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,…
John Adams
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…
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…
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The Rise of Thomas Paine and the Case of the Officers of Excise
byThe Rise of Thomas Paine and the Case of the Officers of Excise by Paul Myles (Lewes: The Thomas Paine Society UK, 2018) When John…
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Worthy of Commemmoration
byWe recently ran an article about monuments commemorating the American Revolution. We asked our contributors: If you could commission a monument, what would you…
A French “King of America”?
byIn the chaos of war, there are, and have always been, schemers who will try to take advantage of disorder to enrich themselves, either…
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The Fight Behind the Declaration of Independence
byPut yourself, in your mind’s eye, back in June 1776, specifically, the period between June 7 and July 1. It is precisely at that…
This Week on Dispatches: J. L. Bell on Truths and Myths of the Declaration of Independence
byOn this week’s Dispatches host Brady Crytzer interviews author and historian J. L. Bell on the Declaration of Independence and which stories surrounding the document…
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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…
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The Constitution Counted Free Women and Children—And It Mattered
byAs adopted by the Constitutional Convention, Article I, Section 2, Clause 3 of the Constitution mandated that the population numbers forming the basis for…
This Week on Dispatches: John L. Smith, Jr. on John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and King Louis XVI together at Notre-Dame
byOn this week’s Dispatches host Brady Crytzer interviews actor, teacher, US Army and US Air Force veteran, and JAR contributor, John L. Smith, Jr., about…
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Strange Bedfellows: Adams and Franklin as Diplomatic Duo
byClose the window. No, leave the window open. Cold night air can be toxic to one’s health. No, what’s truly toxic is stifled, fetid…
The Declaration of Independence: Did John Hancock Really Say That about his Signature?—and Other Signing Stories
byWhen we picture the Declaration of Independence, most of us immediately think of the document handwritten on parchment and signed at the bottom by…
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A Chink in Britain’s Armor: John Paul Jones’s 1778 Raid on Whitehaven
byJohn Paul Jones has earned enduring fame in American history for his sailing and fighting exploits during the American Revolution. His influence on the…
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The Day Notre-Dame Cathedral Hosted Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and King Louis XVI
by1785 was a rare year in Paris—it was safely nestled between revolutions. The American Revolution had come to an official end right there in…
Josiah Quincy, Jr.
byJosiah Quincy, Jr.’s name is rarely mentioned in history books. This is because his name never appeared at the top of any leaderboard, that…
Catharine Macaulay, England’s First Female Whig Historian: the War Begins, 1775
byBy the end of 1774, Catharine Macaulay had met Benjamin Rush, Arthur Lee, Richard Marchant, and Benjamin Franklin, and had corresponded with John Dickinson, James…
Johan Joachim Zubly: The Other Georgia Delegate
byWhen reading the excellent JAR article “The Dark and Heroic Histories of Georgia’s Signers,” I happened to recall another Georgia delegate to the Second…
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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…
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Catharine Macaulay, England’s First Female Whig Historian, 1773–1774
byBy the end of 1772, Catharine Macaulay had completed and published the first five volumes of her History of England from the Accession of…
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Catharine Macaulay, England’s First Female Whig Historian, 1763–1772
byCatharine Sawbridge was born in Wye, Kent, England to John Sawbridge and Elizabeth Wanley on April 2, 1731. Her father was a landed proprietor;…