His Masterly Pen: A Biography of Jefferson the Writer
byBOOK REVIEW: His Masterly Pen: A Biography of Jefferson the Writer by Fred Kaplan (New York City, NY: HarperCollins, 2022) Thomas Jefferson was many things….
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Thomas Jefferson and the Conditions of Good History: Writing About the American Revolution
byThomas Jefferson has a Thucydidean, or fact-based, approach to the praxis of history. Evidence of that approach appeared early in his life, in his…
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Thomas Jefferson: A Biography of Spirit and Flesh
byBOOK REVIEW: Thomas Jefferson: A Biography of Spirit and Flesh by Thomas S. Kidd (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2022) There seems to be a…
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,…
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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…
“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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George III’s (Implicit) Sanction of the American Revolution
byIn Summary View of the Rights of British America (1774), Jefferson wrote of King George III’s unwillingness to use his “negative” to veto unjust proposals….
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Williamsport, DC? How a Maryland Town Vied to be the Nation’s Capital
byAfter seven years of fighting in the Revolutionary War, Otho Holland Williams returned home. It was the Spring of 1782. When he left Frederick,…
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Weaponizing Impeachment: Justice Samuel Chase and President Thomas Jefferson’s Battle Over the Process
byThere was much discussion over the impeachment process during the Constitution’s ratifying debates. Federalists argued that the ability to impeach an individual gave disproportionate…
This Week on Dispatches: M. Andrew Holowchak on Thomas Jefferson on Rebellion, Revolution, and “Treason”
byOn this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews historian M. Andrew Holowchak on interpreting the distinctions Thomas Jefferson made between rebellion, revolution, and treason. New…
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“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…
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The 27th Grievance of the Declaration of Independence
by“He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known…
The 25th Grievance of the Declaration of Independence
byWhen Thomas Jefferson wrote the twenty-seven grievances against the King listed in the Declaration of Independence, he did so with the intention of encapsulating…
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Natural History in Revolutionary and Post-Revolutionary America
byIn the second half of the 1700s, French natural historian Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, formulated what would be dubbed the “New World degeneracy”…
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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…
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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…
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…
Edmund Burke and Thomas Jefferson on Montesquieu
byAntoine Louis Claude Destutt, comte de Tracy (1754–1836) was a famous French Enlightenment philosopher. Thomas Jefferson admired him, and was so impressed with his…
Lord Bolingbroke: A Tory Thinker that Jefferson Truly Admired
byJefferson scholars all knew that Thomas Jefferson often disparaged the label “Tory” in his political writings. For Jefferson, being called a Whig would signify…
Jefferson and Burke on Marat, Danton, and Robespierre
byThomas Jefferson is well-known for his so-called “Frenchified” stance.[1] On the topic of the relationship between Jefferson and French Revolution, scholarly accounts often stop…
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Patriotism and Profit
byBOOK REVIEW: Patriotism & Profit: Washington, Hamilton, Schuyler & the Rivalry for America’s Capital City by Susan Nagel (Pegasus Books, 2021). In Patriotism & Profit:…
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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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Divine Providence and Deism in the Declaration of Independence
byClemson University Professor C. Bradley Thompson is a nationally recognized historian and Revolutionary Era scholar whose most recent book, America’s Revolutionary Mind, has earned…
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The Vermont Constitution of 1777
byIf the gunfire at Lexington and Concord was the “shot heard round the world,” the phrases in the Declaration of Independence were the words…
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The First Public Reading of the Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776
by“We hold these truths to be self-evident . . . .” Who were the first people to hear Thomas Jefferson’s memorable words spoken in…
This Week on Dispatches: Geoff Smock on the Teenage Thomas Jefferson
byOn this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews educator and JAR contributor Geoff Smock on his research into the teenage years of Thomas Jefferson,…
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Smells Like Teen Spirit: The Teenage Thomas Jefferson
byWithin the pantheon of Founding Fathers, only George Washington was more impenetrable than was Thomas Jefferson—then and now. The man who would come to…
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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…
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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…
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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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…
John Paul Jones and Thaddeus Kosciuszko: Encounter in Warsaw 1789
byDuring September–October 1789, two heroes of the American War of Independence, both members of the Society of Cincinnati, were in the Polish capital of…
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The Shores of Tripoli: A Strategy Game
byThe Shores of Tripoli: A Strategy Game by Kevin Bertram (Fort Circle Games: Washington, DC) Recently I was fortunate to be asked to review a…
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The First Efforts to Limit the African Slave Trade Arise in the American Revolution: Part 3 of 3, Congress Bans the African Slave Trade
byIn October 1774, in a stunning and radical move, delegates of the First Continental Congress signed a pledge for the thirteen mainland colonies not…
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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…
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Margaret Eustace and Her Family Pass through the American Revolution
byJohn L. Smith, Jr. introduced readers of the Journal of the American Revolution to Margaret Eustace in his article, “The Scandalous Divorce Case that Influenced…