American Public University

LIBERTY, ENLIGHTENMENT, AND CLASSICAL REPUBLICAN VIRTUES

IN THE FOUNDING OF AMERICA

March 28, 2010

William R Cox
4075725
Graduate Seminar in American History, HIST 520, C001, Fall 09
Dr. John F. Chappo
 2

The United States of America has, arguably, impacted the world more than any

other nation or society in history. America has enjoyed political, cultural, military and

economic dominance since World War II, where, with the help of Britain and the other

allies, America rolled back the reach of tyranny to the benefit of all humanity. America

later engaged and ultimately defeated communism through the Cold War, again lifting

liberty to supremacy over despotic leadership. This brief history of American success

and positive impact throughout world history, invites a litany of questions that historians

must endeavor to answer. Was the founding of America truly a monumental event in the

history of the world? Was something innately special created in 1776 and then confirmed

and codified in 1787? Was American success determined by the fact that the founders

were simply the best political minds the world has ever produced? In short, why was the

founding of America special?

Throughout America’s short life, many historians have attempted to answer these

questions. Scholars put forth many different theories over the last 200 years, such as,

George Bancroft who in the nineteenth century offered the divine hand of providence and

the deified traits of the founders as the primary impetus for the founding.1 As America

transformed itself from an agrarian to industrial country, Bancroft’s thesis and the

founders’ motives came under assault from a group of historians who focused on the

economic impact of the American Revolution. Charles Beard offered his ideas through

the lens of an economic interpretation of the founding arguing that economics were the

primary factors leading to the American Revolution and the framing of the United States

Constitution. Beard, in large measure, dismissed Bancroft’s and other early historians

1
Ernst Breisach, Historiography Ancient, Medieval, and Modern, 3rd Edition (Chicago,
IL: University of Chicago Press, 2007) 255-261.
 3

theories that were based in ideology, because, in his view the proper method for

interpreting history was through the realm of economics.2 Fredrick Jackson Turner, a

contemporary of Beard’s, combined the idealism of individualism and liberty with the

economics of westward expansion, as a historian he viewed the history of America not

only through the lens of ideology or economics but he attempted to develop a history

through a sort of compilation of the two.3 More recently, Joseph Ellis focused his work

on the founders themselves because “men make history” and the generation responsible

for the founding knew they were making history.4 He further argued that the success of

the founding was based upon the founders’ intellectual, cultural, and social diversity;

arguing that the founding represents what “was, and still is a group portrait.”5

Bernard Bailyn and Gordon Wood provide the most comprehensive work focused

on the ideological underpinnings of the American founding. Bailyn posits that an

ideology, which began nearly a century earlier, provided the intellectual transformation,

that resulted in the American Revolution. Wood furthers Bailyn’s work by illustrating

the importance of the Enlightenment and classical republican virtues in the founding of

America.6 This work continues in the vein of Bailyn and Wood, exploring the

ideological history of America’s founding by asking the question, “Why was the

founding of America special?” The answer, to this seemingly complex question, is found

2
Ernst Breisach, Historiography, 334-337.
3
Fredrick Jackson Turner, "AHA Presidential Address: Social Forces in American
History," American Historical Association,
http://www.historians.org/info/aha_history/fjturner.htm (accessed February 7, 2010).
4
Joseph Ellis, Founding Brothers The Revolutionary Generation (New York, NY:
Vintage Books, 2002) 4.
5
Joseph Ellis, American Creation Triumphs and Tragedies at the Founding of the
Republic (New York, NY: Vintage Books, 2007) 16-17.
6
Gordon Wood, The Creation of the American Republic: 1776-1787 (Chapel Hill, NC:
University of North Carolina Press, 1998) v-xviii.
 4

in the three simple, yet, famous words We The People.

The founding of the United States of America was a synthesis of the evolving

Enlightenment ideology of personal liberty and classical republican virtues that

culminated in the political institution known as We The People. The synthesis of these

elements can be best viewed through the lens of the American colonial mindset of the

Revolutionary period. Gaining insight into the revolutionary ideology and mindset will

be accomplished by: first examining the ideology of personal liberty, it’s origins and

evolution in time; secondly by considering the importance of classical republican virtues

to the founders during the Enlightenment; and finally how the founders synthesized these

ideas into a new pragmatic political reality that they codified into the Constitution of The

United States of America. The new political reality that had matured through the years

was so powerful that it would transform thirteen independent states from oppressed

subjects of King George to a united single nation sized republic that would obtain

political and economic hegemony of the North American continent in less than one

hundred years. The Declaration of Independence described the culmination of personal

liberty as an ideology.

The Continental congress set forth their grievances in the Declaration of

Independence. All men, have “certain inalienable rights,” that governments get “their

powers from the consent of the governed,” and that “whenever any form of government

becomes destructive of these ends” it is the right of the people to “abolish it and institute

a new government.” 7 The Congress further explained that, “the history of the present

king of Great Britain, is a history of repeated injustices and usurpations in direct object

7
Thomas Jefferson, "The Declaration of Independence" (Philidelphia, PA: Continental
Congress, July 4, 1776).
 5

the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states.” 8 King George and

Parliament were viewed as tyrannical usurpers of liberty. The Americans perceived only

one choice, in 1776, war. The ideology displayed in the Declaration of Independence

was not simply the result of Thomas Jefferson’s imagination or creativity. The ideology

evolved over many years prior to Jefferson’s penning the famous text. In many ways, the

ideals described in the Declaration by Jefferson and ingrained into the mindset of the

Americans originated with the philosophers of the Age of Enlightenment.

The Age of the Enlightenment began with the Glorious Revolution, of 1688, in

Britain and continued to include the American Revolution and the European revolutions

that would follow. The philosophers of this age included Voltaire, Rousseau, Smith,

Locke and many others. The significance of this age to the ideological mindset of the

Americans cannot be overstated. Thomas Jefferson viewed the contributions of Bacon,

Locke and Newton as immense and immortalized the three in 1789 with portraiture for

the library at Monticello.9 Jefferson was not alone in his admiration of the

Enlightenment.

The Enlightenment was the age of reason and progress, where men believed in

themselves and their intellectual abilities rather than superstition and tradition alone. Sir

Francis Bacon set the stage for future philosophers when he argued that man can only

understand that which “he has observed in fact or in thought of the course of nature:

beyond this he neither knows anything nor can do anything.”10 The Enlightenment held

philosophically that everything was subject to the reason and criticism of mans intellect.
8
Ibid.
9
Isaac Kramnick, ed., The Portable Enlightenment Reader, ed. Isaac Kramnick (New
York: Penguin Books, 1995) ix.
10
Francis Bacon, "Reason and Nature: The New Science," in The Portable
Enlightenment Reader, ed. Isaac Kramnick (New York: Penguin Books, 1995) 39.
 6

The dogma of religion and the despotic traditions of statecraft were no longer exempt

from individual intellectual critique.11 Through the Enlightenment philosophers the

individual, in many ways, came to be the ultimate authority, no longer were men’s minds

subjugated to an idle aristocracy, the ritualistic established church nor the despotic

tyranny of a King. The Scottish philosopher Adam Smith attacked economic

arrangements based on anything other than an individual fulfilling his self interests by his

own means within a level playing field.12 Meanwhile, America’s own Thomas Jefferson

exemplified the growing desire by men of reason to question dogma with his version of

the Holy Bible where he had removed all elements of the Gospels that seemed “un-

reasonable” to the intellect of man.13 John Locke was arguably the first and certainly one

of the most important philosophers of the Enlightenment, particularly for the Americans.

By 1776, Americans were very familiar with the political philosophy of Locke,

and others, “in pamphlet after pamphlet the American writers cited Locke on natural

rights and on the social and governmental contract.”14 Locke argued that government

was a contract amongst a citizenry and that the people voluntarily submitted to authority

in order to obtain “public protection of their natural rights.”15 Locke posited that, “to

understand political power aright, and derive it from its original, we must consider what

state all men are naturally in, and that is, a state of perfect freedom to order their actions

and dispose of their possessions and persons as they see fit . . . without depending upon

11
Isaac Kramnick, ed., The Portable Enlightenment Reader, xi.
12
Adam Smith, "The Wealth of Nations," in The Portable Enlightenment Reader, ed.
Isaac Kramnick (New York: Penguin Books, 1995) 505-513.
13
David L. Holmes, The Faiths of the Founding Fathers (New York, NY: Oxford
University Press, 2006) 83.
14
Bernard Bailyn, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution (Cambridge, MA:
The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1992) 27.
15
Isaac Kramnick, ed., The Portable Enlightenment Reader. xvi.
 7

the will of any other man.”16

Eighteenth-century American society existed in many ways as the laboratory of

Enlightenment philosophy. America possessed no hereditary aristocracy or idle nobles,

yet, an elite of society had formed where, daily life closely resembled Adam Smith’s

economic ideology based on meritorious self-interest. This elite could be called an

American Enlightened meritocracy, where being a gentleman was paramount, especially

if you held ambitions of political leadership. The founders, the American Enlightened

elite, grew into the new liberal standards for men of leadership, cultivating politeness,

sociability, accumulation of knowledge, and compassion. They expected the

characteristics of disinterestedness and virtue to be second nature their political class in

America.17 These classical republican ideals and virtues were of immense importance to

the founding fathers; because, “republics had to hold themselves together from the

bottom up, ultimately, from their citizens’ willingness to take up arms to defend their

country and to sacrifice their private desires for the sake of the public good—from their

disinterestedness.”18 The philosophers of the day, and the founders of America, reasoned

that no republic could survive were it not for the virtue of its citizenry.

The initial blows of the American Revolution occurred at Lexington; however, the

ideological battle began nearly a century earlier with the Glorious Revolution in Great

Britain. John Locke’s natural rights argument and its emphasis of individual liberty

provided the philosophical justification for the 1688 Glorious Revolution of Britain and,

16
John Locke, "The Second Treatise of Civil Government," in The Portable
Enlightenment Reader, ed. Isaac Kramnick (New York: Penguin, 1995) 395.
17
Gordon Wood, Revolutionary Characters: What Made the Founders Different (East
Rutherford, NJ: Penguin Group, 2006) 23.
18
Gordon S Wood, Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815 (New
York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2009) 7.
 8

subsequently, greatly influenced the ideology leading to the American Revolution.19 The

1688 British war resulted in the creation of Great Britain’s parliamentary style

government and the overthrow of King James II of England. In large measure, the

American Revolution was a continuation of the ideological war started in 1688 in

opposition to King James and the work of Madison, Jefferson, Hamilton, and Washington

was a continuation of what Locke started.20

The Glorious Revolution hoped to restrict the Crowns power by subjugating the

King’s war making and taxing abilities to the advice the British Parliament. Bernard

Bailyn, in his study of colonial literature, observed that, “few of them,” that is the

colonists, “accepted the Glorious Revolution and the lax political pragmatism that had

followed as the final solution to the political problems of the time . . . and they refused to

believe that the transfer of sovereignty from the crown to Parliament provided a perfect

guarantee that the individual would be protected from the power of the state.”21 The

Glorious Revolution indirectly shaped American history even though it occurred an

ocean away and nearly a century earlier. After 1688 the sovereignty of Americans, as

well as, that of Englishmen resided in the hands of Parliament and instead of subjection

to one tyrant, the King, British subjects found themselves subjected to many tyrants: the

House of Lords and the House of Commons.

Colonial American’s perceived themselves as being British citizens, protected by

the British Constitution and afforded the same protections of the Crown as any

Englishman; however, many developed unique political beliefs that were viewed as

19
Isaac Kramnick, ed., The Portable Enlightenment Reader, x-xii.
20
Robert Middlekauff, The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution, 1763-1789, 2nd
Edition, ed. David Kennedy (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2005) 51.
21
Bernard Bailyn, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution. 46-47.
 9

extremist by the English. According to Robert Middlekauf, scholars labeled these beliefs

radical Whig Ideology and argued that the British political tumult of the seventeenth

century birthed this new, yet soon to be important, political thought.22 These ideas, that a

majority of the colonists identified with, became ingrained in the American mindset and

coalesced around “two sorts of threats to political freedom: a general moral decay of the

people that would invite the intrusion of evil despotic rulers, and the encroachment of the

executive authority upon the legislature, the attempt that power always made to subdue

the liberty protected by mixed government.”23 Parliament asserted its authority through

the Stamp Act, the Quartering Act, and the other Intolerable Acts. Parliaments assertion

within the context of this radical Whig Ideology, that had taken root in the political arena

of America, proved out the fear of the “attempt that power always made to subdue the

liberty.”24

The colonists viewed Parliamentary confiscation of property, by way of taxation

and duties, as usurpation of their individual liberties. Americans whole heartily

embraced the philosophy of Locke, which bound together life, liberty and property as

rights inherent to being free men. The rights of life and liberty depended upon the right

to property; because, economic activity even survival was dependent upon property,

similarly, political participation or suffrage depended upon property; therefore, from the

perspective of the Americans property rights defined life and liberty.25 Americans lived

under the assumption of the same constitutional protections as other British subjects

including taxation only with representation. Concerning Parliament, Paul Revere

22
Robert Middlekauff, The Glorious Cause, 51.
23
Ibid.
24
Ibid.
25
Benson Bobrick, Angel in the Whirlwind: The Triumph of the American Revolution
(New York: Penguin Group, 1997) 63-68.
 10

announced, in a letter that, “if they have the right to take one shilling from us without our

consent, they have a right to all we posses; for it is the birthright of an Englishman, not to

be taxed without consent of himself, or a Representative.”26 Opposing Paul Revere’s

argument, the British Parliament and King considered the American colonists

appropriately represented, “like ‘nine tenths of the people of Britain’ who did not choose

their own representatives were in effect represented.”27 In fact, only one tenth of the

British people were propertied, a requirement of suffrage, therefore, the Americans were

represented as most Englishmen and better than some other subjects of the Crown.

Patrick Henry effectively and accurately expressed the American’s argument and political

ideology with his fifth, and most controversial, resolution offered in the Virginia House

of Burgesses stating, “that the General Assembly of this Colony have the only and sole

exclusive right and power to lay taxes and impositions upon the inhabitants of this

colony;” he argued further that attempts by any other political body, such as the British

Parliament, or any other person, such as King George, “to vest such power . . . has the

manifest tendency to destroy British as well as American freedom.”28

The American colonists and the British Empire approached a cross roads of

history that the Comte de Vergennes predicted twelve years earlier while serving as

French Ambassador in Constantinople. In the letter Vergennes advised that, “the

colonies will no longer need Britain’s protection . . . she will call on them to contribute

toward supporting the burdens . . . and they will answer by striking off their chains.”29

Benjamin Franklin was less sure of a united colonial action and wondered if the thirteen

26
Ibid., 77.
27
Ibid.
28
Ibid., 73.
29
Ibid., 29.
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separate colonies could unite for any reason, “‘if they could not agree to unite against the

French and Indians, can it reasonably be supposed that there is any danger of their uniting

against their own nation;’” he deemed the likelihood as “impossible;” however, he added

the caveat “unless . . . they are made to feel ‘the most grievous tyranny and

oppression.’”30

Franklin’s caveat and the Comte de Vergennes letter proved prophetic as the

American’s were made to feel “grievous tyranny.” The political circumstances in

America illustrated the belief that the Glorious Revolution did not transfer sovereignty far

enough from the historical center of tyranny. The political circumstances of 1775 as

witnessed by the founding fathers, showed America subjugated to a British political

system where citizens other than Americans, elected the House of Commons, which

exercised rule over America; therefore, the Americans viewed themselves as “subjects of

subjects.”31 The Americans suffered through the Parliamentary confiscations of the

Stamp Act, the Quartering Act, the other Intolerable Acts, and ultimately endured the

dissolution of their elected representative assemblies, until May 10, 1776 when the

Continental Congress counseled that “the respective assemblies and conventions of the

United Colonies . . . that they adopt such government as shall, in the opinion of the

representatives of the people, best conduce to the happiness and safety of their

constituents in particular and American in general.”32

Finally on July 4, 1776, Thomas Jefferson, and committee, with British war ships

off the coast of New York, New Jersey and South Carolina, agreed and set to paper the

30
Ibid.
31
Pauline Maier, American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence (New
York: Vintage Books, 1998) 21.
32
Ibid., 37.
 12

ideology of 1776. The Declaration of Independence furnished a culminating written

summary of a political and ideological shift that began with the Glorious Revolution in

1688. The founding fathers moved ideology to action when they put “their lives, their

fortunes and their sacred honor” at risk by declaring that liberty was a natural right.33

Americans declared with blood, that government’s only authority is derived from the

consent of the governed and they exercised their natural rights to throw off the chains of

oppression and tyranny.

The founding fathers’ wisdom carried politics in America from the lofty ideals of

committees, documents, and debates, through the trials of war and finally with uncanny

creativity they instilled the ideology into a functioning government based on a type of

ambiguous federalism, whose benefits were illustrated and defended by Publius prior to

ratification.34 The establishment of the new federal government would be guided by

founders like George Washington, whose 1783 circular letter to the Governors of the

colonies, stated that for the new country to flourish it needed “an indissoluble union of

the states under one federal head and a friendly disposition among the people . . . to

forget their local prejudices and policies . . . to sacrifice their individual advantages to the

interest of the community.”35 Washington’s advice reiterated the republican reliance on

the virtue of the citizenry. Washington himself provided two historic lessons of classical

republican disinterestedness and virtue when he, as the victorious conquering general,

surrendered his commission to the Continental Congress stating that, “having now
33
Thomas Jefferson, "The Declaration of Independence."
34
Alexander Hamilton, John Jay and Madison James, The Federalist Papers, ed. Garry
Wills (New York, NY: Bantam Classics, 2003) xiii.
35
George Washington, "George Washington to John Hancock (Circular) 11 June 1783,"
The Papers of George Washington, University of Virginia,
http://gwpapers.virginia.edu/documents/constitution/1784/hancock.html (accessed
February 24, 2010).
 13

finished the work assigned me, I retire from the great theatre of action . . . I here offer my

Commission, and take my leave of all employments of public life” and again, perhaps

with greater historical impact, as he refused an additional term as President.36

Much of Washington’s advice was implemented into the new government;

however, most importantly the new government corrected the fatal flaw of the Glorious

Revolution; the residence of sovereignty. The Glorious Revolution removed sovereignty

from the King and placed it with the British Parliament, while the American Revolution

and the Declaration of Independence removed American sovereignty from the British

Parliament. The framers of the Constitution of The United States of America ultimately

created a new theoretical, nationwide, residence for American sovereignty: We The

People. Sovereignty instilled into this new nationwide concept of We the People offered

an adequate explanation and pragmatic solution to the question: where did the national

representative government derive its power.37

The founding of America was a continuation of the Enlightenment ideology of

personal liberty that began in the Glorious Revolution of Great Britain. The founding

fathers internalized classical republican virtues and used the reason of the Enlightenment

and pragmatism born of the American Revolution to create We the People, a place where

American sovereignty could reside, a political institution far removed from the historical

center of tyranny. Was the founding of America special? Absolutely.

America’s founding began a new era of political ideology, where the supremacy

36
George Washington, "George Washington's Resignation Address to the Continental
Congress," The Papers of George Washington, Univeristy of Virginia, December 23,
1783, http://gwpapers.virginia.edu/documents/revolution/resignation.html (accessed
February 24, 2010).
37
Edmund S. Morgan, Inventing the People: The Rise of Popular Sovereignty in England
and America (New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company, 1988) 283.
 14

of individual liberty would wax and wane in opposition to strong central government, yet

never yield to despotism. This uniquely American political ideology matured to become

the antithesis of tyrannical despots the world over. The colonist waged the Revolutionary

War to remove the tyrannical leadership of King George and Parliament; and, through the

actions of the Revolution, and the wisdom gained from the trials of war, the founders

recognized and created a government with the express purpose of protecting individual

liberty.

Works Cited
Bacon, Francis. "Reason and Nature: The New Science." In The Portable Enlightenment
Reader, edited by Isaac Kramnick. New York: Penguin Books, 1995.

Bailyn, Bernard. The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution. Cambridge, MA:
The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1992.

Bobrick, Benson. Angel in the Whirlwind: The Triumph of the American Revolution. New
York: Penguin Group, 1997.

Breisach, Ernst. Historiography Ancient, Medieval, and Modern. 3rd Edition. Chicago,
IL: University of Chicago Press, 2007.

Ellis, Joseph. American Creation Triumphs and Tragedies at the Founding of the
Republic. New York, NY: Vintage Books, 2007.

—. Founding Brothers The Revolutionary Generation. New York, NY: Vintage Books,
2002.
 15

Hamilton, Alexander, John Jay, and Madison James. The Federalist Papers. Edited by
Garry Wills. New York, NY: Bantam Classics, 2003.

Holmes, David L. The Faiths of the Founding Fathers. New York, NY: Oxford
University Press, 2006.

Jefferson, Thomas. "The Declaration of Independence." Philidelphia, PA: Continental

Congress, July 4, 1776.

Kramnick, Isaac, ed. The Portable Enlightenment Reader. New York: Penguin Books,
1995.

Locke, John. "The Second Treatise of Civil Government." In The Portable

Enlightenment Reader, edited by Isaac Kramnick. New York: Penguin, 1995.

Maier, Pauline. American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence. New

York: Vintage Books, 1998.

Middlekauff, Robert. The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution, 1763-1789. 2nd
Edition. Edited by David Kennedy. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2005.

Morgan, Edmund S. Inventing the People: The Rise of Popular Sovereignty in England
and America. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company, 1988.

Smith, Adam. "The Wealth of Nations." In The Portable Enlightenment Reader, edited
by Isaac Kramnick. New York: Penguin Books, 1995.

Turner, Fredrick Jackson. "AHA Presidential Address: Social Forces in American

History." American Historical Association.
http://www.historians.org/info/aha_history/fjturner.htm (accessed February 7, 2010).

Washington, George. "George Washington to John Hancock (Circular) 11 June 1783."

The Papers of George Washington. University of Virginia.
http://gwpapers.virginia.edu/documents/constitution/1784/hancock.html (accessed
February 24, 2010).

—. "George Washington's Resignation Address to the Continental Congress." The

Papers of George Washington. Univeristy of Virginia. December 23, 1783.
http://gwpapers.virginia.edu/documents/revolution/resignation.html (accessed February
24, 2010).

Wood, Gordon. Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815. New
York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2009.

—. Revolutionary Characters: What Made the Founders Different. East Rutherford, NJ:
Penguin Group, 2006.
 16

—. The Creation of the American Republic: 1776-1787. Chapel Hill, NC: University of
North Carolina Press, 1998.