Since James Thomas Flexner’s 1974 Pulitzer recognition for his biography of George Washington, one of the axioms of the American founding is that the general, George Washington, was the “indispensable man.”[1] The selection, therefore, of Washington as the commander of the Continental Army was undoubtedly among the most critical decisions in the history of the […]
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. […]
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 […]
On or about November 19, 1781, a Loyalist officer named William Cunningham and his regiment of approximately three hundred men rode toward Hayes Station, a fortified log home, or “blockhouse,” in the Little River District, surrounding western South Carolina’s Little River primarily in what is now Laurens County, South Carolina.[1] Now commanding the outpost was […]
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews consultant, author, and JAR contributor Eric Sterner on the life of John Rutledge, governor, president, and congressional delegate of South Carolina, a career he explored over a series of three articles. New episodes of Dispatches are available for free every Saturday evening (Eastern United States Time) on iTunes, Stitcher, […]
John Rutledge had been prominent in South Carolina politics virtually since establishing his Charleston law practice in 1761. He served in the General Assembly, tousled with the governor over colonial governance, represented the colony in the Stamp Act Congress, then again in the First and Second Continental Congresses. A moderate, he was instrumental in drafting […]
John Rutledge was born into Charleston’s elite in 1739 and by April 1775 had established himself as a defender of English rights in the colonies. A British-educated lawyer, he served in South Carolina’s General Assembly and represented the colony in the Stamp Act Congress, the First Continental Congress, and the early days of the Second […]
John Rutledge is one of those members of the founding generation who often get overlooked. Yet, for every Jefferson, Adams, or Washington, there were many like Rutledge who focused on the nitty gritty work of building a new country. Rutledge was born in 1739 to an Irish father and his fifteen-year-old bride. The oldest in […]
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 Notes of Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787; material from Madison’s notes is identified by quotation marks or indented block quotes. The best print source, annotated by Adrienne Koch and […]
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 are chaplains for the two houses of Congress. Aside from a couple of unsuccessful court challenges, the position has managed to survive into modern times largely due to custom and tradition. […]
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, Spain, and Holland, the payment of war reparations, the establishment of public credit, the states’ inability to meet their financial requisitions, and the most immanent, back pay to the disbanding Continental […]
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 the taverns and drawing rooms of Philadelphia. Fifty-five American politicians were writing a new charter of government for the United States, the Constitution. They produced the longest-surviving constitutional republic in human […]
