By an accident of birth Thomas Jefferson (1742-1826) entered Virginia planter society and politics in 1769 when he was elected to the Virginia House of Burgesses. By an application of his fortuitous talents, he became a political philosopher when America most needed one. Jefferson’s A Summary View of the Rights of British America (July 1774, […]
It is in those first frenzied moments of war fever when declarations of patriotism are their most ardent. So it was for the “Young Men of the City of Philadelphia” in the spring of 1798, when the United States stood within a hair’s breadth of war with France. These young Americans, “anxious to preserve the […]
In December 2023, intellectual history lost one of its greatest innovators: J. G. A. Pocock. Professor Pocock, who dedicated his life to reconstructing the relationship between written text and historical context, leaves behind a body of work that has dramatically altered our understanding of Atlantic political thought. Underpinning much of his scholarship is a strong […]
The idea that no one is above the law is a long-held and repeated precept of American constitutionalism. Its roots go back to the philosophical and historical foundations of western political thought. Holding a prominent place in this history is the thirteenth-century English Magna Carta. Although it does not explicitly use the phrase, the document—a […]
In 1991, Queen Elizabeth II gave an address to a joint session of the United States Congress, the first address of its kind delivered by a British monarch. As part of her remarks, she reflected on the end of the American Revolution and eventual partnership between the United States and the United Kingdom. “Some people […]
John Clark Ridpath wrote in 1898, The pre-revolutionists are the Titans of human history; the revolutionists proper are only heroes; and the post revolutionists are too frequently dwarfs and weaklings. This signifies that civilization advances by revolutionary stages, and that history sends out her tallest and best sons to explore the line of march and […]
BOOK REVIEW: Democracy in Darkness: Secrecy and Transparency in the Age of Revolutions by Katlyn Marie Carter (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2023) In our age of freedom of information acts, C-Span, and a never-ending news cycle, we tend to equate transparent government with democracy and sensible public policy. In Democracy in Darkness, however, […]
Today’s Americans revere the Founding Fathers as egalitarian exceptions within the eighteenth century’s hierarchical world. Yet, these men were neither uniform nor wholly democratic in their opinions. Among them, John Adams stands out as a particularly clear deviation, continuing to espouse support for the Old World’s system of natural hierarchy long after the American Revolution. […]
On March 26, 1772, The Massachusetts Spy ran an unusual item on page 3 of that day’s newspaper: an advertisement for a dramatic performance of The Adulateur at the Grand Parade in Upper Servia. Filling nearly half the page, the notice contained a list of dramatis personae and a couple of scenes from the play. In the […]
Unique among the Continental Army generals, Charles Lee expressed prescient insights into the upcoming political issues dividing Americans during the Early Republic era. Born and educated in England, Lee espoused pre-Revolution British Whig views seeking to moderate the monarchy’s powers and engender a more representative government. As a recent immigrant, Lee brought his radical republican […]
BOOK REVIEW: Religious Liberty and the American Founding: Natural Rights and the Original Meaning of the First Amendment Religion Clauses by Vincent Phillip Muñoz (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2022) We are told in the Declaration of Independence that certain rights are “unalienable.” Have you ever wondered what that means? Are other rights “alienable?” Notre Dame’s […]
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews political scientist and JAR contributor Jett Conner on how Thomas Paine, once opposed to some of John Adams’s criticisms of his ideas about democracy, ultimately came to agree with Adams on some key points. New episodes of Dispatches are available for free every Saturday evening (Eastern United States […]
It would be hard to find a more strident, vocal supporter of popular government during America’s founding period than Thomas Paine. The proposals put forth in his January 1776 pamphlet Common Sense for an “unmixed” and unchecked democratic scheme for America, designed to replace the British arrangement of balanced and mixed powers of King, Lords […]
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews JAR contributor David Otersen on the influence of political philosopher Alergnon Sidney on Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and others. New episodes of Dispatches are available for free every Saturday evening (Eastern United States Time) on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, Amazon Music, and the JAR Dispatches web site. Dispatches can now be […]
Algernon Sidney was a seventeenth-century British political theorist, Member of Parliament, and Whig politician who was executed for treason on December 7, 1683, during the reign of Charles II. At his trial, the most incriminating evidence presented by the prosecution was a series of anti-monarchical passages from a seized manuscript of Sidney’s reformist treatise, Discourses […]
Students of history will no doubt have John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, and Benjamin Franklin at the top of their mind when recalling the great leaders of early America and the story of American independence. The thoughtful and considered utility of the words contained within the Declaration of Independence and Constitution cannot be understated. […]
“The great End and Business therefore of Philosophy, is to make us truly happy; and this is the End ultimately pursued through all the Arts and Sciences, they are only so many Means of our Happiness.”—Rev. Dr. Samuel Johnson, An Introduction to the Study of Philosophy, 1731. “ETHICS, which explains & directs the Temper & […]
In the Spring of 1776, as the American Revolution was underway the movement of the Colonies towards independence was just starting to gain steam. In the Second Continental Congress, John Adams, with an eye towards the future, championed a resolution that would allow each of the “united colonies” to assume the powers of government and […]
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews historian M. Andrew Holowchak on interpreting the distinctions Thomas Jefferson made between rebellion, revolution, and treason. New episodes of Dispatches are available for free every Saturday evening (Eastern United States Time) on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, Amazon Music, and the JAR Dispatches web site. Dispatches can now be easily accessed on […]
Jefferson’s views on rebellion and revolution, when they are addressed, are often largely misapprehended in the secondary literature. One reason for the confusion is that rebellion and revolution are sometimes judged to be equivalent, or nearly so, and thus are often uncritically lumped together, or are viewed merely as symptoms of liberalism, taken too far. […]
Alexander Hamilton penned most of the famous series of essays called the Federalist Papers. In Federalist 71, published in March 1788, he wrote this notable paragraph: It is a just observation, that the people commonly INTEND the PUBLIC GOOD. This often applies to their very errors. But their good sense would despise the adulator who […]
BOOK REVIEW: Religion and the American Revolution: An Imperial History by Katherine Carté (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press/Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, 2021) Dwight Eisenhower once said that “our form of government has no sense unless it is founded in a deeply felt religious faith, and I don’t care what it […]
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews JAR contributor James M. Smith on the political, legal, and philosophical influences considered by the First Continental Congress in the formulation of their Declaration of Rights, a 1774 draft that declared the American colonies independent, yet was never brought up for a full vote in that congress. […]
In 1790, when Edmund Burke published his Reflections on the Revolution in France, it triggered lots of backlash from people like Thomas Paine, Richard Price, Joseph Priestley, and Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson wrote a letter to Benjamin Vaughan in May 1791 severely criticizing Burke.[1] This letter has given many scholars an impression that after this point, […]
During the seventeenth century and into the eighteenth century the political philosophers of Europe were writing and discussing some new and radical ideas on what a government should look like and how it should function. They would reshape the political landscape in the late eighteenth century and well into the twentieth. One of the most […]
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 writings that he translated one of his works into English and published it. In 1811, Jefferson completed his translation of Destutt de Tracy’s Commentary on Montesquieu, writing in thepreface: Montesquieu’s immortal […]
Jefferson scholars all knew that Thomas Jefferson often disparaged the label “Tory” in his political writings. For Jefferson, being called a Whig would signify approval, while being called a Tory was quite derogatory and damaging. There were, however, one or two Tory thinkers that Jefferson truly admired, and Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke seems […]
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 at depicting Jefferson’s “sympathy for the French Revolution and his aspirations for a democratic republicanism,”[2] merely focusing on Jefferson’s so-called “radicalism.”[3] Scholars tend to describe Jefferson’s enthusiasm for the French Revolution […]
The scribe of the Declaration of Independence—and perhaps the first man to read it in public—was born on March 28, 1736 in Haddonfield, New Jersey. His family moved to Philadelphia eight years later. At the age of thirteen, Timothy Matlack began an apprenticeship under a prosperous Quaker merchant named John Reynell. Looking forward to a […]
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews author and historian James D. R. Philips on his research about the influence of the English Revolution on the ideals of the American Revolution and the U.S. Constitution. New episodes of Dispatches are available for free every Saturday evening (Eastern United States Time) on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, […]
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 nature and duties of the British government. He signed these letters “Clarendon” rather than using his own name.[1] In his January 27, 1766 “Clarendon” letter Adams penned this line: Were I to […]
The Colonists’ American Revolution: Preserving English Liberty, 1607-1783, by Guy Chet (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley Blackwell, 2020) To my way of thinking, when we try to understand people and events in the past, we benefit more from channeling their understanding of their actions and beliefs, rather than identifying motivating forces that were hidden from them at […]
Despite Cicero’s significant reputation and widespread readership, little scholarship has focused upon Cicero’s reputation and oratorical practices’ influence upon the Founding Generation. Once Cicero delivered his orations at the court case of Roscius of Ameria, he was considered a prodigy of oratory. His career quickly took off, with him ascending each rank of a Roman […]
On this week’s Dispatches host Brady Crytzer interviews Pulitzer-prize winning historian Thomas E. Ricks on his new book, First Principles: What America’s Founders Learned from the Greeks and Romans and How That Shaped Our Country, recently reviewed in JAR. New episodes of Dispatches are available for free every Saturday evening (Eastern United States Time) on iTunes, Stitcher, […]
First Principles: What America’s Founders Learned From the Greeks and Romans and How That Shaped Our Country by Thomas E. Ricks (New York, NY: Harper Colins Publishers, 2020) Author Thomas E. Ricks (Churchill and Orwell, 2017; Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2006) started his work on First Principles: What America’s Founders Learned From the […]
The Routledge Guide to Paine’s Rights of Man by Frances A. Chiu (London & New York: Routledge, 2020) The American Revolution, John Adams famously wrote in 1818, was begun in the “minds and hearts of the people” before the American Revolutionary War began.[1] It was a suggestion that the Revolution was unique and the result of […]
