Excerpts from the Founders’ Library 1

The Holy Bible, Conteyning [sic]the Old Testament and the shall be taxed or regulated by any power on earth but our
New, 1782 own.”
The Framers respect the Bible as the source of religious belief.
Their thinking about “natural law’” and “natural rights” has a Works, John Woolman, 1774
religious foundation. Woolman, a New Jersey Quaker, believes that owning slaves is
“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God inconsistent with the Christian religion. His writings contribute
created he him; male and female created he them.” to the growing international debate over slavery.
“These are people who have made no agreement to serve
Thoughts on Government, John Adams, 1776 us, and who have not forfeited their liberty that we know
Adams is keenly interested in the structure of government. He of. These are the souls for whom Christ died, and for our
champions the case for checks and balances. conduct towards them we must answer before Him who is
“A representation of the people in one assembly being no respecter of persons”
obtained, a question arises, whether all the powers of
government, legislative, executive, and judicial, shall be left Commentaries on the Laws of England, Sir William
in this body? I think a people cannot be long free, nor ever Blackstone, 1765-69
happy, whose government is in one assembly.” Blackstone’s political conservatism troubles many revolutionaries.
But his Commentaries is a sourcebook on English common-law
Common Sense, Thomas Paine, 1776 rules and procedures and is part of every American lawyer’s
Paine denounces monarchy as inherently corrupt and tyrannical bookshelf.
and also describes how an independent America will achieve “Civil liberty, rightly understood, consists in protecting the
greater prosperity when freed of colonial restrictions. rights of individuals by the united force of society: society
“This new World hath been the asylum for the persecuted cannot be maintained, and of course can exert no protection,
lovers of civil and religious liberty from EVERY PART of without obedience to some sovereign power; and obedience
Europe. Hither have they fled not from the tender embraces is an empty name, if every individual has a right to decide
of the mother, but from the cruelty of the monster, and it is how far he himself shall obey.”
so far true of England, that the same tyranny which drove
the emigrants from home, pursues their descendants still.” Letters from a Pennsylvania Farmer, John Dickinson, 1768
Dickinson denounced British efforts to tax Americans and groped
Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of for a rational way to divide central and local power. He’s at the
Nations, Adam Smith, 1776 Convention himself, trying to solve this problem.
Smith believes that economic prosperity is more likely through “In fact, if the people of New York cannot be legally taxed
the self-interested decisions of thousands of individuals than but by their own representatives, they cannot be legally
through government monopolies and controls. This corresponds deprived of the privilege of legislation, only for insisting on
nicely with the idea that people should have political freedom. that exclusive privilege of taxation. If they may be legally
“It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or deprived in such a case of the privilege of legislation, why
the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard may they not, with equal reason, be deprived of every other
to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their privilege?”
humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of
our necessities but of their advantages.” Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects, David Hume,
1753-68
A Summary of the Views of the Rights of British America, The Framers have mixed feelings about Hume. Though some del-
Thomas Jefferson, 1774 egates admire his work, they are dismayed by his idea that royal
Jefferson summarized the American argument that Parliament corruption of members of Parliament is necessary to maintain
deprived Americans of liberty by trying to govern and tax them the balance between royal authority and popular power.
without the consent of their representatives. “We may, therefore, give to this influence what name we please;
“Let them not think to exclude us from going to other markets we may call it by the invidious appellations of corruption
to dispose of those commodities which they cannot use, or to and dependence; but some degree and some kind of it are
supply those wants which they cannot supply. Still less let it inseparable from the very nature of the constitution, and
be proposed that our properties within our own territories necessary to the preservation of our mixed government.”
Excerpts from the Founders’ Library 2

A System of Moral Philosophy, Francis Hutcheson, 1755 Institutes of the Laws of England, Sir Edward Coke, 1628
Hutcheson believes that “self-interest” is a virtue in itself. Coke believes that the Magna Carta confirms the ancient, funda-
Challenging John Locke, he says that ideas of right and wrong mental rights belonging to all Englishmen. He says common law
are not based on reason, but on a “moral sense” implanted by preserves those rights and that judges should carefully guard
God. them. He is greatly admired by many of the Delegates.
“Our moral sense, by the wise constitution of God, more “The common law has no controller in any part of it, but
approves such affections as are most useful and efficacious the high court of Parliament; and if it be not abrogated or
to the publick [sic] interest.” altered by Parliament, it remains still.”

The Spirit of the Laws, Charles Louis de Secondat, Baron Discourses on the First Ten Books of Livy, Niccolo
Montesquieu, 1748 Machiavelli, 1531
Montesquieu explains that liberty rests upon separating the Machiavelli’s Discourses highlight the importance of “civic virtue”
different powers of government: especially the power to enact to the well being of a republic.
laws from the power to enforce them. “The Citizens in a Republic who attempt an enterprise either
“When the legislative and executive powers are united in the in favor of Liberty or in favor of Tyranny, ought to consider
same person, or in the same body of magistrates, there can be the condition of things, and judge the difficulty of the
no liberty; because apprehensions may arise, lest the same enterprise; for it is as difficult and dangerous to want to
monarch or senate should enact tyrannical laws, to execute make a people free who want to live in servitude, as to want
them in a tyrannical manner.” to make a people slave who want to live free.”

Gulliver’s Travels, Jonathan Swift, 1726 Magna Carta, 1215

Swift’s political satire on the universal human tendency to abuse In this Great Charter of Liberty, English kings conceded that
political power and authority is familiar to American readers. government must be based on the rule of law, and guaranteed
“Mistakes committed by Ignorance in a virtuous Disposition, certain basic rights to all freemen.
would never be of such fatal Consequence to the Publick “No free man shall be taken or imprisoned or dispossessed,
Weal, as the Practices of a man whose Inclinations led or outlawed, or banished, or in any way destroyed, nor will
him to be corrupt, and had great Abilities to manage and we go upon him, nor send upon him, except by the legal
multiply, and defend his corruptions.” judgment of his peers or by the law of the land.”

Cato’s Letters, John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon, 1724 Politics, Aristotle, BC 384-322
These essays show how courtiers around the King subverted the Aristotle’s emphasis on a higher law interests American thinkers.
liberty of Englishmen and the independence of Parliament. The It provides a classical pedigree for their ideas about “fundamental
authors confirm American suspicions of executive power. law” and “natural rights.”
“It is nothing strange, that men, who think themselves “Constitutions which aim at the common advantage are
unaccountable, should act unaccountably, and that all correct and just without qualification, whereas those
men would be unaccountable if they could” which aim only at the advantage of the rulers are deviant
and unjust, because they involve despotic rule, which is
Two Treatises on Government, John Locke, 1690 inappropriate for a community of free persons.”
Locke believes that human beings join together and form govern-
ments in order to protect their natural rights to life and property. Lives of Noble Romans, Plutarch, 46-120
When a government fails to protect these rights, he maintains, Plutarch provides practical examples of courageous and pub-
the people can replace that government with another. lic-spirited leadership to emulate, as well as examples of folly
“The end of law is not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and vice to avoid.
and enlarge freedom.” “Ambitious men, who embrace the image and not the reality
of virtue, produce nothing but ugly deeds.”

Adapted from Social Education 70(5), pp. 294-300.