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  • The Declaration of Independence

     |  The Apple of Gold/Frame of Silver

    The Declaration of Independence The Declaration of Independence With the War for Independence over a year old and hope for a peaceful resolution nonexistent, the Continental Congress appointed a Committee of Five—including Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Benjamin Franklin— to draft a document "declar[ing] the causes which impel [the American colonies] to the separation." Thirty-three-year-old Jefferson composed the initial draft, completing it in seventeen days. The committee submitted its draft to Congress on June 28, 1776, and on July 2, Congress voted for independence. Two days later, after numerous edits, Congress approved the Declaration of Independence by unanimous vote. July 4, 1776 The Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States ...
  • Letter to Henry Lee

     |  The Apple of Gold/Frame of Silver

    Letter to Henry Lee Letter to Henry Lee 1 Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) In his later years, Jefferson answered hundreds of letters, including, in this instance, a query about the Declaration of Independence, explaining that it drew upon a long political and philosophical tradition and reflected principles widely understood by Americans of the founding era. May 8, 1825 Dear Sir: ...That George Mason was the author of the bill of rights, and of the constitution founded on it, the evidence of the day established fully in my mind. Of the paper you mention, purporting to be instructions to the Virginia delegation in Congress, I have no recollection. If it were anything more than a project of some private hand, that is to say, had any such instructions ...
  • Nicomachean Ethics

     |  The Apple of Gold/Frame of Silver

    Nicomachean Ethics Nicomachean Ethics 1 Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) Written in the tradition of Aristotle's teacher, Plato—and of Plato's teacher, Socrates—the Nicomachean Ethics addresses the question, "What is the best life for man?" An extended reflection on virtue, happiness, and friendship, it helped to inform the moral and political thought of America's Founders. There are echoes of it, for instance, in President George Washington's First Inaugural Address, when he states "that there exists in the economy and course of nature, an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness." C. 350 B.C. Book 1 Chapter 1. Every art and every inquiry, and likewise every action and choice, seems to aim at some good, and hence it has been beautifully ...
  • The Politics

     |  The Apple of Gold/Frame of Silver

    The Politics The Politics 1 Aristotle Thomas Jefferson began studying Greek at the age of nine, and later in life employed so many Greek phrases in his letters that John Adams, his frequent correspondent, complained of them. The Founders' interest in classical languages was not academic, but political and philosophical. Among the ancient books that they drew upon was Aristotle's Politics, a catalog of constitutions and a guide to understanding regimes. C. 335-322 B.C. Book 1 Chapter 1. (1) Since we see that every city is some sort of partnership, and that every partnership is constituted for the sake of some good (for everyone does everything for the sake of what is held to be good), it is clear that all partnerships aim at some good, and ...
  • On the Commonwealth

     |  The Apple of Gold/Frame of Silver

    On the Commonwealth On the Commonwealth 1 Marcus Tullius Cicero (c. 106-43 B.C.) Cicero was the great defender of the Roman republic and a master of oratory. The author of several books on politics, philosophy, and rhetoric, he was the first to speak of natural law as a moral or political law, and was an important influence on the Founders. C. 54-51 B.C. ...[33] True law is right reason, consonant with nature, spread through all people. It is constant and eternal; it summons to duty by its orders, it deters from crime by its prohibitions. Its orders and prohibitions to good people are never given in vain; but it does not move the wicked by these orders or prohibitions. It is wrong to pass laws obviating this law; it is not permitted to abrogate ...
  • Second Treatise of Government

     |  The Apple of Gold/Frame of Silver

    Second Treatise of Government Second Treatise of Government 1 John Locke (1632-1704) Locke's Two Treatises of Government presented a critique of the divine right of kings and outlined the principles of natural rights and government by consent. Written during the 1670s, they were not published until after the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and the passage of the English Bill of Rights in 1689. Locke was the political theorist quoted most frequently by Americans in the 1770s. 1690 Chapter II. Of the state of nature. 4. To understand political power right, and derive it from its original, we must consider what state all men are naturally in, and that is, a state of perfect freedom to order their actions and dispose of their possessions, and persons ...
  • Discourses Concerning Government

     |  The Apple of Gold/Frame of Silver

    Discourses Concerning Government Discourses Concerning Government 1 Algernon Sidney (1623-1683) Involved in some of the same anti-monarchical causes as John Locke, Sidney was caught up in the conspiracy to oust King Charles II. He was beheaded on December 7, 1683, a martyr to the English Whig cause. Fifteen years after his death, his Discourses Concerning Government was published. A hero to John Adams and widely read in the American colonies, Sidney famously inscribed the following in the Visitor's Book at the University of Copenhagen: "This hand, enemy to tyrants, by the sword seeks peace under liberty." This inscription later inspired the state motto of Massachusetts. 1698 Chapter One Section 17. God having given the Government of the ...
  • The Constitution of the United States of America

     |  The Apple of Gold/Frame of Silver

    The Constitution of the United States of America The Constitution of the United States of America Fifty-five delegates from twelve states (Rhode Island declined to participate) traveled to Philadelphia to attend the Constitutional Convention, which began in May 1787. They quickly scrapped the existing Articles of Confederation, and after four months they concluded their business by adopting a new frame of government. On September 17, thirty-nine delegates signed the Constitution. It was nine months before the requisite nine states ratified the Constitution, putting it into effect. The thirteenth state, Rhode Island, did not ratify it until 1790. Subsequently, it has been amended twenty-seven times. September 17, 1787 Preamble We the People of ...
  • Fragment on the Constitution and the Union

     |  The Apple of Gold/Frame of Silver

    Fragment on the Constitution and the Union Fragment on the Constitution and the Union 1 Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) This never appeared in Lincoln's public speeches, but it is possible that he composed it while writing his First Inaugural Address. It draws upon the King James translation of Proverbs 25:11—"A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver"—to describe the relationship between the principles of the Declaration and the purpose of the Constitution. January 1861 All this is not the result of accident. It has a philosophical cause. Without the Constitution and the Union, we could not have attained the result; but even these, are not the primary cause of our great prosperity. There is something back of these, entwining ...
  • Rights of the British Colonies Asserted and Proved

     |  Natural Rights/American Revolution

    Rights of the British Colonies Asserted and Proved Rights of the British Colonies Asserted and Proved 1 James Otis (1725-1783) Otis rose to prominence in 1761, after he gave a courtroom speech opposing the Writs of Assistance—blanket warrants issued by the British for searching suspect property. He edited that speech into this essay three years later, after the passage of the Sugar Act. Its arguments contain the seed of the American Revolution—an appeal to natural rights applied against particular abuses of political power. Struck by lightning in 1783, Otis did not live beyond the Revolution. But John Adams remarked that he had never known a man "whose service for any ten years of his life were so important and essential to the cause of his country as those ...
  • A Summary View of the Rights of British America

     |  Natural Rights/American Revolution

    A Summary View of the Rights of British America A Summary View of the Rights of British America 1 Thomas Jefferson Jefferson began his public career in 1769 in the Virginia House of Burgesses, the colonial legislature. British implementation of the Coercive Acts of 1774 (also known as the Intolerable Acts)—passed in response to the Boston Tea Party—prompted the "Summary View," Jefferson's first publication. Written for Virginians who were choosing delegates to the First Continental Congress, it laid the groundwork for later appeals by a "free people, claiming their rights as derived from the laws of nature." July 1774 Resolved, that it be an instruction to the said deputies when assembled in General Congress with the deputies from the other ...
  • An Election Sermon

     |  Natural Rights/American Revolution

    An Election Sermon An Election Sermon 1 Gad Hitchcock (1718-1803) Pastors and ministers were among the highest educated citizens in the American colonies, and often addressed politics from the pulpit. This sermon by Hitchcock was delivered on election day in 1774, in the presence of General Thomas Gage, the British military governor of the Province of Massachusetts Bay. It decries British monarchical rule and celebrates the idea of the consent of the governed, appealing to reason as well as revelation. 1774 ...In a mixed government, such as the British, public virtue and religion, in the several branches, though they may not be exactly of a mind in every measure, will be the security of order and tranquility—Corruption and venality, the certain ...
  • The Farmer Refuted

     |  Natural Rights/American Revolution

    The Farmer Refuted The Farmer Refuted 1 Alexander Hamilton (1755-1804) When Loyalist writings began to appear in New York newspapers in 1775, nineteen-year-old Hamilton responded with an essay defending the colonists' right of revolution. Still a student at King's College, he followed up with this second pamphlet, expanding his argument on the purpose of legitimate government. February 23, 1775 I shall, for the present, pass over to that part of your pamphlet, in which you endeavor to establish the supremacy of the British Parliament over America. After a proper eclaircissement of this point, I shall draw such inferences, as will sap the foundation of every thing you have offered. The first thing that presents itself is a wish, that "I ...
  • Common Sense

     |  Natural Rights/American Revolution

    Common Sense Common Sense 1 Thomas Paine (1737-1809) Published anonymously in January 1776 by an Englishman who had come to Philadelphia two years before, Common Sense became the most published work of the founding era. Printed over half a million times in a nation of three million people, it made a passionate case for liberty and against monarchy. Unpopular in later life for his attacks on Christianity, Paine will always be remembered for this pamphlet—a pamphlet often said to have launched the American Revolution. January 10, 1776 On the Origin and Design of Government in General, With Concise Remarks on the English Constitution Some writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them ...
  • Virginia Declaration of Rights

     |  Religion, Morality, and Property

    Virginia Declaration of Rights Virginia Declaration of Rights 1 George Mason (1725-1792) The Virginia Declaration of Rights, drafted by George Mason as a preamble to the Virginia Constitution, is—along with the Declaration of Independence that followed a month later—the clearest statement of the social contract theory of government found in major early American documents. June 12, 1776 A declaration of rights made by the Representatives of the good people of Virginia, assembled in full and free Convention; which rights do pertain to them and their posterity, as the basis and foundation of Government. Section 1. That all men are by nature equally free and independent, and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state ...
  • The Northwest Ordinance

     |  Religion, Morality, and Property

    The Northwest Ordinance The Northwest Ordinance Adopted by the Congress of the Confederation in 1787, the Northwest Ordinance set forth a model for the expansion of the American republic. Providing a governing structure for the territory that would later become Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin, it prohibited slavery, protected religious liberty, and encouraged education. Following the adoption of the Constitution, the new Congress passed the Northwest Ordinance again in 1789. July 13, 1787 An Ordinance for the government of the territory of the United States northwest of the river Ohio Section 1. Be it ordained by the United States in Congress assembled, That the said territory, for the purpose of temporary government, be one ...
  • Memorial and Remonstrance against Religious Assessments

     |  Religion, Morality, and Property

    Memorial and Remonstrance against Religious Assessments Memorial and Remonstrance against Religious Assessments 1 James Madison (1751-1836) Madison circulated the Memorial and Remonstrance anonymously in 1785 as part of the effort to pass the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom. It appeals to Christian citizens by emphasizing that Christianity's own teachings preclude politically coerced support for particular sects, and to all citizens based on reason. June 20, 1785 To the Honorable the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia: A Memorial and Remonstrance We the subscribers, citizens of the said Commonwealth, having taken into serious consideration, a Bill printed by order of the last Session of General Assembly, entitled "A ...
  • Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom

     |  Religion, Morality, and Property

    Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom 1 Thomas Jefferson Jefferson asked to be remembered on his tombstone as author of the Declaration of Independence, father of the University of Virginia, and author of this law. Long delayed because of the contentiousness of the subject and the powerful interests arrayed against it, the Virginia Statute was drafted in 1777, introduced as a bill in the 1779 legislative session, and adopted in 1786. Eventually the laws of all thirteen original states would prohibit an established church and guarantee religious liberty to all. January 16, 1786 I. Well aware that the opinions and belief of men depend not on their own will but follow involuntarily the evidence proposed to ...
  • Circular Letter to the States

     |  Articles of Confederation

    Circular Letter to the States Circular Letter to the States 1 George Washington As Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army, overseen by a national legislature that struggled to fund the War for Independence, General Washington was as familiar as anyone with the defects of the Articles of Confederation. In this, his last circular letter to the states, which he sent to the thirteen governors, Washington emphasizes the need for unity in the maintenance of the nation's independence. June 8, 1783 Sir: The great object for which I had the honor to hold an appointment in the Service of my Country, being accomplished, I am now preparing to resign it into the hands of Congress, and to return to that domestic retirement, which, it is well known ...
  • Federalist 10

     |  Rethinking Union and Government

    Federalist 10 Federalist 10 1 James Madison Whereas democracy entails direct rule of the people, in a republic the people rule indirectly, through their representatives. A republic can therefore encompass a greater population and geographical area. This difference is decisive in the American experiment, Publius argues, for an expansive republic is able to control the inherent danger of majority faction. November 22, 1787 The Union as a Safeguard Against Domestic Faction and Insurrection Among the numerous advantages promised by a well-constructed Union, none deserves to be more accurately developed than its tendency to break and control the violence of faction. The friend of popular governments never finds himself so much alarmed for their ...
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