William Goforth: A Life of Patriotism, Courage, and Honor
byWilliam Goforth played significant roles in New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio in the age of the American Revolution and the Early Republic and he…
James Madison
2
“Acts Against the Oppressions of the Government”: Jefferson on Rebellion, Revolution, and “Treason”
byJefferson’s views on rebellion and revolution, when they are addressed, are often largely misapprehended in the secondary literature. One reason for the confusion is…
7
An Absent Clause: The Exclusion of Madison’s 16th Amendment
byA separation of powers is a defining structural feature of the federal government established by the United States Constitution, yet an explicit statement of…
1
Edmund Burke and Thomas Jefferson on Citizen’s Duties
byIn 1790, when Edmund Burke published his Reflections on the Revolution in France, it triggered lots of backlash from people like Thomas Paine, Richard…
This Week on Dispatches: Chris Coelho on Timothy Matlack, Scribe of the Declaration of Independence
byOn this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews author Chris Coelho on the life and influence of Timothy Matlack, famed for being the scribe…
10
Timothy Matlack, Scribe of the Declaration of Independence
byThe 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…
This Week on Dispatches: Haimo Li on an Important Contribution of Maryland to the US Constitution
byOn this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews political scientist and JAR contributor Haimo Li on how the Maryland declaration of rights outlawed ex…
2
The Intellectual Origin of the US Constitution Article 1, Section 9, Clause 3: An Important Contribution from Maryland
byScholars generally view that the Framers of the United States Constitution “recalled the historical tyrannies of Great Britain and France in establishing the prohibitions…
17
The Admission of North Carolina and Rhode Island into the Union
byOn November 21, 1789, the people of the state of North Carolina ratified the United States Constitution. On May 29, 1790, the people of…
2
Partly National, Partly Federal: James Madison, the Amphictyonic Confederacy, and the Republican Balance
byFollowing the Constitutional Convention’s completion of the United States Constitution in the Fall of 1787, many of those involved in its creation embarked on…
This Week on Dispatches: Thomas E. Ricks on First Principles
byOn 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…
1
10
First Principles
byFirst 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…
7
If George Washington had not Run for President . . . ?
byThis month we asked our contributors: If George Washington had not run for President in 1789, who would you like to have had as…
1
An American Bolingbroke: John Taylor of Caroline’s Republican Opposition, 1792–1794, Part 2 of 2
byHenry St. John, Viscount Bolingbroke, in the first half of the eighteenth century, and John Taylor of Caroline in the 1790s, both feared that…
John Marshall: Hamilton 2.0
byCelebrated 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…
3
Teaching the American Revolution with Simulations
byWhat most Americans know about the Revolutionary War they learned when they were in elementary or middle school. The curricular timing is fortunate in…
2
A Crisis of Peace: George Washington, the Newburgh Conspiracy, and the Fate of the American Revolution
byA Crisis of Peace: George Washington, the Newburgh Conspiracy, and the Fate of the American Revolution by David Head (New York: Pegasus Books, 2019)…
4
Impeachment: The Framers Debate and Discuss
byAuthor’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…
8
Jefferson, Madison, and the Making of the Constitution
byJefferson, Madison, and the Making of the Constitution by Jeff Broadwater (Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 2019) Before getting into the…
5
America’s Revolution Against Toleration: The Rise of True Religious Liberty
byIn 1793, a widely circulated American editorial observed, “A few years ago, to say of any man that he was ‘a friend to toleration,’…
1
Jacob Duché: Mixing Religion and Politics During the Revolution
byIn a country in which one of the main constitutional principles is separation of church and state, it is counter-intuitive to find that there…
The Annapolis Convention of 1786: A Call for a Stronger National Government
bySpeaking at South Carolina’s ratification convention in 1788, Charles Pinckney derided the Articles of Confederation as a “miserable, feeble mockery of government.” Pinckney was…
3
Contributor Question: Best Strategic Defeat?
byThis month, we asked our contributors to consider the many changes of fortune that occurred over the tumultuous four decades that transformed thirteen British…
1
Continental Congress vs. Continental Army: Paying For It All
byWhen the Second Continental Congress met in June 1775, they were not prepared for what they found. Several months earlier on April 19 the…
The Sea Battle that Paid Off for the Continental Army
byAs the Revolutionary War was coming to an end, financial problems came to the forefront: to name a few, the country’s debts to France,…
2
Who Picked the Committees at the Constitutional Convention?
byThrough 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…
4
The Counterbalance: Explaining James Madison
byThe charge was leveled often in his own time, as it has been ever since: James Madison is and was a hypocrite—a man inconstant…
A Second Bonaparte: Searching for the Character of Alexander Hamilton
byThomas 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…
The “Parson’s Cause:” Thomas Jefferson’s Teacher, Patrick Henry, and Religious Freedom
byAs Tidewater lands played out, exhausted from repeated tobacco plantings, or were encumbered by inheritance, the established church moved with young planters like Peter…
1
8
James Madison and the Making of America
byBook Review: James Madison and the Making of America by Kevin R. C. Gutzman (St. Martin’s Press, 2012) In James Madison and the Making…
2
The Federalist #10 and #51
byMyth: The Federalist Nos. 10 and 51, written by James Madison, provided the closing case in the ratification debates. Opponents of the proposed federal…