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Founders and the Constitution: In Their Own Words—Volume 1

Richard Henry Lee(1732–1794)

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Iknow there are [those] among you who laughat virtue, and with vain ostentatious displayof words will deduce from vice, public good!

But such men are much fitter to be Slaves in thecorrupt, rotten despotisms of Europe, than toremain citizens of young and rising republics.

—Richard Henry Lee, 1779

IntroductionRichard Henry Lee in many ways personified the elite Virginia gentry. A planter and slaveholder,he was tall, handsome, and genteel in his manners. Raised in a conservative environment, Leewas nonetheless radical in his social and political views. As early as the 1750s, he denouncedslavery as an evil, and he even favored the vote for women who owned property. Lee was alsoamong the first to advocate separation from Great Britain, introducing the resolution in theSecond Continental Congress that led to independence.

Though Lee was a planter, politics was his true calling. He reveled in backroom bargaining,and during the imperial crisis he learned how to utilize mob action to resist British tyranny.In denouncing British transgressions, Lee’s oratory was said to rival that of his more renownedfellow Virginian, Patrick Henry. Lee was an ally and friend of Samuel Adams, who shared theVirginian’s aversion to moneygrubbing and ostentatious displays of wealth. Like Adams, Leeneglected his financial affairs and often struggled to make ends meet. At one point in his life,he was forced to live on a diet of wild pigeons.

Lee believed that good government required virtue, defined as self-sacrifice for the publicgood. He rejected the idea held by some Founders that the proper design of governinginstitutions was all that was needed to protect liberty. Nevertheless, a poorly constructedgovernment could destroy virtue and, as a consequence, liberty. This is why Lee opposed theConstitution of 1787, which in his opinion dangerously concentrated power in the federalgovernment. Lee has sometimes been credited with authorship of the Letters from the FederalFarmer to the Republican, a series of newspaper essays published anonymously in Virginia in1787–1788 by an opponent of the Constitution. Though this is still a matter of much debateamong historians, the views of the Federal Farmer undoubtedly mirror Lee’s own quite closely.

Relevant Thematic Essays for Richard Henry Lee• Federalism• Republican Government (Volume 2)

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In His Own Words:Richard Henry Lee

ON THE CONSTITUTION

Richard Henry Lee

Standards

CCE (9–12): IIA1, IIC1, IIIA1, IIIA2NCHS (5–12): Era III, Standards 3A, 3BNCSS: Strands 2, 5, 6, and 10

MaterialsStudent Handouts

• Handout A—Richard Henry Lee(1732–1794)

• Handout B—Vocabulary andContext Questions

• Handout C—In His Own Words:Richard Henry Lee on theConstitution

Additional Teacher Resource

• Answer Key

Recommended Time

One 45-minute class period.Additional time as needed forhomework.

OverviewIn this lesson, students will learn about Richard HenryLee. They should first read as background homeworkHandout A—Richard Henry Lee (1732–1794) andanswer the Reading Comprehension Questions. Afterdiscussing the answers to these questions in class, theteacher should have the students answer the CriticalThinking Questions as a class. Next, the teacher shouldintroduce the students to the primary source activity,Handout C—In His Own Words: Richard Henry Lee onthe Constitution, in which Lee lays out his objections tothe newly written Constitution. As a preface, there isHandout B—Vocabulary and Context Questions, whichwill help the students understand the document.

There are Follow-Up Homework Options that ask thestudents to compose a Federal Farmer letter of their own,based on Lee’s ideas. Extensions provides opportunity forthought as students are asked to consider how Lee mighthave reacted to later developments in United Stateshistory, had he lived long enough to observe them.

ObjectivesStudents will:

• understand Lee’s views on the slave trade and slavery• appreciate Lee’s role as a leader of the American

opposition to British tyranny• explain the importance of virtue in Lee’s political

theory• analyze the reasons for Lee’s opposition to the

Constitution


I. Background HomeworkAsk students to read Handout A—Richard Henry Lee (1732–1794) and answer theReading Comprehension Questions.

II. Warm-Up [10 minutes]A. Review answers to homework questions.B. Conduct a whole-class discussion to answer the Critical Thinking Questions.C. Ask a student to summarize the historical significance of Richard Henry Lee.

Richard Henry Lee was a Virginia planter and one of the leaders of the opposition toBritish tyranny during the 1760s and 1770s. He was one of the first Americans to call forindependence from Great Britain. As a member of the Second Continental Congress, Leeintroduced the resolution that led to the drafting of the Declaration of Independence. Hewas also an outspoken opponent of the Constitution. In his Letters from the FederalFarmer to the Republican, Lee voiced his concern that the Constitution lacked a billof rights and gave too much power to the central government. Some of the FederalFarmer essays were published as a pamphlet, and thousands of copies were sold. Leeserved as a senator in the first Congress under the new Constitution, where he was aleading supporter of the first ten amendments to the Constitution, which were ratifiedin 1791 and became known as the Bill of Rights.

III. Context [5 minutes]Briefly review with students the main issues involved in the debate between Federalists andAnti-Federalists. (The Federalists believed that the confederation would break up if theConstitution was not ratified. Anti-Federalists feared that a stronger central governmentwould endanger the rights of the people.)

IV. In His Own Words [20 minutes]A. Distribute Handout B—Vocabulary and Context Questions.B. Distribute Handout C—In His Own Words: Richard Henry Lee on the Constitution.

Be sure that the students understand the vocabulary and the “who, what, where, andwhen” of the document.

C. Tell the students that they will read together as a class ten brief excerpts from theFederal Farmer. Ask the students to consider whether each excerpt is (1) a statementof Lee’s principles, or (2) a criticism of the proposed Constitution. The studentsshould mark each excerpt with “principle” or “criticism” accordingly. Have a differentstudent read each of the ten excerpts to the class. Then have a large-group discussionto determine how each excerpt should be labeled.

D. Ask the students to determine the main idea of each excerpt and write it down.

V. Wrap-Up Discussion [10 minutes]Ask the students to imagine that they are in charge of the New York publishing firmthat printed some of the Federal Farmer essays as a pamphlet. Tell the students thatthere is room for only five essays in the pamphlet. Which five of the ten excerpts wouldwork best as topics for these essays?

LESSON PLAN



VI. Follow-Up Homework OptionsAsk the students to choose one of the excerpts from the Federal Farmer letters and tocompose their own paragraph-long Federal Farmer letter based on the idea expressedby Lee in the excerpt.

VII. ExtensionsAsk the students: How might Richard Henry Lee have reacted to the followingdevelopments in American history, had he lived long enough to observe them?• The United States Congress’s banning of the importation of slaves (1808)• The Civil War between the North and the South (1861–1865)• The abolition of slavery by the Thirteenth Amendment (1865)

Resources

PrintBallagh, James C. The Letters of Richard Henry Lee. 2 vols. New York: Macmillan Co., 1911–1914; Reprint:

Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 1970.Chitwood, Oliver. Richard Henry Lee, Statesman of the Revolution. Morgantown: West Virginia University

Library, 1967.Maier, Pauline. The Old Revolutionaries: Political Lives in the Age of Samuel Adams. New York: W. W. Norton &

Company, Reprint ed., 1990.Matthews, John C. Richard Henry Lee. Williamsburg, VA: The Virginia Independence Bicentennial

Commission, 1978.McDonald, Forrest, ed. Empire and Nation: Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania by John Dickinson; Letters

from the Federal Farmer to the Republican by Richard Henry Lee. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1999.

Internet“Letters from the Federal Farmer to the Republican.” The Constitution Society. <http://www.constitution.org/

afp/fedfar00.htm>.“Resolution of Richard Henry Lee, June 7, 1776.” The Avalon Project at Yale University Law School.

<http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/contcong/06-07-76.htm>.“Richard Henry Lee.” The Atlantic Monthly. <http://www.leearchive.info/shelf/cook/index.html>.

Selected Works by Richard Henry Lee• Letters from the Federal Farmer to the Republican (1787–1788)

Richard Henry Lee

LESSON PLAN

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The happiness of America will be secured . . . as long as it continues virtuous,and when we cease to be virtuous we shall not deserve to be happy.

—Richard Henry Lee, 1776

The mob was led by a tall, thin man with reddish-brown hair and a handwrapped in black silk. Richard Henry Lee was an unlikely leader of theraucous group of laborers, artisans, and sailors who were making theirway through the streets of Leedstown, Virginia, on this cold winternight of 1766. An aristocratic planter, Lee usually personified thesouthern ideal of upper-class gentility and grace. He was a fixture ofhigh society. But on this night, he walked next to violent men of thelower classes on a mission of intimidation. Their destination was the

home of a merchant who was cooperating with the hated Stamp Actrecently passed by the British Parliament. Lee hoped to convince this man

to join other merchants in boycotting the stamps. A skilled politician, Leeknew that there were many tactics to be employed in the art of persuasion—

including the threat of bodily harm.

A Life of PrivilegeRichard Henry Lee was born in 1732 at Stratford Hall Plantation in Westmoreland County,Virginia. The Lees were one of the wealthiest and most powerful families in Virginia. Theeldest of four sons, Lee was first taught by tutors and then sent to England to finishhis education. Returning home in 1752, he purchased land from his brother inWestmoreland County and there built his plantation home, which he named “Chantilly.”Lee studied law and was elected to the House of Burgesses at the age of twenty-five.

Opponent of SlaveryIn the House of Burgesses, Lee became an outspoken opponent of the international slavetrade. His first official act was to introduce a bill that proposed “to lay so heavy a dutyon the importation of slaves as to put an end to that iniquitous and disgraceful trafficwithin the colony of Virginia.” Though other slaveholders also opposed importation, fewcondemned the institution of slavery itself, as Lee did. Blacks, Lee declared, were “equallyentitled to liberty and freedom by the great law of nature.” He warned that slaves wouldrebel if they “observed their masters possessed of a liberty denied to them.”

Nevertheless, Lee did not free any of his slaves. Indeed, he simply could not affordto do so. Lee earned much of his income by renting his slaves to other planters and bybuying and selling them. “I do not see how I could in justice to my family refuse anyadvantages that might arise from the selling of them,” Lee explained.

Political Activist and PatriotLee’s radical nature was evident in his political views also. In the 1760s, he assumed aleading role in opposing British policies toward America. Lee founded the WestmorelandAssociation in opposition to the Stamp Act of 1765. This body organized boycotts ofBritish goods and harassed royal officials who attempted to enforce the Stamp Act. Leewas one of the first Patriots to call for independence. He condemned the Townshend Acts


RICHARD HENRY LEE (1732–1794)

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of 1767 as “destructive of that mutual beneficial connection which every good subjectwould wish to see preserved.”

Lee understood Virginia could not stand on her own in defiance of British policies.In 1773, he organized the Virginia Committee of Correspondence as a way to exchangeinformation with Patriot leaders in other colonies. He also received regular informationabout events in England from his two brothers living in London.

In 1774, Lee was elected to represent Virginia at the First Continental Congress inPhiladelphia. There he tried to persuade other members of the need for Americanindependence. In the Congress, Lee played a vital role in uniting American oppositionin the North and South. He became a good friend of Samuel Adams, one of the mostprominent Patriot leaders in Boston.

Though the First Congress did not go so far as to declare American independence,Lee did not give up. In 1776, he was chosen a member of the Second ContinentalCongress. On June 7, Lee introduced a resolution that declared “that these UnitedColonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States.” This led to thedrafting of the Declaration of Independence. Lee’s resolution was adopted by Congresson July 2, 1776.

Lee stayed in Congress through 1779, helping guide the nation through the firstyears of the Revolution. He then returned home to Virginia, where he served in the statelegislature. In 1781, the Articles of Confederation, which set up a government for thenew nation, went into effect. Lee at first turned down the offer to serve in the newCongress. He believed that he owed service to his state first. But in 1784, he accepteda seat in the national Congress and served as that body’s president his first year asa member.

As a member of the Confederation Congress, Lee helped guide the NorthwestOrdinance through Congress in 1787. This law organized the Ohio territory andprovided for its entry into the Union. One of the provisions of the Northwest Ordinancedeclared that “there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the saidterritory.”

Anti-FederalistDuring the 1780s, Lee became concerned that Americans were losing their republicanvirtue—defined as self-sacrifice for the public good—and their love of liberty. Instead,Lee worried, people were more concerned about amassing money and power. Whensome leading Americans called for revising the Articles of Confederation so as tostrengthen the national government, Lee was alarmed. He feared that these men cravedpower for themselves at the expense of the people’s liberty.

Lee therefore refused to take part in the Constitutional Convention of 1787. He alsotried to persuade delegates to the convention not to alter the Articles. Despite hiswarnings, the delegates at Philadelphia designed an entirely new system of government.When the Constitution was sent to the states for approval, Lee became a leader of theopposition to ratification in Virginia.

In 1787 and 1788, an anonymous series of essays, the Letters from the Federal Farmerto the Republican, appeared in Virginia newspapers. The Federal Farmer laid outarguments against the Constitution. Some of the Federal Farmer essays were publishedas a pamphlet, and thousands of copies were sold. Some historians have claimed that Leewas the author of these letters, though this is a matter of much debate. Nevertheless, theviews of the Federal Farmer mirror Lee’s own quite closely.

Richard Henry Lee

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In the essays, the Farmer criticized the Constitution’s centralization of powers in thefederal government and its lack of a bill of rights. He warned that the Constitutionwould destroy the states and create a “consolidated” government in which all power wasdangerously concentrated in one place. The Farmer instead hoped to preserve a federalsystem, in which power was divided between the national and state governments. Hehoped that a second convention could be organized to revise the Constitution.

Despite Lee’s opposition, the Constitution was approved by the requisite nine statesby the end of June 1788. Lee was disappointed. Hoping to protect the people’s liberty,however, he accepted a Senate seat in the first Congress under the Constitution. He spenthis time in Congress advocating laws and amendments that would limit the power of thenew government. Lee was a leading supporter of the first ten amendments to theConstitution, which were ratified in 1791 and became known as the Bill of Rights.

RetirementPoor health forced Lee to retire from public life and return to Chantilly in 1792. Lee waspessimistic about the prospects of the United States. He feared that desire for wealth andpower had replaced republican virtue among many of his countrymen, especially in hisown beloved Virginia.“The hasty, unpersevering, aristocratic genius of the south suits notmy disposition,” Lee wrote, “and is inconsistent with my ideas of what must constitutesocial happiness and security.” He even once considered retiring to Massachusetts. ButLee never left Virginia. He died at Chantilly in 1794 at the age of sixty-two.


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Reading Comprehension Questions

1. What was Lee’s view of the slave trade and slavery?

2. What important resolution did Lee introduce as a member of the SecondContinental Congress?

3. What did Lee argue in the Letters from the Federal Farmer to the Republican?

Critical Thinking Questions

4. Why do you think Lee kept his authorship of the Letters from the Federal Farmerto the Republican a secret? Why do you think he used the pseudonym “theFederal Farmer”?

5. Lee believed that those who serve in government must be virtuous or elseliberty is endangered. Do you agree or disagree? Is it possible to designgovernmental institutions so as to protect the people against evil governmentofficials?


Letters from the Federal Farmer to the Republican

1. Vocabulary: Use context clues to determine the meaning or significance of each ofthese words and write their definitions:

a. consolidated

b. vicinage

c. inalienable

d. explicitly

e. ascertained

f. ambitious

g. props

2. Context: Answer the following questions.

a. When was this document written?

b. Where was this document written?

c. Who wrote this document?

d. What type of document is this?

e. What was the purpose of this document?

f. Who was the audience for this document?

Richard Henry Lee

VOCABULARY AND CONTEXT QUESTIONS

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Letters from the Federal Farmer to the Republican

Note: The Letters from the Federal Farmer to the Republican was a series of newspaperessays published anonymously in Virginia in 1787–1788 by an opponent of theConstitution. Some historians have claimed that Richard Henry Lee was the author of theseletters, though this is still a matter of much debate. Nevertheless, the views of the FederalFarmer mirror Lee’s own quite closely.

Directions: Consider whether each excerpt is (1) a statement of Lee’s principles, or(2) a criticism of the proposed Constitution. Mark each excerpt with “principle” or“criticism” accordingly.

A

The plan of government now proposed is evidently calculated totally to change, in time,our condition as a people. Instead of being thirteen republics, under a federal head, it isclearly designed to make us one consolidated government.

B

The essential parts of a free and good government are a full and equal representationof the people in the legislature, and the jury trial of the vicinage in the administrationof justice.

C

There are certain inalienable and fundamental rights, which in forming the socialcompact, ought to be explicitly ascertained and fixed. . . . These rights should be madethe basis of every constitution.

D

A wise and honest administration can make the people happy under any government;but necessity only can justify even our leaving open avenues to the abuse of power, bywicked, unthinking, or ambitious men.


IN HIS OWN WORDS: RICHARD HENRY LEE ON THE CONSTITUTION

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E

By this plan there can be no doubt, but that the powers of congress will be complete asto all kinds of taxes whatever.

F

Liberty, in its genuine sense, is security to enjoy the effects of our honest industry andlabors, in a free and mild government.

G

The supreme power is in the people, and rulers possess only that portion which isexpressly given them.

H

The government [as proposed by the Constitution] will take every occasion to multiplylaws, and officers to execute them, considering these as so many necessary props for itsown support.

I

A virtuous people make just laws, and good laws tend to preserve unchanged a virtuouspeople.

J

Every man of reflection must see, that the change now proposed, is a transfer of powerfrom the many to the few.

Source: Forrest McDonald, ed., Empire and Nation: Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania by John Dickinson;Letters from the Federal Farmer to the Republican by Richard Henry Lee (Indianapolis, Ind.: LibertyFund, 1999), 92, 97–98, 100, 104, 111–113, 126, 139, and 146.

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By the time the delegates to the ConstitutionalConvention had gathered in Philadelphia in 1787,the American people had been accustomed formore than one hundred and fifty years to havingmost of their affairs managed first within thecolonies and then in independent states. It was notsurprising that the Articles of Confederation, theinitial constitutional system for“The United States of America,”affirmed in its first article thegeneral “sovereignty, freedomand independence” of the states.Beyond historical precedence,the commitment to statesovereignty drew support fromsixteenth- and seventeenth-century theorists such as JeanJacques Rousseau who arguedthat the habits and virtuesneeded by a self-governingpeople can be cultivated only insmall republics. In short, historyand theory seemed to be on theside of a confederation of smallAmerican republics or states.

If the American people were inclined to favorstate sovereignty, they also were interested incomfortable preservation—that is, in the enjoymentof both “safety and happiness,” to borrow from theDeclaration of Independence. By the mid-1780s, itwas clear to many Americans that state sovereigntycreated obstacles to comfortable preservation, notthe least being the impediments to a smooth-functioning commercial system. Concerns aboutthe effects on the country of competing fiscal andcommercial policies in the different states led tothe Annapolis Convention of 1786. While thedelegates to this convention did not come up witha specific plan for fixing the commercial system,they petitioned the confederation congress toarrange for a constitutional convention that wouldreconsider the Articles of Confederation with theaim of improving interstate commerce.

James Madison, one of seven delegates chosento represent Virginia at the ConstitutionalConvention of 1787, prepared a document on thehistory of confederacies during the monthspreceding the meeting. Events such as Shays’sRebellion in Massachusetts and disputes over the

commercial use of the Potomac River, along withhis study of history, convinced him that a systembased on state sovereignty was destined to fail.Madison worked with other members of theVirginia delegation on a plan for a basicallynational, rather than confederal, system ofgovernment. In addition to provisions for separate

legislative, executive, and judicialbranches, the “Virginia Plan”would have empoweredCongress “to negative all lawspassed by the several States,contravening in the opinion ofthe National Legislature thearticles of Union; and to callforth the force of the Unionagainst any member of theUnion failing to fulfill its dutyunder the articles thereof.” TheVirginia Plan proposed anational government that wouldbe legally and functionallysupreme over the states.

According to Madison, onlya national system would be capable of protectingthe fundamental interests and rights of theAmerican people. Other delegates at theconvention disagreed. Roger Sherman ofConnecticut, for example, argued that “the objectsof Union . . . were few” and that “the people aremore happy [sic] in small than in large States.”Sherman was not alone in preferring aconfederation of small republics to a national orunitary political system. Madison understood thathe had to expose the weaknesses of the confederalmodel to save the Virginia Plan. Sherman helpedhim out on June 6 by conceding that some stateswere too small and, hence, subject to factiousviolence. Madison seized upon this argument. Heresponded that “faction & oppression” had“prevailed in the largest as well as the smallest”states, although less in the former than the latter.

The teaching for Madison was clear: largerepublics are more likely to provide “security forprivate rights, and the steady dispensation ofJustice,” than small republics. This argument hithome with the delegates. Madison convinced themthat what they wanted most from government, thatis, protection for rights or republican liberty, could

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best be achieved in a national system. Smallrepublics, he argued, were actually bad forrepublican liberty, being hotbeds of factiousdivision and violence. He summed up his positionbluntly: “The only remedy is to enlarge the sphere,& thereby divide the community into so great anumber of interests & parties, that in the 1st. placea majority will not be likely at the same moment tohave a common interest separate from that of thewhole or of the minority; and in the 2d. place, thatin case they shd. have such an interest, they maynot be apt to unite in the pursuit of it.” Here wasthe outline of the famousdefense of the large republicthat appears in Madison’sFederalist Paper No. 10.

In the end, the delegatesat the ConstitutionalConvention settled on a planthat combined national andconfederal elements. Toquote Federalist Paper No. 39: the proposed system“in strictness” was “neither national nor a federalConstitution, but a composition of both.”Madison’s June 6 speech, however, insured that thenew “compound” republic would have a nationalas opposed to a confederal tilt. This innovativegovernmental model, what came to be called the“federal” model, represented one of America’sgreat contributions to the science of politicsaccording to Madison. The model’s nationalelements were evident not only in the creation ofseparate executive and judicial departments as wellas proportional representation in the House ofRepresentatives, but in the supremacy clause thataffirmed that the Constitution as well as nationallaws enacted under its authority would constitutethe supreme law of the land. The confederalelements appeared in the provision for equal staterepresentation in the United States Senate (afeature especially desired by the small states) andstate participation in the ratification ofamendments. The addition of the 10thAmendment in 1791 provided added protectionfor state interests (“The powers not delegated tothe United States by the Constitution, norprohibited by it to the States, are reserved to theStates respectively, or to the people”).

The defenders of the confederal modelcontinued their attacks on the new system duringthe ratification debates that followed theconvention. Patrick Henry of Virginia, forexample, accused the delegates to the FederalConvention of violating their authorization by

proposing to establish a “consolidated” governmentbased on the consent of the people, rather than thestates. For Henry, the new constitutional systemwould endanger the rights and privileges of thepeople along with the “sovereignty” of the states.Richard Henry Lee, one of the Anti-Federalists,shared Henry’s fear that a large republic would notbe hospitable to liberty and natural rights. Likemany other opponents of the Constitution, Leealso argued that republican liberty can bepreserved only by a virtuous citizenry and thatonly small republics are capable of nurturing civic

and moral virtues.The fact that the

document that issued fromthe Federal Convention didnot include a bill of rightsseemed to lend support tothe charge by Patrick Henryand others that theproposed governmental

system would promote neither the happiness northe liberty of the people. In fact, several delegatesto the convention, including George Mason ofVirginia and Eldridge Gerry of Massachusetts,were sufficiently troubled by the absence of a billof rights that they departed without adding theirsignatures to the document. Gerry also worriedthat the new government would not adequatelyrepresent the people and that its powers were notwell defined. When it was clear that the opponentsof the plan would not accept the argument that theframework set out by the delegates provided for alimited government of enumerated powers thatwould be incapable of emasculating natural rightsand liberties, an agreement was reached during theratification period to add amendments that wouldguarantee, among other things, freedom of speechand religion, trial by one’s peers, and protectionagainst unreasonable searches and seizures.

The federal system or compound republiccrafted by the Framers was an ingenious responseto the demand for both effective or competentgovernment on the one side, and rights-sensitivegovernment on the other. The decision to dividepower among (federalism) and within (checks andbalances) several governments positioned theAmerican people to enjoy the benefits of a largerepublic (e.g., strong defense against foreignencroachments, national system of commerce,etc.) while still retaining significant control overtheir day-to-day affairs within the states. Thestates, and not the national government, wereentrusted with the “police powers,” that is, the

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Madison convinced them that whatthey wanted most from government,

that is, protection for rights orrepublican liberty, could best beachieved in a national system.


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authority to protect the health, morals, safety andwelfare of the people. It is worth noting thatMadison was quite content to entrust the policepowers to the states—he never desired that theUnited States have a unitary system of government.

Ratification of the Constitution in 1791 hardlyput an end to the debate between the advocates ofstate sovereignty or small republicanism and theproponents of national sovereignty and the largerepublic. The concerns of James Madison andPatrick Henry, for example, are never far from thesurface of contemporary debates about the powerof the federal government to impose regulationson the states under the Constitution’s commerce

clause or the Fourteenth Amendment. There isconsiderable evidence, however, that the tensionbetween these positions not only adds vitality tothe constitutional system, but has been criticallyimportant to the advancement of both nationalsecurity and equality in the enjoyment offundamental rights. The federal arrangement thatwas crafted by the delegates at the FederalConvention of 1787 has long been recognizedas one of the principal models of a moderndemocratic system of government.

David E. Marion, Ph.D.Hampden-Sydney College

Suggestions for Further ReadingDiamond, Martin. The Founding of the Democratic Republic. Itasca, IL: F.E. Peacock, 1981.Frohnen, Bruce (ed.). The American Republic: Primary Sources. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2002.Kurland, Philip B. and Ralph Lerner (eds.). The Founders’ Constitution. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1987.McDonald, Forrest. E Pluribus Unum. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1979.Storing, Herbert J. What the Anti-Federalists Were For. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1981.


As Benjamin Franklin left Philadelphia’s ConventionHall in September 1787, upon the completion of thework of the Framers of the Constitution, a womanapproached him and asked the old sage of theRevolution what the delegates had created. Franklinresponded, “A republic, Madame, if you can keepit.” The woman’s reaction to Franklin’s reply is left unrecorded by history,but she might well haveasked Franklin for a moredetailed answer. Thoughthe word “republic” wascommon currency inAmerica at the time, themeaning of the term wasimprecise, encompassingvarious and diverse formsof government.

Broadly, a republicmeant a country not governed by a king. The rootof the word is the Latin, res publica, meaning “thepublic things.” “The word republic,” Thomas Painewrote, “means the public good, or the good of thewhole, in contradistinction to the despotic form,which makes the good of the sovereign, or of oneman, the only object of the government.” In arepublic, the people are sovereign, delegatingcertain powers to the government whose duty is tolook to the general welfare of society. That citizensof a republic ought to place the common goodbefore individual self-interest was a key assumptionamong Americans of the eighteenth century.“Every man in a republic,” proclaimed BenjaminRush, “is public property. His time and talents—his youth—his manhood—his old age, nay more,life, all belong to his country.”

Republicanism was not an American invention.In shaping their governments, Americans looked tohistory, first to the ancient world, and specifically tothe Israel of the Old Testament, the Roman republic,and the Greek city-states. New Englanders inparticular often cited the ancient state of Israel as theworld’s first experiment in republican governmentand sometimes drew a parallel between the TwelveTribes of Israel and the thirteen American states. In1788, while ratification of the Constitution wasbeing debated, one Yankee preacher gave a sermonentitled,“The Republic of the Israelites an Example

to the American States.” Indeed, the Bible was citedby American authors in the eighteenth centurymore often than any other single source.

Americans not only knew their Bible, but alsothe history of the Greeks and Romans. The eliteclass mastered ancient languages and literature, arequirement of colleges at the time. To these men

of the eighteenth century,ancient languages were notdead, nor were ancientevents distant; rather,the worlds of Pericles and Polybius, Sallust andCicero were vibrant and near. The relativelyminor advancements intechnology across 2,000years—people still traveledby horse and sailing ship—

served to reinforce the bond eighteenth-centuryAmericans felt with the ancients.

Like the Greeks and Romans of antiquity,Americans believed that government must concernitself with the character of its citizenry. Indeed,virtue was “the Soul of a republican Government,”as Samuel Adams put it. Virtue had twoconnotations, one secular and the other sacred.The root of the word was the Latin, vir, meaning“man,” and indeed republican virtue often referredto the display of such “manly” traits as courage andself-sacrifice for the common good. These qualitieswere deemed essential for a republic’s survival. “Apopular government,” Patrick Henry proclaimed,“cannot flourish without virtue in the people.” Butvirtue could also mean the traditional Judeo-Christian virtues, and many Americans feared thatGod would punish the entire nation for the sins ofits people. “Without morals,” Charles Carrollproclaimed, “a republic cannot subsist any lengthof time.” New Englanders in particular sought tohave society’s institutions—government andschools as well as churches—inculcate such qualitiesas industry, frugality, temperance, and chastity inthe citizenry. The Massachusetts Constitution of1780, for example, provided for “public instructionsin piety, religion, and morality.”

The second ingredient of a good republic was awell-constructed government with good institutions.

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“If the foundation is badly laid,” George Washingtonsaid of the American government,“the superstructuremust be bad.” Americans adhered to a modifiedversion of the idea of “mixed”government, advocatedby the Greek thinker Polybius and later republicantheorists. A mixed republic combined the threebasic parts of society—monarchy (the one ruler),aristocracy (the rich few), and democracy (thepeople)—in a proper formula so that no one partcould tyrannize the others. But Americans believedthat the people of a republic were sovereign, so theysought to create institutions that approximated themonarchical and aristocraticelements of society. TheFramers of the Constitutiondid just this by fashioning asingle executive and a Senateonce removed from thepeople. The problem, as JohnAdams pointed out in hisThoughts on Government, wasthat “the possible combinations of the powers ofsociety are capable of innumerable variations.”

Americans had every reason to be pessimisticabout their experiment in republicanism. Historytaught that republics were inherently unstable andvulnerable to decay. The Roman republic and thecity-state of Athens, for instance, had succumbed tothe temptations of empire and lost their liberty. Thehistories of the Florentine and Venetian republicsof Renaissance Italy too had been glorious but short-lived. Theorists from the ancient Greek thinkerPolybius to the seventeenth-century English radicalAlgernon Sidney warned that republics suffer fromparticular dangers that monarchies and despotismsdo not. Republics were assumed to burn brightlybut briefly because of their inherent instability.One element of society always usurped power andestablished a tyranny.

The great danger to republics, it was generallybelieved, stemmed from corruption, which, likevirtue, had both a religious and a worldly meaning.Corruption referred, first, to the prevalence ofimmorality among the people. “Liberty,” SamuelAdams asserted, “will not long survive the totalExtinction of Morals.”

“If the Morals of the people” were neglected,Elbridge Gerry cautioned during the crisis withEngland, American independence would notproduce liberty but “a Slavery, far exceeding that ofevery other Nation.”

This kind of corruption most often resultedfrom avarice, the greed for material wealth. SeveralAmerican colonial legislatures therefore passed

sumptuary laws, which prohibited ostentatiousdisplays of wealth. “Luxury . . . leads tocorruption,” a South Carolinian declared duringthe Revolutionary era, “and whoever encouragesgreat luxury in a free state must be a bad citizen.”Another writer warned of the “ill effect ofsuperfluous riches” on republican society. Avaricewas seen as a “feminine” weakness; the lust forwealth rotted away “masculine” virtues. JohnAdams bemoaned “vanities, levities, and fopperies,which are real antidotes to all great, manly, andwarlike virtues.”

The second meaning ofcorruption referred toplacing private interest abovethe common good. Thistemptation plagued publicofficials most of all, who hadample opportunity tomisappropriate public fundsand to expand their power.

“Government was instituted for the general good,”Charles Carroll wrote,“but officers instrusted with itspowers have most commonly perverted them to theselfish views of avarice and ambition.” Increasinglyin the eighteenth century, Americans came to seegovernment itself as the primary source of corruption.

Fear of government’s tendency to expand itspower at the expense of the people’s liberty waspart of Americans’ English political heritage. Theyimbibed the writings of late-seventeenth-centuryEnglish radicals and eighteenth-century “country”politicians who were suspicious of the power of British officials (the “court”). Governmentcorruption was manifested in patronage (theawarding of political office to friends), faction (theformation of parties whose interests were opposed tothe common good), standing (permanent) armies,established churches, and the promotion of an eliteclass. Power, these country writers argued, waspossessed by the government; it was aggressive andexpansionist. Liberty was the property of thegoverned; it was sacred and delicate. The history ofliberty in the world was a history of defeat by theforces of tyranny.

Though the history of republicanism was adismal one, the lessons of history as well as theirown colonial experience convinced the AmericanFounders that they possessed sufficient informationon which to base a new science of politics.“Experience must be our only guide,”John Dickinsonproclaimed at the Philadelphia Convention; “reasonmay mislead us.” The Framers of the United StatesConstitution all had experience as public servants,


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Fear of government’s tendency to expand its power at the expense of thepeople’s liberty was part of Americans’

English political heritage.


and it must be remembered that the documentthey produced did not spring forth as somethingentirely new in the American experience. Rather,the Founders had learned much from the operationof their colonial charters, state constitutions, andthe Articles of Confederation.

At Philadelphia, the Founders focused on theproper construction of the machinery of governmentas the key to the building of a stable republic. TheConstitution makes no mention of the need for virtueamong the people, nor does it make broad appealsfor self-sacrifice on behalf of the common good. It isa hard-headed documentforged by practical men whohad too often witnessedavarice and ambition amongtheir peers in the statehouse, the courtroom, andthe counting house. A goodconstitution, the Foundersheld, was the key to goodgovernment. Corruption and decay could beovercome primarily through the creation of a writtenconstitution—something England lacked—thatcarefully detailed a system in which powers wereseparated and set in opposition to each other sothat none could dominate the others.

James Madison, often called “The Father of theConstitution” because of the great influence of hisideas at Philadelphia, proposed to arrange themachinery of government in such a fashion as notto make virtue or “better motives” critical to theadvancement of the common good. Acknowledgingin The Federalist Papers that “enlightened statesmenwill not always be at the helm,” Madison believedthat the separate powers of government—legislative,executive, and judicial—must be set in oppositionto one another, so that “ambition must be made tocounteract ambition.”

“In framing a government which is to beadministered by men over men,” Madison asserted,“the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enablethe government to control the governed; and in thenext place oblige it to control itself.”

James Wilson, representing Pennsylvania atthe Philadelphia Convention, declared that theConstitution’s separation of powers and checksand balances made “it advantageous even for badmen to act for the public good.” This is not to saythat the delegates believed that the republic couldsurvive if corruption vanquished virtue in society.Madison himself emphasized the importance ofrepublican virtue when defending the newgovernment in The Federalist Papers. But the Framers

agreed with Madison that men were not angels, andmost were satisfied that the Constitution, as GeorgeWashington put it,“is provided with more checks andbarriers against the introduction of Tyranny . . . thanany Government hitherto instituted among mortals.”

The question remained, however, whether onepart of society would come to dominate. No matterhow perfect the design, the danger remained that afaction would amass enough political power to takeaway the liberty of others. To combat this problem,classical republican theory called for creating auniformity of opinion among the republican

citizenry so that factionscould not develop. Theancient Greek city-states, forexample, feared anythingthat caused differentiationamong citizens, includingcommerce, which tended tocreate inequalities of wealthand opposing interests. In

contrast, Madison and the Founders recognizedthat factionalism would be inherent in a commercialrepublic that protected freedom of religion, speech,press, and assembly. They sought only to mediatethe deleterious effects of faction.

Republics also were traditionally thought to bedurable only when a small amount of territory wasinvolved. The Greek city-states, the Roman republic,the Italian republics, and the American states allencompassed relatively small areas. When the Romanrepublic expanded in its quest for empire, tyrannywas the result. Madison turned this traditionalthinking on its head in The Federalist Papers, arguingthat a large republic was more conducive to libertybecause it encompassed so many interests that nosingle one, or combination of several, could gaincontrol of the government.

Not all Americans accepted the Madisoniansolution. Agrarians, such as Thomas Jefferson, wereuncomfortable with the idea of a commercial republiccentered on industry and sought to perpetuate anation of independent farmers through the expansionof the frontier. Though uneasy about the “energeticgovernment” created by the Constitution, Jeffersonendorsed the Framers’ work after a bill of rightswas added to the document. “Old republicans” likeSamuel Adams and George Mason opposed theConstitution, even after the addition of a bill ofrights, fearing that the power granted to the centralgovernment was too great and wistfully looking backto the Revolutionary era when virtue, not ambition,was the animating principle of government. But in1789, as the new government went into operation,

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[The Constitution] is a hard-headeddocument forged by practical men whohad too often witnessed avarice and

ambition among their peers.


most Americans shared the optimism of BenjaminFranklin, who had decided at the conclusion of thePhiladelphia Convention that the sun carved intothe back of the chair used by George Washingtonwas a rising—not a setting—sun, and therebyindicative of the bright prospects of the nation.

“We have it in our power to begin the worldover again,” Thomas Paine had written in 1776,during the heady days of American independence.And indeed the American Founders in 1787 werekeenly aware that they possessed a rare opportunity.

Like the legendary Lycurgus of Ancient Greece,they were to be the supreme lawgivers of a newrepublic, a novus ordo seclorum or new order of theages. The American Founders were aware that theeyes of the world and future generations were uponthem, and they were determined to build an eternalrepublic founded in liberty, a shining city upon ahill, as an example to all nations for all time.

Stephen M. Klugewicz, Ph.D.Consulting Scholar, Bill of Rights Institute


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Suggestions for Further ReadingAdair, Douglass. Fame and the Founding Fathers: Essays by Douglass Adair. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1998.Bailyn, Bernard. The Origins of American Politics. New York: Vintage Books, 1968.McDonald, Forrest. Novus Ordo Seclorum: The Intellectual Origins of the Constitution. Lawrence: University

Press of Kansas, 1985.Pocock, J.G.A. The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition.

Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975.Rahe, Paul A. Republics Ancient and Modern, 3 vols. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1994.Wood, Gordon. The Creation of the American Republic. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1969.


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In 1760, what was to become the United States ofAmerica consisted of a small group of coloniesstrung out along the eastern seaboard of NorthAmerica. Although they had experienced significanteconomic and demographic growth in theeighteenth century and had just helped Britaindefeat France and take control of most of NorthAmerica, they remained politically and economicallydependent upon London. Yet, in the next twenty-five years, they would challenge the political controlof Britain, declare independence, wage a bloody war,and lay the foundations fora trans-continental, federalrepublican state. In thesecrucial years, the colonieswould be led by a newgeneration of politicians,men who combinedpractical political skillswith a firm grasp ofpolitical ideas. In order to better understand theseextraordinary events, the Founders who madethem possible, and the new Constitution that theycreated, it is necessary first to understand thepolitical ideas that influenced colonial Americansin the crucial years before the Revolution.

The Common Law and the Rightsof EnglishmenThe political theory of the American colonists inthe seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was deeplyinfluenced by English common law and its idea ofrights. In a guide for religious dissenters written inthe late seventeenth century, William Penn, thefounder of Pennsylvania, offered one the bestcontemporary summaries of this common-lawview of rights. According to Penn, all Englishmenhad three central rights or privileges by commonlaw: those of life, liberty, and property. For Penn,these English rights meant that every subject was“to be freed in Person & Estate from ArbitraryViolence and Oppression.” In the widely usedlanguage of the day, these rights of “Liberty andProperty” were an Englishman’s “Birthright.”

In Penn’s view, the English system of governmentpreserved liberty and limited arbitrary power byallowing the subjects to express their consent to thelaws that bound them through two institutions:

“Parliaments and Juries.”“By the first,” Penn argued,“the subject has a share by his chosen Representativesin the Legislative (or Law making) Power.” Penn feltthat the granting of consent through Parliamentwas important because it ensured that “no new Lawsbind the People of England, but such as are bycommon consent agreed on in that great Council.”

In Penn’s view, juries were an equally importantmeans of limiting arbitrary power. By serving onjuries, Penn argued, every freeman “has a share in theExecutive part of the Law, no Causes being tried, nor

any man adjudged to loose[sic] Life, member orEstate, but upon the Verdictof his Peers or Equals.” ForPenn, “These two grandPillars of English Liberty”were “the Fundamentalvital Priviledges [sic]” ofEnglishmen.

The other aspect of their government thatseventeenth-century Englishmen celebrated was asystem that was ruled by laws and not by men. AsPenn rather colorfully put it: “In France, and otherNations, the meer [sic] Will of the Prince is Law, hisWord takes off any mans Head, imposeth Taxes, orseizes a mans Estate, when, how and as often as helists; and if one be accussed [sic], or but so much assuspected of any Crime, he may either presentlyExecute him, or banish, or Imprison him atpleasure.” By contrast, “In England,” Penn argued,“the Law is both the measure and the bound ofevery Subject’s Duty and Allegiance, each manhaving a fixed Fundamental-Right born with him,as to Freedom of his Person and Property in hisEstate, which he cannot be deprived of, but eitherby his Consent, or some Crime, for which the Lawhas impos’d such a penalty or forfeiture.”

This common law view of politics understoodpolitical power as fundamentally limited byEnglishmen’s rights and privileges. As a result, itheld that English kings were bound to ruleaccording to known laws and by respecting theinherent rights of their subjects. It also enshrinedthe concept of consent as the major means to theend of protecting these rights. According to Pennand his contemporaries, this system ofgovernment—protecting as it did the “unparallel’d

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Priviledge [sic] of Liberty and Property”—hadmade the English nation “more free and happythan any other People in the World.”

The Founders imbibed this view of Englishrights through the legal training that was commonfor elites in the eighteenth-century Anglo-Americanworld. This legal education also made them awareof the history of England in the seventeenth century,a time when the Stuart kings had repeatedlythreatened their subjects’ rights. In response, manyEnglishmen drew on the common law to argue thatall political power, even that of a monarch, should belimited by law. Colonial Americans in the eighteenthcentury viewed the defeat of the Stuarts and thesubsequent triumph of Parliament (which was seen asthe representative ofsubjects’ rights) in theGlorious Revolution of 1688as a key moment in Englishhistory. They believed that ithad enshrined in England’sunwritten constitution therule of law and the sanctityof subjects’ rights. Thisawareness of English history instilled in theFounders a strong fear of arbitrary power and aconsequent desire to create a constitutional formof government that limited the possibility of rulersviolating the fundamental liberties of the people.

The seriousness with which the colonists tookthese ideas can be seen in their strong opposition toParliament’s attempt to tax or legislate for themwithout their consent in the 1760s and 1770s. Afterthe Revolution, when the colonists formed their owngovernments, they wrote constitutions that includedmany of the legal guarantees that Englishmen hadfought for in the seventeenth century as a means oflimiting governmental power. As a consequence,both the state and federal constitutions typicallycontained bills of rights that enshrined coreEnglish legal rights as fundamental law.

Natural RightsThe seventeenth century witnessed a revolution inEuropean political thought, one that was to proveprofoundly influential on the political ideas ofthe American Founders. Beginning with the Dutchwriter Hugo Grotius in the early 1600s, severalimportant European thinkers began to construct anew understanding of political theory that arguedthat all men by nature had equal rights, and thatgovernments were formed for the sole purpose ofprotecting these natural rights.

The leading proponent of this theory in theEnglish-speaking world was John Locke (1632–1704).Deeply involved in the opposition to the Stuartkings in the 1670s and 1680s, Locke wrote a book onpolitical theory to justify armed resistance toCharles II and his brother James. “To understandpolitical power right,” Locke wrote, “and derive itfrom its original, we must consider, what state allmen are naturally in, and that is, a state of perfectfreedom to order their actions, and dispose of theirpossessions and persons, as they think fit, within thebounds of the law of nature, without asking leave, ordepending upon the will of any other man.” ForLocke, the state of nature was “a state also ofequality, wherein all the power and jurisdiction is

reciprocal, no one havingmore than another.”

Although thispregovernmental state ofnature was a state of perfectfreedom, Locke contendedthat it also lacked animpartial judge or umpire toregulate disputes among

men. As a result, men in this state of naturegathered together and consented to create agovernment in order that their natural rightswould be better secured. Locke further argued that,because it was the people who had created thegovernment, the people had a right to resist itsauthority if it violated their rights. They could thenjoin together and exercise their collective orpopular sovereignty to create a new government oftheir own devising. This revolutionary politicaltheory meant that ultimate political authoritybelonged to the people and not to the king.

This idea of natural rights became a centralcomponent of political theory in the Americancolonies in the eighteenth century, appearing innumerous political pamphlets, newspapers, andsermons. Its emphasis on individual freedom andgovernment by consent combined powerfully withthe older idea of common law rights to shape thepolitical theory of the Founders. When faced withthe claims of the British Parliament in the 1760sand 1770s to legislate for them without theirconsent, American patriots invoked both thecommon law and Lockean natural rights theory toargue that they had a right to resist Britain.

Thomas Jefferson offers the best example ofthe impact that these political ideas had on thefounding. As he so eloquently argued in theDeclaration of Independence: “We hold these


The political theory of the Americancolonists in the seventeenth andeighteenth centuries was deeplyinfluenced by English common

law and its idea of rights.


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truths to be self-evident, that all men are createdequal, that they are endowed by their Creatorwith certain unalienable Rights, that among theseare Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.That to secure these rights, Governments areinstituted among Men, deriving their just powersfrom the consent of the governed, That wheneverany Form of Government becomes destructive ofthese ends, it is the Right of the People to alter orabolish it, and to institute new Government,laying its foundations on such principles andorganizing its powers in such form, as to themshall seem most likely to effect their Safety andHappiness.”

This idea of natural rights also influenced thecourse of political events inthe crucial years after 1776.All the state governments putthis new political theoryinto practice, basing theirauthority on the people,and establishing writtenconstitutions that protectednatural rights. As GeorgeMason, the principal author of the influentialVirginia Bill of Rights (1776), stated in thedocument’s first section: “All men are by natureequally free and independent, and have certaininherent rights, of which, when they enter into astate of society, they cannot, by any compact, depriveor divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment oflife and liberty, with the means of acquiring andpossessing property, and pursuing and obtaininghappiness and safety.” The radical implications ofthis insistence on equal natural rights would slowlybecome apparent in postrevolutionary Americansociety as previously downtrodden groups began toinvoke these ideals to challenge slavery, argue for awider franchise, end female legal inequality, and fullyseparate church and state.

In 1780, under the influence of John Adams,Massachusetts created a mechanism by which thepeople themselves could exercise their sovereignpower to constitute governments: a specialconvention convened solely for the purpose ofwriting a constitution, followed by a process ofratification. This American innovation allowed theideas of philosophers like Locke to be put intopractice. In particular, it made the people’s naturalrights secure by enshrining them in a constitutionwhich was not changeable by ordinary legislation.This method was to influence the authors of thenew federal Constitution in 1787.

Religious Toleration and theSeparation of Church and State

A related development in seventeenth-centuryEuropean political theory was the emergence ofarguments for religious toleration and theseparation of church and state. As a result of thebloody religious wars between Catholics andProtestants that followed the Reformation, a fewthinkers in both England and Europe argued thatgovernments should not attempt to force individualsto conform to one form of worship. Rather, theyinsisted that such coercion was both unjust anddangerous. It was unjust because true faithrequired voluntary belief; it was dangerous becausethe attempts to enforce religious beliefs in Europe

had led not to religiousuniformity, but to civil war.These thinkers furtherargued that if governmentsceased to enforce religiousbelief, the result would becivil peace and prosperity.

Once again the Englishphilosopher John Locke

played a major role in the development of these newideas. Building on the work of earlier writers, Lockepublished in 1689 A Letter Concerning Toleration, inwhich he contended that there was a natural rightof conscience that no government could infringe.As he put it: “The care of Souls cannot belong to theCivil Magistrate, because his Power consists only inoutward force; but true and saving Religion consistsin the inward perswasion [sic] of the Mind, withoutwhich nothing can be acceptable to God. And suchis the nature of the Understanding, that it cannotbe compell’d to the belief of any thing by outwardforce. Confiscation of Estate, Imprisonment,Torments, nothing of that nature can have anysuch Efficacy as to make Men change the inwardJudgment that they have formed of things.”

These ideas about the rights of conscience andreligious toleration resonated powerfully in theEnglish colonies in America. Although thePuritans in the seventeenth century had originallyattempted to set up an intolerant commonwealthwhere unorthodox religious belief would beprohibited, dissenters like Roger Williamschallenged them and argued that true faith couldnot be the product of coercion. Forced to flee bythe Puritans, Williams established the colony ofRhode Island, which offered religious toleration toall and had no state-supported church. As thePuritan Cotton Mather sarcastically remarked,


Natural rights became a centralcomponent of political theory in theAmerican colonies . . . , appearing in

numerous political pamphlets,newspapers, and sermons.


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Rhode Island contained “everything in the worldbut Roman Catholics and real Christians.” Inaddition, Maryland, founded in the 1630s, andPennsylvania, founded in the 1680s, both providedan extraordinary degree of religious freedom bythe standard of the time.

In the eighteenth century, as these arguments forreligious toleration spread throughout the English-speaking Protestant world, the American colonies,becoming ever more religiously pluralistic, provedparticularly receptive to them.As a result, the idea thatthe government should not enforce religious beliefhad become an important element of Americanpolitical theory by the lateeighteenth century. After theRevolution, it was enshrinedas a formal right in many ofthe state constitutions, aswell as most famously in theFirst Amendment to thefederal Constitution.

Colonial Self-GovernmentThe political thinking of the Founders in the lateeighteenth century was also deeply influenced bythe long experience of colonial self-government.Since their founding in the early seventeenthcentury, most of the English colonies in theAmericas (unlike the French and Spanish colonies)had governed themselves to a large extent in localassemblies that were modeled on the EnglishParliament. In these colonial assemblies theyexercised their English common law right toconsent to all laws that bound them.

The existence of these strong local governmentsin each colony also explains in part the speed withwhich the Founders were able to create viableindependent republican governments in the yearsafter 1776. This long-standing practice of self-government also helped to create an indigenouspolitical class in the American colonies with therequisite experience for the difficult task of nationbuilding.

In addition to the various charters and royalinstructions that governed the English colonies,Americans also wrote their own Foundingdocuments. These settler covenants were an earlytype of written constitution and they provided animportant model for the Founders in the lateeighteenth century as they sought to craft a newconstitutional system based on popular consent.

Classical RepublicanismNot all the intellectual influences on the Foundersoriginated in the seventeenth century. Becausemany of the Founders received a classicaleducation in colonial colleges in the eighteenthcentury, they were heavily influenced by thewritings of the great political thinkers andhistorians of ancient Greece and Rome.

Antiquity shaped the Founders’ politicalthought in several important ways. First, itintroduced them to the idea of republicanism, orgovernment by the people. Ancient political thinkersfrom Aristotle to Cicero had praised republican

self-government as the bestpolitical system. Thisclassical political thoughtwas important for theFounders as it gave themgrounds to dissent from theheavily monarchical politicalculture of eighteenth-centuryEngland, where even thecommon law jurists who

defended subjects’ rights against royal powerbelieved strongly in monarchy. By reading theclassics, the American Founders were introducedto an alternate political vision, one that legitimizedrepublicanism.

The second legacy of this classical idea ofrepublicanism was the emphasis that it put on themoral foundations of liberty. Though ancientwriters believed that a republic was the best formof government, they were intensely aware of itsfragility. In particular, they argued that because thepeople governed themselves, republics required fortheir very survival a high degree of civic virtue intheir citizenry. Citizens had to be able to put thegood of the whole (the res publica) ahead of theirown private interests. If they failed to do this, therepublic would fall prey to men of power andambition, and liberty would ultimately be lost.

As a result of this need for an exceptionallyvirtuous citizenry, ancient writers also taught thatrepublics had to be small. Only in a small andrelatively homogeneous society, they argued,would the necessary degree of civic virtue beforthcoming. In part, it was this classical teachingabout the weakness of large republics thatanimated the contentious debate over theproposed federal Constitution in the 1780s.

In addition to their reading of ancient authors,the Founders also encountered republican ideas in


By reading the classics, the AmericanFounders were introduced to an

alternate political vision, one thatlegitimated republicanism.


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the political theory of a group of eighteenth-century English writers called the “radical Whigs.”These writers kept alive the republican legacy ofthe English Civil War at a time when mostEnglishmen believed that their constitutionalmonarchy was the best form of government in theworld. Crucially for the Founding, these radicalWhigs combined classical republican thought withthe newer Lockean ideas of natural rights andpopular sovereignty. They thus became animportant conduit for a modern type ofrepublicanism to enter American political thought,one that combined the ancient concern with avirtuous citizenry and the modern insistence onthe importance of individual rights.

These radical Whigs also provided theFounders with an important critique of theeighteenth-century British constitution. Instead ofseeing it as the best form of government possible,the radical Whigs argued that it was both corrupt

and tyrannical. In order to reform it, they called fora written constitution and a formal separation ofthe executive branch from the legislature. Thisclassically inspired radical Whig constitutionalismwas an important influence on the development ofAmerican republicanism in the late eighteenthcentury.

ConclusionDrawing on all these intellectual traditions, theFounders were able to create a new kind ofrepublicanism in America based on equal rights,consent, popular sovereignty, and the separation ofchurch and state. Having set this broad context forthe Founding, we now turn to a more detailedexamination of important aspects of the Founders’political theory, followed by detailed biographicalstudies of the Founders themselves.

Craig Yirush, Ph.D.University of California, Los Angeles


Suggestions for Further ReadingBailyn, Bernard. The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University

Press, 1967.Lutz, Donald. Colonial Origins of the American Constitution: A Documentary History. Indianapolis, Ind.:

Liberty Fund, 1998.Reid, John Phillip. The Constitutional History of the American Revolution. Abridged Edition. Madison: The

University of Wisconsin Press, 1995.Rossiter, Clinton. Seedtime of the Republic: The Origins of the American Tradition of Political Liberty. New

York: Harcourt Brace, 1953.Zuckert, Michael. Natural Rights and the New Republicanism. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press,

1994.

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Visual Assessment1. Founders Posters—Have students create posters for either an individual Founder,

a group of Founders, or an event. Ask them to include at least one quotation(different from classroom posters that accompany this volume) and one image.

2. Coat of Arms—Draw a coat of arms template and divide into6 quadrants (see example). Photocopy and hand out to theclass. Ask them to create a coat of arms for a particularFounder with a different criterion for each quadrant (e.g.,occupation, key contribution, etc.). Include in the assignmentan explanation sheet in which they describe why they chosecertain colors, images, and symbols.

3. Individual Illustrated Timeline—Ask each student to create a visual timeline ofat least ten key points in the life of a particular Founder. In class, put the studentsin groups and have them discuss the intersections and juxtapositions in each oftheir timelines.

4. Full Class Illustrated Timeline—Along a full classroom wall, tape poster paper inone long line. Draw in a middle line and years (i.e., 1760, 1770, 1780, etc.). Putstudents in pairs and assign each pair one Founder. Ask them to put together tenkey points in the life of the Founder. Have each pair draw in the key points on themaster timeline.

5. Political Cartoon—Provide students with examples of good political cartoons,contemporary or historical. A good resource for finding historical cartoons on theWeb is <http://www.boondocksnet.com/gallery/political_cartoons.html>. Askthem to create a political cartoon based on an event or idea in the Founding period.

Performance Assessments1. Meeting of the Minds—Divide the class into five groups and assign a Founder to

each group. Ask the group to discuss the Founder’s views on a variety of pre-determined topics. Then, have a representative from each group come to the frontof the classroom and role-play as the Founder, dialoguing with Founders fromother groups. The teacher will act as moderator, reading aloud topic questions(based on the pre-determined topics given to the groups) and encouragingdiscussion from the students in character. At the teacher’s discretion, questioningcan be opened up to the class as a whole. For advanced students, do not provide alist of topics—ask them to know their character well enough to present himproperly on all topics.

2. Create a Song or Rap—Individually or in groups, have students create a songor rap about a Founder based on a familiar song, incorporating at least five keyevents or ideas of the Founder in their project. Have students perform their songin class. (Optional: Ask the students to bring in a recording of the song forbackground music.)

Web/Technology Assessments1. Founders PowerPoint Presentation—Divide students into groups. Have each

group create a PowerPoint presentation about a Founder or event. Determine thenumber of slides, and assign a theme to each slide (e.g., basic biographicinformation, major contributions, political philosophy, quotations, repercussionsof the event, participants in the event, etc.). Have them hand out copies of theslides and give the presentation to the class. You may also ask for a copy of the

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presentation to give you the opportunity to combine all the presentations into anend-of-semester review.

2. Evaluate Web sites—Have students search the Web for three sites related to aFounder or the Founding period (you may provide them with a “start list” from theresource list at the end of each lesson). Create a Web site evaluation sheet thatincludes such questions as: Are the facts on this site correct in comparison to othersites? What sources does this site draw on to produce its information? Who are themain contributors to this site? When was the site last updated? Ask students tograde the site according to the evaluation sheet and give it a grade for reliability,accuracy, etc. They should write a 2–3 sentence explanation for their grade.

3. Web Quest—Choose a Web site(s) on the Constitution, Founders, or Foundingperiod. (See suggestions below.) Go to the Web site(s) and create a list of questionstaken from various pages within the site. Provide students with the Web addressand list of questions, and ask them to find answers to the questions on the site,documenting on which page they found their answer. Web site suggestions:

• The Avalon Project <http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/avalon.htm>• The Founders’ Constitution <http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/>• Founding.com <http://www.founding.com/>• National Archives Charters of Freedom

<http://www.archives.gov/national_archives_experience/charters.html>• The Library of Congress American Memory Page <http://memory.loc.gov/>• Our Documents <http://www.ourdocuments.gov/>• Teaching American History <http://www.teachingamericanhistory.org/>

A good site to help you construct the Web Quest is: <http://trackstar.hprtec.org>

Verbal Assessments1. Contingency in History—In a one-to-two page essay, have students answer the

question, “How would history have been different if [Founder] had not beenborn?” They should consider repercussions for later events in the political world.

2. Letters Between Founders—Ask students to each choose a “CorrespondencePartner” and decide which two Founders they will be representing. Have themread the appropriate Founders essays and primary source activities. Over a periodof time, the pair should then write at least three letters back and forth (with a copybeing given to the teacher for review and feedback). Instruct them to be mindfulof their Founders’ tone and writing style, life experience, and political views inconstructing the letters.

3. Categorize the Founders—Create five categories for the Founders (e.g., slave-holders vs. non-slaveholders, northern vs. southern, opponents of theConstitution vs. proponents of the Constitution, etc.) and a list of Foundersstudied. Ask students to place each Founder in the appropriate category. Foradvanced students, ask them to create the five categories in addition tocategorizing the Founders.

4. Obituaries and Gravestones—Have students write a short obituary or gravestoneengraving that captures the major accomplishments of a Founder (e.g., ThomasJefferson’s gravestone). Ask them to consider for what the Founder wished to beremembered.

5. “I Am” Poem—Instruct students to select a Founder and write a poem that refersto specific historical events in his life (number of lines at the teacher’s discretion).



Each line of the poem must begin with “I” (i.e., “I am…,” “I wonder…,” “I see…,”etc.). Have them present their poem with an illustration of the Founder.

6. Founder’s Journal—Have students construct a journal of a Founder at a certainperiod in time. Ask them to pick out at least five important days. In the journalentry, make sure they include the major events of the day, the Founder’s feelingsabout the events, and any other pertinent facts (e.g., when writing a journal aboutthe winter at Valley Forge, Washington may have included information about thetroops’ morale, supplies, etc.).

7. Résumé for a Founder—Ask students to create a resume for a particular Founder.Make sure they include standard resume information (e.g., work experience,education, skills, accomplishments/honors, etc.). You can also have them researchand bring in a writing sample (primary source) to accompany the resume.

8. Cast of Characters—Choose an event in the Founding Period (e.g., the signing ofthe Declaration of Independence, the debate about the Constitution in a stateratifying convention, etc.) and make a list of individuals related to the incident.Tell students that they are working for a major film studio in Hollywood that hasdecided to make a movie about this event. They have been hired to cast actors foreach part. Have students fill in your list of individuals with actors/actresses (pastor present) with an explanation of why that particular actor/actress was chosen forthe role. (Ask the students to focus on personality traits, previous roles, etc.)

Review Activities1. Founders Jeopardy—Create a Jeopardy board on an overhead sheet or handout

(six columns and five rows). Label the column heads with categories and fill in allother squares with a dollar amount. Make a sheet that corresponds to the Jeopardyboard with the answers that you will be revealing to the class. (Be sure to includeDaily Doubles.)

a. Possible categories may include:• Thomas Jefferson (or the name of any Founder)• Revolutionary Quirks (fun Founders facts)• Potpourri (miscellaneous)• Pen is Mightier (writings of the Founders)

b. Example answers:• This Founder drafted and introduced the first formal proposal for a

permanent union of the thirteen colonies. Question: Who is BenjaminFranklin?

• This Founder was the only Roman Catholic to sign the Declaration ofIndependence. Question: Who is Charles Carroll?

2. Who Am I?—For homework, give each student a different Founder essay. Ask eachstudent to compile a list of five-to-ten facts about his/her Founder. In class, askindividuals to come to the front of the classroom and read off the facts one at atime, prompting the rest of the class to guess the appropriate Founder.

3. Around the World—Develop a list of questions about the Founders and plot a“travel route” around the classroom in preparation for this game. Ask one studentto volunteer to go first. The student will get up from his/her desk and “travel”along the route plotted to an adjacent student’s desk, standing next to it. Read aquestion aloud, and the first student of the two to answer correctly advances to thenext stop on the travel route. Have the students keep track of how many placesthey advance. Whoever advances the furthest wins.

ADDITIONAL CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES



Common Good: General conditions that are equally to everyone’s advantage. In arepublic, held to be superior to the good of the individual, though its attainment oughtnever to violate the natural rights of any individual.

Democracy: From the Greek, demos, meaning “rule of the people.” Had a negativeconnotation among most Founders, who equated the term with mob rule. The Foundersconsidered it to be a form of government into which poorly-governed republicsdegenerated.

English Rights: Considered by Americans to be part of their inheritance as Englishmen;included such rights as property, petition, and trials by jury. Believed to exist from timeimmemorial and recognized by various English charters as the Magna Carta, the Petitionof Right of 1628, and the English Bill of Rights of 1689.

Equality: Believed to be the condition of all people, who possessed an equality of rights.In practical matters, restricted largely to land-owning white men during the FoundingEra, but the principle worked to undermine ideas of deference among classes.

Faction: A small group that seeks to benefit its members at the expense of the commongood. The Founders discouraged the formation of factions, which they equated withpolitical parties.

Federalism: A political system in which power is divided between two levels ofgovernment, each supreme in its own sphere. Intended to avoid the concentration ofpower in the central government and to preserve the power of local government.

Government: Political power fundamentally limited by citizens’ rights and privileges.This limiting was accomplished by written charters or constitutions and bills of rights.

Happiness: The ultimate end of government. Attained by living in liberty and bypracticing virtue.

Inalienable Rights: Rights that can never justly be taken away.

Independence: The condition of living in liberty without being subject to the unjustrule of another.

Liberty: To live in the enjoyment of one’s rights without dependence upon anyone else.Its enjoyment led to happiness.

Natural Rights: Rights individuals possess by virtue of their humanity. Were thought tobe “inalienable.” Protected by written constitutions and bills of rights that restrainedgovernment.

Property: Referred not only to material possessions, but also to the ownership of one’sbody and rights. Jealously guarded by Americans as the foundation of liberty during thecrisis with Britain.


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Reason: Human intellectual capacity and rationality. Believed by the Founders to be thedefining characteristic of humans, and the means by which they could understand theworld and improve their lives.

Religious Toleration: The indulgence shown to one religion while maintaining aprivileged position for another. In pluralistic America, religious uniformity could not beenforced so religious toleration became the norm.

Representation: Believed to be central to republican government and the preservationof liberty. Citizens, entitled to vote, elect officials who are responsible to them, and whogovern according to the law.

Republic: From the Latin, res publica, meaning “the public things.” A government systemin which power resides in the people who elect representatives responsible to them andwho govern according to the law. A form of government dedicated to promoting thecommon good. Based on the people, but distinct from a democracy.

Separation of Church and State: The doctrine that government should not enforcereligious belief. Part of the concept of religious toleration and freedom of conscience.

Separation of Powers/Checks and Balances: A way to restrain the power of governmentby balancing the interests of one section of government against the competing interestsof another section. A key component of the federal Constitution. A means of slowingdown the operation of government, so it did not possess too much energy and thusendanger the rights of the people.

Slavery: Referred both to chattel slavery and political slavery. Politically, the fate that befellthose who did not guard their rights against governments. Socially and economically, aninstitution that challenged the belief of the Founders in natural rights.

Taxes: Considered in English tradition to be the free gift of the people to the government.Americans refused to pay them without their consent, which meant actual representationin Parliament.

Tyranny: The condition in which liberty is lost and one is governed by the arbitrarywill of another. Related to the idea of political slavery.

Virtue: The animating principle of a republic and the quality essential for a republic’ssurvival. From the Latin, vir, meaning “man.” Referred to the display of such “manly”traits as courage and self-sacrifice for the common good.

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Answer Key


H. He was troubled by the lack oflimitation on how many terms thepresident could serve.

Richard Henry LeeHandout A—Richard Henry Lee

(1732–1794)1. Lee was an outspoken opponent of the

international slave trade. His first officialact in the Virginia House of Burgesseswas to introduce a bill that proposed “tolay so heavy a duty on the importationof slaves as to put an end to that iniqui-tous and disgraceful traffic within thecolony of Virginia.”Lee also condemnedthe institution of slavery itself. Blacks,Lee declared, were “equally entitled toliberty and freedom by the great law ofnature.” He warned that slaves wouldrebel if they “observed their masterspossessed of a liberty denied to them.”Nevertheless, Lee did not free any of hisslaves.He simply could not afford to do so.

2. On June 7, 1776, Lee introduced aresolution that declared “that theseUnited Colonies are, and of right oughtto be, free and independent States.” Thisled to the drafting of the Declarationof Independence. Lee’s resolution wasadopted by Congress on July 2, 1776.

3. In the Federal Farmer, Lee criticized theConstitution’s centralization of powersin the federal government and its lackof a bill of rights. He warned that theConstitution would destroy the statesand create a “consolidated” governmentin which all power was dangerouslyconcentrated in one place. Lee wishedinstead to preserve a federal system, inwhich power is divided between thenational and state governments.

4. Answers will vary. Some students maysay that Lee did not want anyone toknow he was the author of the FederalFarmer. Anonymous authorship was acommon tactic of political pamphlet-eers at the time. This was a way to keep

people focused on the arguments andnot the author of the pamphlet. Somestudents may suggest that the pseudo-nym “Federal Farmer” reflects Lee’sidentity as a plantation owner whofavored the principle of federalism. Leeprobably also wished to imply that theviews expressed in the pamphlet wereheld by all virtuous farmers of America.

5. Answers will vary. Some students mayagree with Lee that no constitutional pro-cedures or laws can stop corrupt office-holders from doing evil. Others maydisagree with Lee and argue that a well-designed constitution can reign in evil-doers by pitting the interest of one againstthe other. (Madison famously expressedthis latter idea in Federalist No. 51, inwhich he argued that “ambition mustbe made to counteract ambition.”)

Handout B—Vocabulary and

Context Questions1. Vocabulary

a. unitedb. vicinityc. incapable of being taken awayd. openly, clearlye. discovered, found outf. determinedg. supports, buttresses

2. Contexta. The document was written in

1787–1788.b. The document was written in

Virginia.c. Richard Henry Lee is the

author of the document.d. The document is a series of

essays/letters.e. The purpose of the document

was to convince Americans notto ratify the Constitution.

f. The audience was Americans inevery state.

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Answer Key

Answer Key

Handout C—In His Own Words:

Richard Henry Lee on the

Constitutiona. Statements of Lee’s principles: Excerpts

B, C, D, F, G, Ib. Criticisms of the proposed Constitution:

Excerpts A, E, H, J

Topic/main idea of each excerpt:A The Constitution will place too much

power in the central government.B The two ingredients for good govern-

ment are representation of the peopleand trial by jury.

C People’s rights cannot be taken awayand should be the foundation of theConstitution.

D “Wise and honest” administration ofgovernment is more important than theform of government; constitutionsshould not give men the opportunityto do evil.

E The Constitution gives Congressunlimited power to tax.

F Liberty is the freedom to enjoy life andwork without too many restrictionsby the government.

G All power lies with the people.H The proposed government will grow

too large and too powerful.I Virtue and good laws are mutually

supportive.J The proposed government will be run

by a few men.

James Madison

Handout A—James Madison

(1751–1836)1. Madison pressed for a meeting of the

states to discuss amending the Articlesof Confederation. He prepared hisideas for a new Constitution even beforethe states met. Many of Madison’s ideaswere embodied in the Virginia Plan,which the final version of the constitu-tion closely resembled. Madison playeda major role in the debates as the con-

vention proceeded. He spoke often insupport of his ideas and designedcompromises to break gridlocks. Afterthe convention, Madison joined withAlexander Hamilton and John Jay incomposing the Federalist Papers, aseries of newspaper essays thatdefended the Constitution. He alsotook a leading role in support of theConstitution at the Virginia RatifyingConvention. As a member of theHouse of Representatives, he guided abill of rights through Congress.

2. Madison believed that it was crucialto separate power within the centralgovernment. This system of checks andbalances would prevent any factionfrom seizing control of the government.Similarly, the proper division of powerbetween the national and state gov-ernments, a novel concept called“federalism,” would preclude thedangerous concentration of power inany one place.

3. First, he argued that the rights of thepeople were already implied in theConstitution; second, he worried thatany such listing of rights would surelyomit some rights held by the people;and third, he believed that writtenlists of rights were not effective inprotecting the liberty of the people.

4. Madison would have been deeply disap-pointed because he had worked so hardto fashion a new constitution for theUnited States. He likely would have beenconcerned that the nation was in dangerof collapse. Perhaps he would havetried to organize another conventionor at least would have tried to have theArticles of Confederation amended.

5. Answers will vary.

Handout B—Vocabulary and

Context Questions1. Vocabulary

a. motivatedb. contrary, opposed

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