Winning Hearts and Minds: Pardons and Oaths of Allegiance
by“I, A. B.do promise and declare that I will remain in a peaceable Obedience to His Majesty, and will not take up Arms, nor…
John Adams
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Thomas Paine on Popular Government in America: Evolution of a Radical’s Thinking
byIt would be hard to find a more strident, vocal supporter of popular government during America’s founding period than Thomas Paine. The proposals put…
This Week on Dispatches: David Otersen on Algernon Sidney and the American Revolution
byOn 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,…
John Joachim Zubly: PART 2, A Patriot Congressman Whose Cause Was Lost
byGeorgia did not send a delegation to the first Continental Congress in 1774. The least populous colony of the thirteen British colonies in North…
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Algernon Sidney and the American Revolution
byAlgernon Sidney was a seventeenth-century British political theorist, Member of Parliament, and Whig politician who was executed for treason on December 7, 1683, during…
This Week on Dispatches: Shawn David McGhee on the First Partisan Application of the Electoral College
byOn this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews historian and JAR contributor Shawn David McGhee explains how a plot was devised to unseat Vice President…
“Characters Pre-eminent for Virtue and Ability”: The First Partisan Application of the Electoral College
byScholars typically cast the outcome of the second presidential election as either a forgone conclusion or a non-event.[1] After all, George Washington ran unchallenged…
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Colonel Daniel Hitchcock of Rhode Island
byAs a collateral descendant of Daniel Hitchcock (first cousin, nine times removed), I have always been fascinated by the short but important life of…
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John Adams and the Rule of Law
byIn the Spring of 1776, as the American Revolution was underway the movement of the Colonies towards independence was just starting to gain steam….
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Rhode Island Acts to Prevent an Enslaved Family from Being Transported to the South
byThe American Revolution spurred the world’s first significant movement to abolish slavery and the African slave trade.[1] Before then, there was virtually no antislavery…
A Bolingbrokean Argument Hidden in Hamilton’s Federalist 71
byAlexander 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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The Frankford Advice: “Place Virginia at the Head of Everything”
bySince James Thomas Flexner’s 1974 Pulitzer recognition for his biography of George Washington, one of the axioms of the American founding is that the…
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Thirteen Clocks: How Race United the Colonies and Made the Declaration of Independence
byBOOK REVIEW: Thirteen Clocks: How Race United the Colonies and Made the Declaration of Independence by Robert G. Parkinson (Williamsburg, VA: Omohundro Institute of Early…
This Week on Dispatches: James M. Smith on How America Declared Its Rights
byOn this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews JAR contributor James M. Smith on the political, legal, and philosophical influences considered by the First…
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John Adams’s Love of Cider
byIt is not exactly a secret that John Adams was a fan of cider. The Massachusetts-born second President’s love of the drink has been…
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How America Declared its Rights
byDuring the seventeenth century and into the eighteenth century the political philosophers of Europe were writing and discussing some new and radical ideas on…
Justice, Mercy, and Treason: John Marshall’s and Mercy Otis Warren’s Treatments of Benedict Arnold
byIn the early years of the nineteenth century, the founders of the new American Republic were lurching forward from the shockingly successful outcome of…
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George Washington and the First Mandatory Immunization
byThe debate over mandatory vaccination for Covid-19 has led to many articles referring to how George Washington handled a similar issue, this one involving…
A Donkey, A Suit, and a Quixote for George Washington
byAt the beginning of March 1777, Arthur Lee, a delegate to the United States Congress, urgently requested to meet with the Marquis de Grimaldi,…
Thomas Knowlton’s Revolution
byThe story of Thomas Knowlton in the American Revolution is brief but meaningful. He was only thirty-five at his death, arguably a full-fledged hero…
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Why Did the Signers of the Declaration Engage in this Treasonous Act?
bySpeaking on Independence Day, 1821, John Quincy Adams, sixth President of the Unites States and the son of John Adams, a signer of the…
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Contributor Question: Remembered for the Wrong Reason?
byWe asked our contributors: Which personality of the American Revolution or the founding era (other than Benedict Arnold) is remembered for the wrong reasons,…
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“That a General be Appointed to command”
byAfter the events at Lexington and Concord on April 19, it appeared that military force of some sort might be warranted in dealing with…
The Bolingbrokean Constitutional Argument in John Adams’s 1766 Clarendon Letter
byAs 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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Massachusettensis and Novanglus: The Last Great Debate Prior to the American Revolution
byWhen John Adams returned to Massachusetts after the session of the First Continental Congress, he was surprised to find that there was growing opposition…
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Thomas Read of Delaware, Part 1: The Creation of the Continental Navy
byThomas Read (1740-1788) was the middle son of the Read family of New Castle, Delaware. His older brother George was a delegate to the…
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Following Paul Revere Home: The Demolition and Preservation of Boston’s Landmarks
byHere’s one of the things I love most about Boston: If it were possible to drop Paul Revere in downtown today, he could, quite…
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Congress’s “Committee on Spies” and the Court-Martial Policies of General Washington
byIn the weeks before it declared independence, the Continental Congress was already hard at work building the institutions it would need to maintain the…
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Yellow Fever and Church Attendance
byJohn Adams was certain he made a mistake by going to church. Philadelphia’s yellow fever outbreak only ended in November 1793. On Sunday, December…
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…
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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…
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The Routledge Guide to Paine’s Rights of Man
byThe Routledge Guide to Paine’s Rights of Man by Frances A. Chiu (London & New York: Routledge, 2020) The American Revolution, John Adams famously wrote…
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The First Efforts to Limit the African Slave Trade Arise in the American Revolution: Part 1 of 3, The New England Colonies
byThe American Revolution changed the way Americans viewed one of the world’s great tragedies: the African slave trade. The long march to end the…
This Week on Dispatches: Jane Hampton Cook on “Remember the Ladies,” Abigail Adams on Women’s Right to Vote
byOn this week’s Dispatches host Brady Crytzer interviews author and former White House webmaster, Jane Hampton Cook on Abigail Adams’s advice to her husband John…
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How Did John Adams Respond to Abigail’s “Remember the Ladies”?
byWomen in all states won the universal right to vote one hundred years ago through the ratification of the United States Constitution’s 19th Amendment…
Coronavirus 2020? Nope. The Speckled Monster of 1764
byIn January 1764, a “speckled monster” struck Boston, forcing businesses to shutter and residents to isolate themselves in their homes or flee the city…
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Did Yellow Fever Save the United States?
byTo Thomas Jefferson, great plagues were within the genus of republican antibodies. Like the occasional popular insurrection that warned rulers “the spirit of resistance”…
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…
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Lord Dunmore’s Proclamation: Information and Slavery
byLord Dunmore, John Murray, the 4th Earl of Dunmore (1730-1809) and Royal Governor of Virginia (1771-1776),[1] was an important political and military figure during…