tyrannize the others. But Americans believedthat the people of a republic were sovereign, so theysought to create institutions that approximated themonarchical and aristocraticelements of society. TheFramers of the Constitutiondid just this by fashioning asingle executive and a Senateonce removed from thepeople. The problem, as JohnAdams pointed out in hisThoughts on Government, wasthat “the possible combinations of the powers ofsociety are capable of innumerable variations.”

Americans had every reason to be pessimisticabout their experiment in republicanism. Historytaught that republics were inherently unstable andvulnerable to decay. The Roman republic and thecity-state of Athens, for instance, had succumbed tothe temptations of empire and lost their liberty. Thehistories of the Florentine and Venetian republicsof Renaissance Italy too had been glorious but short-lived. Theorists from the ancient Greek thinkerPolybius to the seventeenth-century English radicalAlgernon Sidney warned that republics suffer fromparticular dangers that monarchies and despotismsdo not. Republics were assumed to burn brightlybut briefly because of their inherent instability.One element of society always usurped power andestablished a tyranny.

The great danger to republics, it was generallybelieved, stemmed from corruption, which, likevirtue, had both a religious and a worldly meaning.Corruption referred, first, to the prevalence ofimmorality among the people. “Liberty,” SamuelAdams asserted, “will not long survive the totalExtinction of Morals.”

“If the Morals of the people” were neglected,Elbridge Gerry cautioned during the crisis withEngland, American independence would notproduce liberty but “a Slavery, far exceeding that ofevery other Nation.”

This kind of corruption most often resultedfrom avarice, the greed for material wealth. SeveralAmerican colonial legislatures therefore passed

sumptuary laws, which prohibited ostentatiousdisplays of wealth. “Luxury . . . leads tocorruption,” a South Carolinian declared duringthe Revolutionary era, “and whoever encouragesgreat luxury in a free state must be a bad citizen.”Another writer warned of the “ill effect ofsuperfluous riches” on republican society. Avaricewas seen as a “feminine” weakness; the lust forwealth rotted away “masculine” virtues. JohnAdams bemoaned “vanities, levities, and fopperies,which are real antidotes to all great, manly, andwarlike virtues.”

The second meaning ofcorruption referred toplacing private interest abovethe common good. Thistemptation plagued publicofficials most of all, who hadample opportunity tomisappropriate public fundsand to expand their power.

“Government was instituted for the general good,”Charles Carroll wrote,“but officers instrusted with itspowers have most commonly perverted them to theselfish views of avarice and ambition.” Increasinglyin the eighteenth century, Americans came to seegovernment itself as the primary source of corruption.

Fear of government’s tendency to expand itspower at the expense of the people’s liberty waspart of Americans’ English political heritage. Theyimbibed the writings of late-seventeenth-centuryEnglish radicals and eighteenth-century “country”politicians who were suspicious of the power of British officials (the “court”). Governmentcorruption was manifested in patronage (theawarding of political office to friends), faction (theformation of parties whose interests were opposed tothe common good), standing (permanent) armies,established churches, and the promotion of an eliteclass. Power, these country writers argued, waspossessed by the government; it was aggressive andexpansionist. Liberty was the property of thegoverned; it was sacred and delicate. The history ofliberty in the world was a history of defeat by theforces of tyranny.

Though the history of republicanism was adismal one, the lessons of history as well as theirown colonial experience convinced the AmericanFounders that they possessed sufficient informationon which to base a new science of politics.“Experience must be our only guide,”John Dickinsonproclaimed at the Philadelphia Convention; “reasonmay mislead us.” The Framers of the United StatesConstitution all had experience as public servants,


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Fear of government’s tendency to expand its power at the expense of thepeople’s liberty was part of Americans’

English political heritage.


and it must be remembered that the documentthey produced did not spring forth as somethingentirely new in the American experience. Rather,the Founders had learned much from the operationof their colonial charters, state constitutions, andthe Articles of Confederation.

At Philadelphia, the Founders focused on theproper construction of the machinery of governmentas the key to the building of a stable republic. TheConstitution makes no mention of the need for virtueamong the people, nor does it make broad appealsfor self-sacrifice on behalf of the common good. It isa hard-headed documentforged by practical men whohad too often witnessedavarice and ambition amongtheir peers in the statehouse, the courtroom, andthe counting house. A goodconstitution, the Foundersheld, was the key to goodgovernment. Corruption and decay could beovercome primarily through the creation of a writtenconstitution—something England lacked—thatcarefully detailed a system in which powers wereseparated and set in opposition to each other sothat none could dominate the others.

James Madison, often called “The Father of theConstitution” because of the great influence of hisideas at Philadelphia, proposed to arrange themachinery of government in such a fashion as notto make virtue or “better motives” critical to theadvancement of the common good. Acknowledgingin The Federalist Papers that “enlightened statesmenwill not always be at the helm,” Madison believedthat the separate powers of government—legislative,executive, and judicial—must be set in oppositionto one another, so that “ambition must be made tocounteract ambition.”

“In framing a government which is to beadministered by men over men,” Madison asserted,“the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enablethe government to control the governed; and in thenext place oblige it to control itself.”

James Wilson, representing Pennsylvania atthe Philadelphia Convention, declared that theConstitution’s separation of powers and checksand balances made “it advantageous even for badmen to act for the public good.” This is not to saythat the delegates believed that the republic couldsurvive if corruption vanquished virtue in society.Madison himself emphasized the importance ofrepublican virtue when defending the newgovernment in The Federalist Papers. But the Framers

agreed with Madison that men were not angels, andmost were satisfied that the Constitution, as GeorgeWashington put it,“is provided with more checks andbarriers against the introduction of Tyranny . . . thanany Government hitherto instituted among mortals.”

The question remained, however, whether onepart of society would come to dominate. No matterhow perfect the design, the danger remained that afaction would amass enough political power to takeaway the liberty of others. To combat this problem,classical republican theory called for creating auniformity of opinion among the republican

citizenry so that factionscould not develop. Theancient Greek city-states, forexample, feared anythingthat caused differentiationamong citizens, includingcommerce, which tended tocreate inequalities of wealthand opposing interests. In

contrast, Madison and the Founders recognizedthat factionalism would be inherent in a commercialrepublic that protected freedom of religion, speech,press, and assembly. They sought only to mediatethe deleterious effects of faction.

Republics also were traditionally thought to bedurable only when a small amount of territory wasinvolved. The Greek city-states, the Roman republic,the Italian republics, and the American states allencompassed relatively small areas. When the Romanrepublic expanded in its quest for empire, tyrannywas the result. Madison turned this traditionalthinking on its head in The Federalist Papers, arguingthat a large republic was more conducive to libertybecause it encompassed so many interests that nosingle one, or combination of several, could gaincontrol of the government.

Not all Americans accepted the Madisoniansolution. Agrarians, such as Thomas Jefferson, wereuncomfortable with the idea of a commercial republiccentered on industry and sought to perpetuate anation of independent farmers through the expansionof the frontier. Though uneasy about the “energeticgovernment” created by the Constitution, Jeffersonendorsed the Framers’ work after a bill of rightswas added to the document. “Old republicans” likeSamuel Adams and George Mason opposed theConstitution, even after the addition of a bill ofrights, fearing that the power granted to the centralgovernment was too great and wistfully looking backto the Revolutionary era when virtue, not ambition,was the animating principle of government. But in1789, as the new government went into operation,

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[The Constitution] is a hard-headeddocument forged by practical men whohad too often witnessed avarice and

ambition among their peers.


most Americans shared the optimism of BenjaminFranklin, who had decided at the conclusion of thePhiladelphia Convention that the sun carved intothe back of the chair used by George Washingtonwas a rising—not a setting—sun, and therebyindicative of the bright prospects of the nation.

“We have it in our power to begin the worldover again,” Thomas Paine had written in 1776,during the heady days of American independence.And indeed the American Founders in 1787 werekeenly aware that they possessed a rare opportunity.

Like the legendary Lycurgus of Ancient Greece,they were to be the supreme lawgivers of a newrepublic, a novus ordo seclorum or new order of theages. The American Founders were aware that theeyes of the world and future generations were uponthem, and they were determined to build an eternalrepublic founded in liberty, a shining city upon ahill, as an example to all nations for all time.

Stephen M. Klugewicz, Ph.D.Consulting Scholar, Bill of Rights Institute


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Suggestions for Further ReadingAdair, Douglass. Fame and the Founding Fathers: Essays by Douglass Adair. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1998.Bailyn, Bernard. The Origins of American Politics. New York: Vintage Books, 1968.McDonald, Forrest. Novus Ordo Seclorum: The Intellectual Origins of the Constitution. Lawrence: University

Press of Kansas, 1985.Pocock, J.G.A. The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition.

Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975.Rahe, Paul A. Republics Ancient and Modern, 3 vols. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1994.Wood, Gordon. The Creation of the American Republic. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1969.


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In 1760, what was to become the United States ofAmerica consisted of a small group of coloniesstrung out along the eastern seaboard of NorthAmerica. Although they had experienced significanteconomic and demographic growth in theeighteenth century and had just helped Britaindefeat France and take control of most of NorthAmerica, they remained politically and economicallydependent upon London. Yet, in the next twenty-five years, they would challenge the political controlof Britain, declare independence, wage a bloody war,and lay the foundations fora trans-continental, federalrepublican state. In thesecrucial years, the colonieswould be led by a newgeneration of politicians,men who combinedpractical political skillswith a firm grasp ofpolitical ideas. In order to better understand theseextraordinary events, the Founders who madethem possible, and the new Constitution that theycreated, it is necessary first to understand thepolitical ideas that influenced colonial Americansin the crucial years before the Revolution.

The Common Law and the Rightsof EnglishmenThe political theory of the American colonists inthe seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was deeplyinfluenced by English common law and its idea ofrights. In a guide for religious dissenters written inthe late seventeenth century, William Penn, thefounder of Pennsylvania, offered one the bestcontemporary summaries of this common-lawview of rights. According to Penn, all Englishmenhad three central rights or privileges by commonlaw: those of life, liberty, and property. For Penn,these English rights meant that every subject was“to be freed in Person & Estate from ArbitraryViolence and Oppression.” In the widely usedlanguage of the day, these rights of “Liberty andProperty” were an Englishman’s “Birthright.”

In Penn’s view, the English system of governmentpreserved liberty and limited arbitrary power byallowing the subjects to express their consent to thelaws that bound them through two institutions:

“Parliaments and Juries.”“By the first,” Penn argued,“the subject has a share by his chosen Representativesin the Legislative (or Law making) Power.” Penn feltthat the granting of consent through Parliamentwas important because it ensured that “no new Lawsbind the People of England, but such as are bycommon consent agreed on in that great Council.”

In Penn’s view, juries were an equally importantmeans of limiting arbitrary power. By serving onjuries, Penn argued, every freeman “has a share in theExecutive part of the Law, no Causes being tried, nor

any man adjudged to loose[sic] Life, member orEstate, but upon the Verdictof his Peers or Equals.” ForPenn, “These two grandPillars of English Liberty”were “the Fundamentalvital Priviledges [sic]” ofEnglishmen.

The other aspect of their government thatseventeenth-century Englishmen celebrated was asystem that was ruled by laws and not by men. AsPenn rather colorfully put it: “In France, and otherNations, the meer [sic] Will of the Prince is Law, hisWord takes off any mans Head, imposeth Taxes, orseizes a mans Estate, when, how and as often as helists; and if one be accussed [sic], or but so much assuspected of any Crime, he may either presentlyExecute him, or banish, or Imprison him atpleasure.” By contrast, “In England,” Penn argued,“the Law is both the measure and the bound ofevery Subject’s Duty and Allegiance, each manhaving a fixed Fundamental-Right born with him,as to Freedom of his Person and Property in hisEstate, which he cannot be deprived of, but eitherby his Consent, or some Crime, for which the Lawhas impos’d such a penalty or forfeiture.”

This common law view of politics understoodpolitical power as fundamentally limited byEnglishmen’s rights and privileges. As a result, itheld that English kings were bound to ruleaccording to known laws and by respecting theinherent rights of their subjects. It also enshrinedthe concept of consent as the major means to theend of protecting these rights. According to Pennand his contemporaries, this system ofgovernment—protecting as it did the “unparallel’d

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Priviledge [sic] of Liberty and Property”—hadmade the English nation “more free and happythan any other People in the World.”

The Founders imbibed this view of Englishrights through the legal training that was commonfor elites in the eighteenth-century Anglo-Americanworld. This legal education also made them awareof the history of England in the seventeenth century,a time when the Stuart kings had repeatedlythreatened their subjects’ rights. In response, manyEnglishmen drew on the common law to argue thatall political power, even that of a monarch, should belimited by law. Colonial Americans in the eighteenthcentury viewed the defeat of the Stuarts and thesubsequent triumph of Parliament (which was seen asthe representative ofsubjects’ rights) in theGlorious Revolution of 1688as a key moment in Englishhistory. They believed that ithad enshrined in England’sunwritten constitution therule of law and the sanctityof subjects’ rights. Thisawareness of English history instilled in theFounders a strong fear of arbitrary power and aconsequent desire to create a constitutional formof government that limited the possibility of rulersviolating the fundamental liberties of the people.

The seriousness with which the colonists tookthese ideas can be seen in their strong opposition toParliament’s attempt to tax or legislate for themwithout their consent in the 1760s and 1770s. Afterthe Revolution, when the colonists formed their owngovernments, they wrote constitutions that includedmany of the legal guarantees that Englishmen hadfought for in the seventeenth century as a means oflimiting governmental power. As a consequence,both the state and federal constitutions typicallycontained bills of rights that enshrined coreEnglish legal rights as fundamental law.

Natural RightsThe seventeenth century witnessed a revolution inEuropean political thought, one that was to proveprofoundly influential on the political ideas ofthe American Founders. Beginning with the Dutchwriter Hugo Grotius in the early 1600s, severalimportant European thinkers began to construct anew understanding of political theory that arguedthat all men by nature had equal rights, and thatgovernments were formed for the sole purpose ofprotecting these natural rights.

The leading proponent of this theory in theEnglish-speaking world was John Locke (1632–1704).Deeply involved in the opposition to the Stuartkings in the 1670s and 1680s, Locke wrote a book onpolitical theory to justify armed resistance toCharles II and his brother James. “To understandpolitical power right,” Locke wrote, “and derive itfrom its original, we must consider, what state allmen are naturally in, and that is, a state of perfectfreedom to order their actions, and dispose of theirpossessions and persons, as they think fit, within thebounds of the law of nature, without asking leave, ordepending upon the will of any other man.” ForLocke, the state of nature was “a state also ofequality, wherein all the power and jurisdiction is

reciprocal, no one havingmore than another.”

Although thispregovernmental state ofnature was a state of perfectfreedom, Locke contendedthat it also lacked animpartial judge or umpire toregulate disputes among

men. As a result, men in this state of naturegathered together and consented to create agovernment in order that their natural rightswould be better secured. Locke further argued that,because it was the people who had created thegovernment, the people had a right to resist itsauthority if it violated their rights. They could thenjoin together and exercise their collective orpopular sovereignty to create a new government oftheir own devising. This revolutionary politicaltheory meant that ultimate political authoritybelonged to the people and not to the king.

This idea of natural rights became a centralcomponent of political theory in the Americancolonies in the eighteenth century, appearing innumerous political pamphlets, newspapers, andsermons. Its emphasis on individual freedom andgovernment by consent combined powerfully withthe older idea of common law rights to shape thepolitical theory of the Founders. When faced withthe claims of the British Parliament in the 1760sand 1770s to legislate for them without theirconsent, American patriots invoked both thecommon law and Lockean natural rights theory toargue that they had a right to resist Britain.

Thomas Jefferson offers the best example ofthe impact that these political ideas had on thefounding. As he so eloquently argued in theDeclaration of Independence: “We hold these


The political theory of the Americancolonists in the seventeenth andeighteenth centuries was deeplyinfluenced by English common

law and its idea of rights.


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truths to be self-evident, that all men are createdequal, that they are endowed by their Creatorwith certain unalienable Rights, that among theseare Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.That to secure these rights, Governments areinstituted among Men, deriving their just powersfrom the consent of the governed, That wheneverany Form of Government becomes destructive ofthese ends, it is the Right of the People to alter orabolish it, and to institute new Government,laying its foundations on such principles andorganizing its powers in such form, as to themshall seem most likely to effect their Safety andHappiness.”

This idea of natural rights also influenced thecourse of political events inthe crucial years after 1776.All the state governments putthis new political theoryinto practice, basing theirauthority on the people,and establishing writtenconstitutions that protectednatural rights. As GeorgeMason, the principal author of the influentialVirginia Bill of Rights (1776), stated in thedocument’s first section: “All men are by natureequally free and independent, and have certaininherent rights, of which, when they enter into astate of society, they cannot, by any compact, depriveor divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment oflife and liberty, with the means of acquiring andpossessing property, and pursuing and obtaininghappiness and safety.” The radical implications ofthis insistence on equal natural rights would slowlybecome apparent in postrevolutionary Americansociety as previously downtrodden groups began toinvoke these ideals to challenge slavery, argue for awider franchise, end female legal inequality, and fullyseparate church and state.

In 1780, under the influence of John Adams,Massachusetts created a mechanism by which thepeople themselves could exercise their sovereignpower to constitute governments: a specialconvention convened solely for the purpose ofwriting a constitution, followed by a process ofratification. This American innovation allowed theideas of philosophers like Locke to be put intopractice. In particular, it made the people’s naturalrights secure by enshrining them in a constitutionwhich was not changeable by ordinary legislation.This method was to influence the authors of thenew federal Constitution in 1787.

Religious Toleration and theSeparation of Church and State

A related development in seventeenth-centuryEuropean political theory was the emergence ofarguments for religious toleration and theseparation of church and state. As a result of thebloody religious wars between Catholics andProtestants that followed the Reformation, a fewthinkers in both England and Europe argued thatgovernments should not attempt to force individualsto conform to one form of worship. Rather, theyinsisted that such coercion was both unjust anddangerous. It was unjust because true faithrequired voluntary belief; it was dangerous becausethe attempts to enforce religious beliefs in Europe

had led not to religiousuniformity, but to civil war.These thinkers furtherargued that if governmentsceased to enforce religiousbelief, the result would becivil peace and prosperity.

Once again the Englishphilosopher John Locke

played a major role in the development of these newideas. Building on the work of earlier writers, Lockepublished in 1689 A Letter Concerning Toleration, inwhich he contended that there was a natural rightof conscience that no government could infringe.As he put it: “The care of Souls cannot belong to theCivil Magistrate, because his Power consists only inoutward force; but true and saving Religion consistsin the inward perswasion [sic] of the Mind, withoutwhich nothing can be acceptable to God. And suchis the nature of the Understanding, that it cannotbe compell’d to the belief of any thing by outwardforce. Confiscation of Estate, Imprisonment,Torments, nothing of that nature can have anysuch Efficacy as to make Men change the inwardJudgment that they have formed of things.”

These ideas about the rights of conscience andreligious toleration resonated powerfully in theEnglish colonies in America. Although thePuritans in the seventeenth century had originallyattempted to set up an intolerant commonwealthwhere unorthodox religious belief would beprohibited, dissenters like Roger Williamschallenged them and argued that true faith couldnot be the product of coercion. Forced to flee bythe Puritans, Williams established the colony ofRhode Island, which offered religious toleration toall and had no state-supported church. As thePuritan Cotton Mather sarcastically remarked,


Natural rights became a centralcomponent of political theory in theAmerican colonies . . . , appearing in

numerous political pamphlets,newspapers, and sermons.


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Rhode Island contained “everything in the worldbut Roman Catholics and real Christians.” Inaddition, Maryland, founded in the 1630s, andPennsylvania, founded in the 1680s, both providedan extraordinary degree of religious freedom bythe standard of the time.

In the eighteenth century, as these arguments forreligious toleration spread throughout the English-speaking Protestant world, the American colonies,becoming ever more religiously pluralistic, provedparticularly receptive to them.As a result, the idea thatthe government should not enforce religious beliefhad become an important element of Americanpolitical theory by the lateeighteenth century. After theRevolution, it was enshrinedas a formal right in many ofthe state constitutions, aswell as most famously in theFirst Amendment to thefederal Constitution.

Colonial Self-GovernmentThe political thinking of the Founders in the lateeighteenth century was also deeply influenced bythe long experience of colonial self-government.Since their founding in the early seventeenthcentury, most of the English colonies in theAmericas (unlike the French and Spanish colonies)had governed themselves to a large extent in localassemblies that were modeled on the EnglishParliament. In these colonial assemblies theyexercised their English common law right toconsent to all laws that bound them.

The existence of these strong local governmentsin each colony also explains in part the speed withwhich the Founders were able to create viableindependent republican governments in the yearsafter 1776. This long-standing practice of self-government also helped to create an indigenouspolitical class in the American colonies with therequisite experience for the difficult task of nationbuilding.

In addition to the various charters and royalinstructions that governed the English colonies,Americans also wrote their own Foundingdocuments. These settler covenants were an earlytype of written constitution and they provided animportant model for the Founders in the lateeighteenth century as they sought to craft a newconstitutional system based on popular consent.

Classical RepublicanismNot all the intellectual influences on the Foundersoriginated in the seventeenth century. Becausemany of the Founders received a classicaleducation in colonial colleges in the eighteenthcentury, they were heavily influenced by thewritings of the great political thinkers andhistorians of ancient Greece and Rome.

Antiquity shaped the Founders’ politicalthought in several important ways. First, itintroduced them to the idea of republicanism, orgovernment by the people. Ancient political thinkersfrom Aristotle to Cicero had praised republican

self-government as the bestpolitical system. Thisclassical political thoughtwas important for theFounders as it gave themgrounds to dissent from theheavily monarchical politicalculture of eighteenth-centuryEngland, where even thecommon law jurists who

defended subjects’ rights against royal powerbelieved strongly in monarchy. By reading theclassics, the American Founders were introducedto an alternate political vision, one that legitimizedrepublicanism.

The second legacy of this classical idea ofrepublicanism was the emphasis that it put on themoral foundations of liberty. Though ancientwriters believed that a republic was the best formof government, they were intensely aware of itsfragility. In particular, they argued that because thepeople governed themselves, republics required fortheir very survival a high degree of civic virtue intheir citizenry. Citizens had to be able to put thegood of the whole (the res publica) ahead of theirown private interests. If they failed to do this, therepublic would fall prey to men of power andambition, and liberty would ultimately be lost.

As a result of this need for an exceptionallyvirtuous citizenry, ancient writers also taught thatrepublics had to be small. Only in a small andrelatively homogeneous society, they argued,would the necessary degree of civic virtue beforthcoming. In part, it was this classical teachingabout the weakness of large republics thatanimated the contentious debate over theproposed federal Constitution in the 1780s.

In addition to their reading of ancient authors,the Founders also encountered republican ideas in


By reading the classics, the AmericanFounders were introduced to an

alternate political vision, one thatlegitimated republicanism.


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the political theory of a group of eighteenth-century English writers called the “radical Whigs.”These writers kept alive the republican legacy ofthe English Civil War at a time when mostEnglishmen believed that their constitutionalmonarchy was the best form of government in theworld. Crucially for the Founding, these radicalWhigs combined classical republican thought withthe newer Lockean ideas of natural rights andpopular sovereignty. They thus became animportant conduit for a modern type ofrepublicanism to enter American political thought,one that combined the ancient concern with avirtuous citizenry and the modern insistence onthe importance of individual rights.

These radical Whigs also provided theFounders with an important critique of theeighteenth-century British constitution. Instead ofseeing it as the best form of government possible,the radical Whigs argued that it was both corrupt

and tyrannical. In order to reform it, they called fora written constitution and a formal separation ofthe executive branch from the legislature. Thisclassically inspired radical Whig constitutionalismwas an important influence on the development ofAmerican republicanism in the late eighteenthcentury.

ConclusionDrawing on all these intellectual traditions, theFounders were able to create a new kind ofrepublicanism in America based on equal rights,consent, popular sovereignty, and the separation ofchurch and state. Having set this broad context forthe Founding, we now turn to a more detailedexamination of important aspects of the Founders’political theory, followed by detailed biographicalstudies of the Founders themselves.

Craig Yirush, Ph.D.University of California, Los Angeles


Suggestions for Further ReadingBailyn, Bernard. The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University

Press, 1967.Lutz, Donald. Colonial Origins of the American Constitution: A Documentary History. Indianapolis, Ind.:

Liberty Fund, 1998.Reid, John Phillip. The Constitutional History of the American Revolution. Abridged Edition. Madison: The

University of Wisconsin Press, 1995.Rossiter, Clinton. Seedtime of the Republic: The Origins of the American Tradition of Political Liberty. New

York: Harcourt Brace, 1953.Zuckert, Michael. Natural Rights and the New Republicanism. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press,

1994.

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Visual Assessment1. Founders Posters—Have students create posters for either an individual Founder,

a group of Founders, or an event. Ask them to include at least one quotation(different from classroom posters that accompany this volume) and one image.

2. Coat of Arms—Draw a coat of arms template and divide into6 quadrants (see example). Photocopy and hand out to theclass. Ask them to create a coat of arms for a particularFounder with a different criterion for each quadrant (e.g.,occupation, key contribution, etc.). Include in the assignmentan explanation sheet in which they describe why they chosecertain colors, images, and symbols.

3. Individual Illustrated Timeline—Ask each student to create a visual timeline ofat least ten key points in the life of a particular Founder. In class, put the studentsin groups and have them discuss the intersections and juxtapositions in each oftheir timelines.

4. Full Class Illustrated Timeline—Along a full classroom wall, tape poster paper inone long line. Draw in a middle line and years (i.e., 1760, 1770, 1780, etc.). Putstudents in pairs and assign each pair one Founder. Ask them to put together tenkey points in the life of the Founder. Have each pair draw in the key points on themaster timeline.

5. Political Cartoon—Provide students with examples of good political cartoons,contemporary or historical. A good resource for finding historical cartoons on theWeb is . Askthem to create a political cartoon based on an event or idea in the Founding period.

Performance Assessments1. Meeting of the Minds—Divide the class into five groups and assign a Founder to

each group. Ask the group to discuss the Founder’s views on a variety of pre-determined topics. Then, have a representative from each group come to the frontof the classroom and role-play as the Founder, dialoguing with Founders fromother groups. The teacher will act as moderator, reading aloud topic questions(based on the pre-determined topics given to the groups) and encouragingdiscussion from the students in character. At the teacher’s discretion, questioningcan be opened up to the class as a whole. For advanced students, do not provide alist of topics—ask them to know their character well enough to present himproperly on all topics.

2. Create a Song or Rap—Individually or in groups, have students create a songor rap about a Founder based on a familiar song, incorporating at least five keyevents or ideas of the Founder in their project. Have students perform their songin class. (Optional: Ask the students to bring in a recording of the song forbackground music.)

Web/Technology Assessments1. Founders PowerPoint Presentation—Divide students into groups. Have each

group create a PowerPoint presentation about a Founder or event. Determine thenumber of slides, and assign a theme to each slide (e.g., basic biographicinformation, major contributions, political philosophy, quotations, repercussionsof the event, participants in the event, etc.). Have them hand out copies of theslides and give the presentation to the class. You may also ask for a copy of the

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presentation to give you the opportunity to combine all the presentations into anend-of-semester review.

2. Evaluate Web sites—Have students search the Web for three sites related to aFounder or the Founding period (you may provide them with a “start list” from theresource list at the end of each lesson). Create a Web site evaluation sheet thatincludes such questions as: Are the facts on this site correct in comparison to othersites? What sources does this site draw on to produce its information? Who are themain contributors to this site? When was the site last updated? Ask students tograde the site according to the evaluation sheet and give it a grade for reliability,accuracy, etc. They should write a 2–3 sentence explanation for their grade.

3. Web Quest—Choose a Web site(s) on the Constitution, Founders, or Foundingperiod. (See suggestions below.) Go to the Web site(s) and create a list of questionstaken from various pages within the site. Provide students with the Web addressand list of questions, and ask them to find answers to the questions on the site,documenting on which page they found their answer. Web site suggestions:

• The Avalon Project • The Founders’ Constitution • Founding.com • National Archives Charters of Freedom

• The Library of Congress American Memory Page • Our Documents • Teaching American History

A good site to help you construct the Web Quest is:

Verbal Assessments1. Contingency in History—In a one-to-two page essay, have students answer the

question, “How would history have been different if [Founder] had not beenborn?” They should consider repercussions for later events in the political world.

2. Letters Between Founders—Ask students to each choose a “CorrespondencePartner” and decide which two Founders they will be representing. Have themread the appropriate Founders essays and primary source activities. Over a periodof time, the pair should then write at least three letters back and forth (with a copybeing given to the teacher for review and feedback). Instruct them to be mindfulof their Founders’ tone and writing style, life experience, and political views inconstructing the letters.

3. Categorize the Founders—Create five categories for the Founders (e.g., slave-holders vs. non-slaveholders, northern vs. southern, opponents of theConstitution vs. proponents of the Constitution, etc.) and a list of Foundersstudied. Ask students to place each Founder in the appropriate category. Foradvanced students, ask them to create the five categories in addition tocategorizing the Founders.

4. Obituaries and Gravestones—Have students write a short obituary or gravestoneengraving that captures the major accomplishments of a Founder (e.g., ThomasJefferson’s gravestone). Ask them to consider for what the Founder wished to beremembered.

5. “I Am” Poem—Instruct students to select a Founder and write a poem that refersto specific historical events in his life (number of lines at the teacher’s discretion).



Each line of the poem must begin with “I” (i.e., “I am…,” “I wonder…,” “I see…,”etc.). Have them present their poem with an illustration of the Founder.

6. Founder’s Journal—Have students construct a journal of a Founder at a certainperiod in time. Ask them to pick out at least five important days. In the journalentry, make sure they include the major events of the day, the Founder’s feelingsabout the events, and any other pertinent facts (e.g., when writing a journal aboutthe winter at Valley Forge, Washington may have included information about thetroops’ morale, supplies, etc.).

7. Résumé for a Founder—Ask students to create a resume for a particular Founder.Make sure they include standard resume information (e.g., work experience,education, skills, accomplishments/honors, etc.). You can also have them researchand bring in a writing sample (primary source) to accompany the resume.

8. Cast of Characters—Choose an event in the Founding Period (e.g., the signing ofthe Declaration of Independence, the debate about the Constitution in a stateratifying convention, etc.) and make a list of individuals related to the incident.Tell students that they are working for a major film studio in Hollywood that hasdecided to make a movie about this event. They have been hired to cast actors foreach part. Have students fill in your list of individuals with actors/actresses (pastor present) with an explanation of why that particular actor/actress was chosen forthe role. (Ask the students to focus on personality traits, previous roles, etc.)

Review Activities1. Founders Jeopardy—Create a Jeopardy board on an overhead sheet or handout

(six columns and five rows). Label the column heads with categories and fill in allother squares with a dollar amount. Make a sheet that corresponds to the Jeopardyboard with the answers that you will be revealing to the class. (Be sure to includeDaily Doubles.)

a. Possible categories may include:• Thomas Jefferson (or the name of any Founder)• Revolutionary Quirks (fun Founders facts)• Potpourri (miscellaneous)• Pen is Mightier (writings of the Founders)

b. Example answers:• This Founder drafted and introduced the first formal proposal for a

permanent union of the thirteen colonies. Question: Who is BenjaminFranklin?

• This Founder was the only Roman Catholic to sign the Declaration ofIndependence. Question: Who is Charles Carroll?

2. Who Am I?—For homework, give each student a different Founder essay. Ask eachstudent to compile a list of five-to-ten facts about his/her Founder. In class, askindividuals to come to the front of the classroom and read off the facts one at atime, prompting the rest of the class to guess the appropriate Founder.

3. Around the World—Develop a list of questions about the Founders and plot a“travel route” around the classroom in preparation for this game. Ask one studentto volunteer to go first. The student will get up from his/her desk and “travel”along the route plotted to an adjacent student’s desk, standing next to it. Read aquestion aloud, and the first student of the two to answer correctly advances to thenext stop on the travel route. Have the students keep track of how many placesthey advance. Whoever advances the furthest wins.

ADDITIONAL CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES



Common Good: General conditions that are equally to everyone’s advantage. In arepublic, held to be superior to the good of the individual, though its attainment oughtnever to violate the natural rights of any individual.

Democracy: From the Greek, demos, meaning “rule of the people.” Had a negativeconnotation among most Founders, who equated the term with mob rule. The Foundersconsidered it to be a form of government into which poorly-governed republicsdegenerated.

English Rights: Considered by Americans to be part of their inheritance as Englishmen;included such rights as property, petition, and trials by jury. Believed to exist from timeimmemorial and recognized by various English charters as the Magna Carta, the Petitionof Right of 1628, and the English Bill of Rights of 1689.

Equality: Believed to be the condition of all people, who possessed an equality of rights.In practical matters, restricted largely to land-owning white men during the FoundingEra, but the principle worked to undermine ideas of deference among classes.

Faction: A small group that seeks to benefit its members at the expense of the commongood. The Founders discouraged the formation of factions, which they equated withpolitical parties.

Federalism: A political system in which power is divided between two levels ofgovernment, each supreme in its own sphere. Intended to avoid the concentration ofpower in the central government and to preserve the power of local government.

Government: Political power fundamentally limited by citizens’ rights and privileges.This limiting was accomplished by written charters or constitutions and bills of rights.

Happiness: The ultimate end of government. Attained by living in liberty and bypracticing virtue.

Inalienable Rights: Rights that can never justly be taken away.

Independence: The condition of living in liberty without being subject to the unjustrule of another.

Liberty: To live in the enjoyment of one’s rights without dependence upon anyone else.Its enjoyment led to happiness.

Natural Rights: Rights individuals possess by virtue of their humanity. Were thought tobe “inalienable.” Protected by written constitutions and bills of rights that restrainedgovernment.

Property: Referred not only to material possessions, but also to the ownership of one’sbody and rights. Jealously guarded by Americans as the foundation of liberty during thecrisis with Britain.


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Reason: Human intellectual capacity and rationality. Believed by the Founders to be thedefining characteristic of humans, and the means by which they could understand theworld and improve their lives.

Religious Toleration: The indulgence shown to one religion while maintaining aprivileged position for another. In pluralistic America, religious uniformity could not beenforced so religious toleration became the norm.

Representation: Believed to be central to republican government and the preservationof liberty. Citizens, entitled to vote, elect officials who are responsible to them, and whogovern according to the law.

Republic: From the Latin, res publica, meaning “the public things.” A government systemin which power resides in the people who elect representatives responsible to them andwho govern according to the law. A form of government dedicated to promoting thecommon good. Based on the people, but distinct from a democracy.

Separation of Church and State: The doctrine that government should not enforcereligious belief. Part of the concept of religious toleration and freedom of conscience.

Separation of Powers/Checks and Balances: A way to restrain the power of governmentby balancing the interests of one section of government against the competing interestsof another section. A key component of the federal Constitution. A means of slowingdown the operation of government, so it did not possess too much energy and thusendanger the rights of the people.

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