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Henry St. John, Viscount Bolingbroke, in the first half of the eighteenth century, and John Taylor of Caroline in the 1790s, both feared that…
Celebrated for his stirring words in the Declaration of Independence, and having profited upon the popularity since, Thomas Jefferson was now America’s chief magistrate—and…
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What most Americans know about the Revolutionary War they learned when they were in elementary or middle school. The curricular timing is fortunate in…
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A Crisis of Peace: George Washington, the Newburgh Conspiracy, and the Fate of the American Revolution by David Head (New York: Pegasus Books, 2019)…
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Author’s Note: Selections from all resolutions and working drafts are italicized. Most of what we know about the framers’ discussions comes from James Madison’s…
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Jefferson, Madison, and the Making of the Constitution by Jeff Broadwater (Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 2019) Before getting into the…
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In 1793, a widely circulated American editorial observed, “A few years ago, to say of any man that he was ‘a friend to toleration,’…
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In a country in which one of the main constitutional principles is separation of church and state, it is counter-intuitive to find that there…
Speaking at South Carolina’s ratification convention in 1788, Charles Pinckney derided the Articles of Confederation as a “miserable, feeble mockery of government.” Pinckney was…
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This month, we asked our contributors to consider the many changes of fortune that occurred over the tumultuous four decades that transformed thirteen British…
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When the Second Continental Congress met in June 1775, they were not prepared for what they found. Several months earlier on April 19 the…
As the Revolutionary War was coming to an end, financial problems came to the forefront: to name a few, the country’s debts to France,…
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Through four months in the summer of 1787, passionate arguments over political principles filled the Pennsylvania State House while hard-nosed political horse-trading buzzed in…
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The charge was leveled often in his own time, as it has been ever since: James Madison is and was a hypocrite—a man inconstant…
Thomas Jefferson, that American Sphinx,[1] is perhaps Alexander Hamilton’s only rival within the high pantheon of the founding generation for enigma. Hamilton’s character recalls…
As Tidewater lands played out, exhausted from repeated tobacco plantings, or were encumbered by inheritance, the established church moved with young planters like Peter…
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Book Review: James Madison and the Making of America by Kevin R. C. Gutzman (St. Martin’s Press, 2012) In James Madison and the Making…
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Myth: The Federalist Nos. 10 and 51, written by James Madison, provided the closing case in the ratification debates. Opponents of the proposed federal…