A Bolingbrokean Argument Hidden in Hamilton’s Federalist 71
Alexander Hamilton penned most of the famous series of essays called the Federalist Papers. In Federalist 71, published in March 1788, he wrote this…
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Edmund Burke and Thomas Jefferson on Citizen’s Duties
In 1790, when Edmund Burke published his Reflections on the Revolution in France, it triggered lots of backlash from people like Thomas Paine, Richard…
Edmund Burke and Thomas Jefferson on Montesquieu
Antoine Louis Claude Destutt, comte de Tracy (1754–1836) was a famous French Enlightenment philosopher. Thomas Jefferson admired him, and was so impressed with his…
Lord Bolingbroke: A Tory Thinker that Jefferson Truly Admired
Jefferson scholars all knew that Thomas Jefferson often disparaged the label “Tory” in his political writings. For Jefferson, being called a Whig would signify…
Jefferson and Burke on Marat, Danton, and Robespierre
Thomas Jefferson is well-known for his so-called “Frenchified” stance.[1] On the topic of the relationship between Jefferson and French Revolution, scholarly accounts often stop…
The Bolingbrokean Constitutional Argument in John Adams’s 1766 Clarendon Letter
As part of the debate over the constitutionality of the Stamp Act, John Adams wrote a series of letter to the Boston Gazette discussing the…
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The Intellectual Origin of the US Constitution Article 1, Section 9, Clause 3: An Important Contribution from Maryland
Scholars generally view that the Framers of the United States Constitution “recalled the historical tyrannies of Great Britain and France in establishing the prohibitions…