P Henry (1736–1799) · 2018-05-22 · liberty! I say that the loss of that dearest privilege has...

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

Patrick Henry(1736–1799)

Show me that age and country where therights and liberties of the people wereplaced on the sole chance of their rulers

being good men without a consequent loss ofliberty! I say that the loss of that dearestprivilege has ever followed, with absolutecertainty, every such mad attempt.

—Patrick Henry, 1788

IntroductionPatrick Henry’s fame rested largely on his oratorical skills, which he employed in the causeof liberty. Henry was one of the most persuasive speakers of his time. His oratory differedfrom that typical of the period in that Henry rarely made allusions to classical texts. Instead,imitating the revivalist preachers he had heard as a boy during the Great Awakening, he filledhis speeches with Biblical allusions and Christian symbolism. Henry’s persuasive speakingstyle converted the hearts of many. At the same time, however, his abrasive nature couldalienate others. After battling Henry on revisions to the Virginia constitution, ThomasJefferson became exasperated. “What we have to do I think,” Jefferson suggested to JamesMadison, “is devoutly to pray for his death.”

Henry was an articulate spokesman for American liberty during the crisis with GreatBritain. After the United States won independence, he became a leading Anti-Federalist andopponent of the new Constitution. Henry feared that the new government would destroyindividual rights and the authority of the states. His insistence that a bill of rights at least beattached to the document did much to make the first ten amendments to the Constitution areality. Henry believed his duty was to guard zealously the rights of his people. He knew thatfuture generations of Americans would judge his efforts, and he hoped that “they will seethat I have done my utmost to preserve their liberty.”

Relevant Thematic Essays for Patrick Henry• Federalism• Freedom of Religion• Limited Government (Volume 2)

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In His Own Words:Patrick Henry

ON THE CONSTITUTION

Patrick Henry

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—Patrick Henry(1736–1799)

• Handout B—Context Questions• Handout C—In His Own Words:

Patrick Henry on the ConstitutionAdditional Teacher Resource

• Answer Key

Recommended Time

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

OverviewIn this lesson, students will learn about Patrick Henry.They should first read as background homeworkHandout A—Patrick Henry (1736–1799) and answerthe Reading Comprehension Questions. After discussingthe answers to these questions in class, the teacher shouldhave the students answer the Critical Thinking Questionsas a class. Next, the teacher should introduce the studentsto the primary source activity, Handout C—In His OwnWords: Patrick Henry on the Constitution, in whichHenry warns the members of the Virginia RatifyingConvention that the new Constitution will producetyranny in the United States. As a preface, there isHandout B—Context Questions, which will help thestudents understand the document.

Students will be divided into five groups, each ofwhich will paraphrase a section of the document in oneto two sentences. They will then jigsaw into new groups,and each group will present a one-minute version ofHenry’s speech that retains the main ideas of theoriginal. There are Follow-Up Homework Options thatask the students to compose a response to Henry’s speechby a defender of the Constitution and to examine theuse of fear and sarcasm in Henry’s speeches. Extensionsprovides opportunity for thought as students are askedto compose a speech in the style of Henry about acontemporary issue which they have researched.

ObjectivesStudents will:

• explain why Henry is often called “The Orator ofLiberty”

• understand Henry’s role in the Americanindependence movement

• explain Henry’s objections to the Constitution• analyze Henry’s speaking style


I. Background HomeworkAsk students to read Handout A—Patrick Henry (1736–1799) 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 Patrick Henry.

Patrick Henry was one of the most radical leaders of the opposition to British tyranny.He became famous for his speech during the Parson’s Cause of 1763 in which hedenounced British misrule in Virginia. He also spoke out against the Stamp Act,claiming that only the Virginia legislature possessed the power to tax Virginia’scitizens. During the American Revolution and soon after independence, Henry servedin the state legislature and as governor of Virginia. He was a leading opponent of theproposed Constitution of 1787, which he feared would establish tyranny in the UnitedStates. Henry wanted a bill of rights added to the document, but he opposed asinadequate the twelve amendments sent to the states in 1789.

III. Context [5 minutes]Briefly review with students the main issues involved in the debate between Federalistsand Anti-Federalists. (The Federalists believed that the confederation would break upif the Constitution was not ratified. Anti-Federalists feared that a stronger centralgovernment would endanger the rights of the people.)

IV. In His Own Words [25 minutes]A. Distribute Handout B—Context Questions.B. Divide the class into five equal groups. Give each group one of the pages of

Handout C—In His Own Words: Patrick Henry on the Constitution. Be surethat the students understand the vocabulary and the “who, what, where, andwhen” of the document.

C. Each group will be given the job of paraphrasing its assigned passage in one to twosentences that convey Henry’s main idea. Below each passage of Henry’s speech areaids for understanding the document: vocabulary words and their definitions, alist of relevant sections of the Constitution, and clues to understanding the passage.

D. Once all groups believe that they understand their assigned passage, jigsaw intofive new groups (regroup the students so that each new group contains at least one“expert” from each of the original groups).

E. Tell each student to imagine that he or she is Patrick Henry and has been given oneminute to deliver a speech at the Virginia Ratifying Convention. Give each groupthe task of editing the entire five-paragraph speech so that when read aloud, it takesno longer than one minute. Students should edit the speech sentence by sentence;that is, they should delete entire sentences, leaving complete sentences. Remind thestudents that they should retain the five main ideas that comprise the speech.

F. Once the groups have edited the speech to one minute, have each group select itsbest speaker to deliver its version to the entire class. Remind the speakers thatHenry used emotion when making his speeches.

LESSON PLAN



V. Wrap-Up Discussion [5 minutes]After each speaker has given his or her group’s speech, conduct a large-groupdiscussion to determine which group did the best job of summarizing the five mainpoints of Henry’s speech. List these five main points on the board, making sure that thestudents understand them.

VI. Follow-Up Homework OptionsA. Tell the students to imagine that they are delegates to the Virginia Ratifying

Convention who favor the Constitution. Have each student compose a page-longresponse to Henry’s speech that addresses each of Henry’s five main points.

B. Using both Handout A and Handout C, have the students highlight phrases orsentences uttered by Henry in which he most successfully employs fear to arousehis listeners. Also have the students underline phrases or sentences in which Henryemploys sarcasm to attack his opponents.

VII. ExtensionsIn his speech to the Virginia Ratifying Convention, Henry warned that someAmericans wished to build a powerful empire at the expense of the people’s liberty.Some people today, echoing Henry, have argued that recent presidents have sought toexpand the influence of the United States at the expense of the freedom of Americans.Have the students find a news article or editorial in which someone—a newscommentator, government official, political candidate, etc.—makes such an argument.Then have the students compose a one-paragraph speech about the issue in the styleused by Patrick Henry.

Patrick Henry

LESSON PLAN


Resources

PrintBeeman, Richard. Patrick Henry: A Biography. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1974.Mayer, Henry. A Son of Thunder: Patrick Henry and the American Republic. Reprint. New York: Grove Press, 2001.McCants, David A. Patrick Henry: The Orator. New York: Greenwood Press, 1990.Meade, Robert Douthat. Patrick Henry. 2 vols. Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1957–1969.Vaughan, David J. Give Me Liberty: The Uncompromising Statesmanship of Patrick Henry. Nashville, TN:

Cumberland House, 1997.

InternetRed Hill, Patrick Henry National Memorial. <http://www.redhill.org/>.“Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death.” The Avalon Project at Yale University Law School.

<http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/patrick.htm>.“Patrick Henry.” U.S. History.org. <http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/related/henry.htm>.“Patrick Henry.” The American Revolution.org. <http://theamericanrevolution.org/ipeople/phenry.asp>.“Meet the People: Patrick Henry.” Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.

<http://www.history.org/Almanack/people/bios/biohen.cfm>.

Selected Works by Patrick Henry• “Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death”: Speech of March 23, 1775, to the

Second Continental Congress• Speech of June 5, 1788, in the Virginia Ratifying Convention

LESSON PLAN


09 054-067 Founders Henry 7/17/04 10:29 AM 8

I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death.

—Patrick Henry, 1775

Patrick Henry’s imposing figure and confident voice commanded his fellowdelegates’ attention. Standing six feet tall and possessing flashing blue eyes,the fifty-two-year-old, self-taught lawyer had already earned a reputationin the state as a powerful speaker. As Virginia’s leaders gathered in 1788to consider ratification of the Constitution, Henry’s opposition echoedthrough the hall. He warned that approval of the document would createa too-powerful central government that would eventually degenerateinto a tyranny. “Away with your president!” Henry thundered. “Weshall have a king: the army will salute him monarch; your militia willleave you, and assist in making him king, and fight against you: andwhat have you to oppose this force? What will then become of you andyour rights? Will not absolute despotism ensue?” Henry’s words werepassionate and powerful, so much so that one delegate confessed that he feltimaginary iron shackles close around his hands as Henry spoke his warning.

BackgroundBy all accounts, Patrick Henry was not a hard worker. Thomas Jefferson once called him“the laziest man in reading I ever knew.” Born in 1736 in Hanover County, Virginia, he wasschooled mostly by his father, who expected him to be a farmer. Henry had little interestin either academics or farming. He was spellbound, however, by the revivalist Christianpreachers who came to his town during the 1740s and 1750s. Their fiery oratory had alasting effect on the young Henry.

When he was twenty-one years old, Henry and his brother became the owners of ageneral store that their father had established for them. But the brothers were poorbusinessmen. Within a year, the store had gone bankrupt. Henry married and tried hishand at farming and, for a second time, at storekeeping. Neither venture was successful.He then decided to teach himself the law. After studying for only a few weeks, Henry wasadmitted to the Virginia bar in 1760 at the age of twenty-three.

The Parson’s CauseThree years later, Henry argued a case that became known as the “Parson’s Cause.” In 1758,the Virginia House of Burgesses had passed the Two-Penny Act. This law had the effectof lowering drastically the salaries of the Virginia clergy, which were paid by wealthyVirginia planters. When the parsons protested to the king, the British governmentrepealed the Two-Penny Act.

Several clergymen filed lawsuits to collect the money they had lost since the passageof the Two-Penny Act. They won their cases. In the Parson’s Cause of 1763, Henry washired by a group of planters to argue their side when a jury was deciding the amount ofmoney owed to a parson. Henry took advantage of the opportunity to make an hour-long speech denouncing the king’s repeal of the Two-Penny Act as “an instance ofmisrule” and perhaps tyranny. The king, he declared, should not interfere with Virginia’sright to make its own laws.

Patrick Henry

PATRICK HENRY (1736–1799)

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Henry’s bold speech caused some in the courtroom to whisper that the lawyer’s wordswere treasonous. But Henry’s words persuaded the jury, who awarded the parson a mere pennyin damages. After court was adjourned, most observers, who resented the king’s interferencein Virginia’s affairs, cheered Henry. Several men hoisted Henry onto their shoulders andcarried him to a local tavern, where they celebrated the victory for American liberty with vastamounts of liquor. In the course of an hour, Henry had made a name for himself in Virginia.

Tyranny and RevolutionIn 1765, Henry was elected to the Virginia House of Burgesses. There he added to hisfame by opposing the Stamp Act of 1765. Passed by the British Parliament, this law ineffect placed a tax on legal documents, newspapers, and playing cards produced in thecolonies. Henry introduced a series of resolutions to the House, one of which assertedthat “the General Assembly of this Colony have the only and sole exclusive Right &Power to lay . . . taxes upon the Inhabitants of this Colony.” Again, Henry was not afraidof being labeled a traitor. “If this be treason,” he thundered, “make the most of it!”

By the 1770s, Henry had emerged as one of the most radical leaders of the oppositionto British tyranny. In 1774, he represented Virginia at the First Continental Congress.The following year, Henry attended the second Virginia Convention. At St. John’sChurch in Richmond, he urgently advised his fellow Virginians to take arms against theBritish. “Gentlemen may cry ‘Peace! Peace!’ but there is no peace,” Henry intoned. “Thewar is actually begun!” He closed his speech with the now legendary words: “I know notwhat course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death.”

Henry’s call to arms succeeded in drowning out the voices of those reluctant to goto war. Governor Lord Dunmore so feared the discontented colonists that he ordered theremoval of the gunpowder from the Williamsburg Magazine and had it loaded onto aBritish ship. In response, Henry threatened to use the Virginia militia to reclaim Virginia’sproperty. In the end, the governor paid the colony for the powder.

In 1776, Virginia and the other colonies declared their independence from GreatBritain. Henry served as the first governor of Virginia from 1776 to 1779. He then servedin the Virginia House of Delegates from 1780 to 1784. As a member of the legislature,he championed a bill that would have required a tax for the general support of theChristian religion. But James Madison, also a member of the legislature, succeeded indefeating the proposal and winning passage of the Statute for Religious Freedom. Thisact provided for the separation of church and state in Virginia. In 1784, Henry waselected again to the governorship for a two-year term.

The Virginia ConventionIn 1787, Henry received an invitation to participate in a convention whose purpose wasto revise the Articles of Confederation. Saying he “smelled a rat,” Henry refused to attendwhat became the Constitutional Convention. He feared that the meeting was a plot by thepowerful to construct a strong central government of which they would be the masters.

When the new Constitution was sent to Virginia for ratification in 1788, Henry wasone of its most outspoken critics. Deeming liberty the “direct end and foundation” ofgovernment, Henry warned that the new Constitution would create a “consolidated”government in which power would be concentrated in the hands of a few. The documentdid not provide for adequate checks and balances and therefore did not protect thepeople against evil rulers. Henry was concerned that the Constitution also gave thecentral government the power of direct taxation. It also created a standing army, whichHenry feared a power-hungry president could use to awe the people into submission.


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Henry wondered aloud why the Constitution did not include a bill of rights. “Is itbecause it will consume too much paper?” he asked sarcastically. Henry believed that theabsence of a bill of rights was part of the attempt by the few to amass power. The argumentsof Henry and other Anti-Federalists compelled Madison, the leader of the VirginiaFederalists (supporters of adoption of the Constitution), to promise the addition of abill of rights to the Constitution once the document was approved. But Henry warnedhis Anti-Federalist allies that Madison’s promise was an empty one. Henry’s passionateappeals, however, failed to sway the convention. After twenty-five days of heated debate,on June 26, 1788, Virginia became the tenth state to ratify the Constitution.

A Respected StatesmanHenry refused to serve in the new government. “Some of its leading principles,” he tolda friend, “are subversive of those to which I am forever attached.” But Henry did not giveup the fight for liberty. He continued to call for a bill of rights, and his efforts forcedMadison, who was a candidate for a congressional seat, to promise voters that he wouldwork to add a bill of rights to the Constitution.

In 1789, the first Congress of the United States sent a list of twelve amendments tothe states. Henry believed that these amendments did not adequately safeguard therights of the people and the states. He therefore did not support them, instead calling fora new convention to revise the Constitution. Nevertheless, Virginia approved all twelveamendments, and ten of these were ratified by the required number of states and addedto the Constitution in 1791. These ten amendments became known as the Bill of Rights.

Thwarted in his efforts to put together a second Constitutional convention, Henryreturned to his plantation at Red Hill, Virginia. There he resumed his law practice. Unlikemost former Anti-Federalists, Henry did not join the Republican Party formed by ThomasJefferson and James Madison in the 1790s. He disliked both men and, as a devout Christian,was disgusted by the enthusiasm of many Republicans for the atheistic French Revolution.

Nor did Henry immediately ally himself with the new Federalist Party,which included mostmembers of the Washington administration. In 1795 and 1796,Henry turned down offers fromGeorge Washington first to serve as secretary of state and then chief justice of the supreme court.President Washington, however, did persuade Henry to run for election for a seat in the Virginialegislature in 1799. Henry won the election but died before the legislature formally convened.

Patrick Henry

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Reading Comprehension Questions

1. Why did Henry refuse to attend the Constitutional Convention in 1787?

2. What were Henry’s objections to the Constitution?

3. Why did Henry, unlike most former Anti-Federalists, refuse to join theRepublican Party?

Critical Thinking Questions

4. In what way are the arguments made by Henry in the Parson’s Cause and in hisresolutions against the Stamp Act similar?

5. Some have referred to Henry’s “Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death” speech of1775 as “the first shot” of the Revolutionary War. Why?


Excerpts from Patrick Henry’s Speech of June 5, 1788, in the

Virginia Ratifying Convention

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?


CONTEXT QUESTIONS

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Directions: Each group should paraphrase its assigned passage in one to two sentences thatconvey Henry’s main idea. Below each passage of Henry’s speech are aids for understandingthe document.

1. Majority Rule

This, sir, is the language of democracy—that a majority of the community have a rightto alter government when found to be oppressive. But how different is the genius of yournew Constitution from this! How different from the sentiments of freemen that acontemptible minority can prevent the good of the majority! . . . If, sir, amendments areleft to the twentieth, or tenth part of the people of America, your liberty is gone forever. . . . It will be easily contrived to procure the opposition of the one-tenth of thepeople to any alteration, however judicious. . . .

Vocabulary:

a. genius = natureb. contemptible = disgracefulc. contrived = arrangedd. procure = obtaine. alteration = changef. judicious = sensible

Relevant Section(s) of the Constitution:

Article V: Amendment Process

Clues to Understanding the Passage:

The amendment process states that the approval of three fourths of the states is necessaryfor any proposed amendment to be enacted. In a union of thirteen states, an amendmentwould require the approval of ten states. The opposition of any four states—even thosewith small populations—would kill an amendment.

Source: Speech made on June 5, 1788, in the Virginia Ratifying Convention. The American Revolution.org.<http://theamericanrevolution.org/ipeople/phenry/phenryspeech1.asp>.

Patrick Henry

IN HIS OWN WORDS: PATRICK HENRY ON THE CONSTITUTION

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2. A Standing Army

A standing army we shall have, also, to execute the execrable commands of tyranny; andhow are you to punish them? Will you order them to be punished? Who shall obey theseorders? Will your mace-bearer be a match for a disciplined regiment? In what situationare we to be? The clause before you gives . . . an exclusive power of legislation, in all caseswhatsoever, for ten miles square, and over all places purchased for the erection of forts,magazines, arsenals, dockyards, etc. What resistance could be made? The attempt wouldbe madness. . . .

Vocabulary:

a. execrable = repulsiveb. mace = a primitive weaponc. regiment = a unit of soldiers in the armyd. arsenal = place where weapons are stored


• Article I, Section 8, Clause 12: “[The Congress shall have the power] to raise andsupport armies.”

• Article I, Section 8, Clause 17: “[The Congress shall have the power] to exerciseexclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever, over . . . the seat of the governmentof the United States.”


Americans traditionally feared a “standing army,” a permanent force consisting ofprofessional, paid soldiers. Instead, most Americans favored defending their countrywith militia, part-time citizen-soldiers.




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3. Liberty vs. Empire

If we admit this consolidated government, it will be because we like a great, splendidone. Some way or other we must be a great and mighty empire; we must have an army,and a navy, and a number of things. When the American spirit was in its youth, thelanguage of America was different; liberty, sir, was then the primary object. . . . But now,sir, the American spirit, assisted by the ropes and chains of consolidation, is about toconvert this country into a powerful and mighty empire. If you make the citizens of thiscountry agree to become the subjects of one great consolidated empire of America, yourgovernment will not have sufficient energy to keep them together. Such a government isincompatible with the genius of republicanism. . . .

Vocabulary:

a. consolidated = powerfulb. splendid = magnificentc. convert = changed. sufficient = enoughe. incompatible = unable to coexistf. genius = nature


Henry is referring to many passages of the Constitution, and in particular to thefollowing clauses:

• Article I, Section 8, Clause 12: “[The Congress shall have the power] to raise andsupport armies.”

• Article I, Section 8, Clause 13: “[The Congress shall have the power] to provideand maintain a navy.”


Opponents of the Constitution often charged that the document would create aconsolidated government—one in which too much power would be concentrated in thecentral government and too little power would be given to the states. Henry voiced theconcerns of many Americans that liberty and empire were incompatible. (Note that inthe second sentence Henry is being sarcastic.)


Patrick Henry


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4. Good and Bad Rulers

This Constitution is said to have beautiful features; but when I come to examine thesefeatures, sir, they appear to me horribly frightful. . . . It is on a supposition that yourAmerican governors shall be honest that all the good qualities of this government arefounded; but its defective and imperfect construction puts it in their power to perpetratethe worst of mischiefs should they be bad men; and, sir, would not all the world, blameour distracted folly in resting our rights upon the contingency of our rulers being goodor bad? Show me that age and country where the rights and liberties of the people wereplaced on the sole chance of their rulers being good men without a consequent loss ofliberty! I say that the loss of that dearest privilege has ever followed, with absolutecertainty, every such mad attempt.

Vocabulary:

a. supposition = assumptionb. perpetrate = commitc. mischiefs = harmd. distracted folly = unthinking foolishnesse. contingency = possibilityf. consequent = resulting


Henry is referring in general to the powers given to members of the legislative, executive,and judicial branches in Articles I, II, and III, respectively.


Opponents of the Constitution charged that the document did not include enough checkson the powers of those who held federal office.




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5. The President, a Tyrant

If your American chief be a man of ambition and abilities, how easy is it for him torender himself absolute! . . . If we make a king we may prescribe the rules by which heshall rule his people, and interpose such checks as shall prevent him from infringingthem; but the president, in the field, at the head of his army, can prescribe the terms onwhich he shall reign master. . . . Can he not, at the head of his army, beat down everyopposition? Away with your president! We shall have a king: the army will salute himmonarch; your militia will leave you, and assist in making him king, and fight againstyou: and what have you to oppose this force? What will then become of you and yourrights? Will not absolute despotism ensue?

Vocabulary:

a. ambition = determination to have fame or powerb. render = makec. absolute = totald. prescribe = set downe. interpose = to put betweenf. infringing = violatingg. reign = rule ash. despotism = tyrannyi. ensue = follow, develop


Henry is referring to the powers given to the president in Article II and particularly tothe following passage:

• Article II, Section 2, Clause 1: “The President shall be Commander-in-Chief ofthe Army and Navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several States,when called into the actual service of the United States.”


Many opponents of the Constitution feared that the president would become a king.


Patrick Henry


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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.



A sound understanding of the United States requiresan appreciation of the historical commitment of theAmerican people to certain fundamental liberties.High on the list of these liberties is freedom ofreligion. The image of brave seventeenth-centuryEnglish Puritans making the difficult journey acrossthe Atlantic to American shores in pursuit of thefreedom to live according to theirfaith is a powerful part of theAmerican myth. Less remembered,however, is the fact that thecommonwealth established bythe Puritans was as intolerant asAnglican England, from whichthey had fled. Indeed, the road toachieving full religious liberty inthe United States was long andarduous. By the time of thewriting of the United StatesConstitution in 1787, Americanswere committed to the principleof religious tolerance (or, to usethe term of the time,“toleration”)and the idea of separation ofchurch and state, but only to a limited degree. Itwould be another five decades before all statesgranted broad religious liberty to their citizens andprovided for the complete separation of churchand state.

Modern ideas about freedom of religion weredeveloped in the wake of the Protestant Reformationof the sixteenth century, which shattered the unityof Christendom and plunged Europe into politicaland religious conflict. Though some European statesremained religiously homogeneous, either retainingthe traditional faith of Roman Catholicism oradopting some brand of Protestantism, religiousdivision within many countries led to discord andbloodshed. In England, the church established inthe mid-sixteenth century by King Henry VIII (whoreigned from 1509 to 1547) faced stiff resistance,first from the many Catholics who refused toabandon the faith of their ancestors, and then fromthe Puritans who opposed the rule of bishops andwanted to purify the church so that it includedonly the elect.

Henry VIII’s successors, Elizabeth I (1558–1603)and James I (1603–1625), successfully quelledopposition to the Church of England (the Anglican

Church), largely through harsh persecution ofdissenters. In 1642, however, England was engulfedby religious civil war, from which the Puritansemerged victorious. The Puritan Commonwealthestablished by Oliver Cromwell ruthlessly persecutedAnglicans and Catholics. But Puritan rule wasshort-lived. An Anglican monarch, Charles II, was

restored to the throne in 1660.This “settlement” of the religiouscrisis, however, was threatenedby the accession of a Catholic,James II, to the throne in 1685.Anxious Protestants conspiredand invited a foreigner, Williamof Orange, to assume thekingship of England. Williaminvaded England, drove Jamesinto exile, assumed the throne,and reestablished the Church ofEngland as the national church.

In this contentious atmospheresome English political thinkers,such as John Locke, began toadvocate a policy of religious

toleration. Locke’s ideas reflected a key assumptionof Enlightenment thought—that religious belief,like political theory, is a matter of opinion, notabsolute truth. “The business of laws,” Locke wrotein his Letter on Toleration (1689), “is not to providefor the truth of opinions, but for the safety andsecurity of the commonwealth and of everyparticular man’s goods and person.” Public securitywas in no way dependent on a uniformity ofreligious belief among the citizenry.“If a Jew do notbelieve the New Testament to be the Word of God,”Locke stated, “he does not thereby alter anything inmen’s civil rights.” Rather, intolerance led to“discord and war,” and Locke warned that “no peaceand security” could be “preserved amongst men solong as this opinion prevails . . . that religion is to bepropagated by force of arms.” Religious belief, inLocke’s view, was a matter of individual choice, amatter for society, not for government.

Locke’s views on religious liberty had a profoundinfluence on American thinking in the next century.Other writings, however, particularly the Bible, hadat least as great an impact on American politicaltheory. Indeed, the American experiment in religioustoleration began years before the publication of

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Locke’s treatise, though the early history of PuritanMassachusetts Bay was hardly indicative of the coursethat toleration would take in America. Establishedby John Winthrop in 1630, Massachusetts was arepressive place where church and state were oneand where religious dissent was ruthlessly stampedout. Dissenters had few options: they could besilent, suffer persecution, or leave the colony. RogerWilliams, a freethinking preacher, was forced tochoose this last option, leaving Massachusetts in1636 to establish the colony of Rhode Island.

In Rhode Island, Williams instituted tolerationfor all people, and his newcolony quickly became arefuge for persecuted groupslike Quakers and Baptists.Williams’s case fortoleration was at least asradical as Locke’s. Basing hisarguments on the Bible,Williams insisted that theJews, Muslims, and atheists were also deserving ofreligious liberty. The only “sword” to be used infighting their opinions was scripture itself.Intolerance was an offense to God. “An enforceduniformity of religion throughout a nation or civilstate,” Williams wrote in The Bloudy Tenent ofPersecution (1644), “denies the principles ofChristianity.” Williams argued that forced beliefwas not only a violation of God’s law but also anunwise policy. “Enforced uniformity (sooner orlater) is the greatest occasion of civil war, ravishingof conscience, persecution of Christ Jesus in hisservants, and of the hypocrisy and destruction ofmillions of souls.”

Two years before the founding of Rhode Island,Cecil Calvert founded the colony of Maryland andproclaimed toleration for all Christians. Calverthimself was a Catholic, but he knew that theviability of his colony depended on luring enoughProtestant settlers to make it an economic success.A policy of toleration, he hoped, would serve thispurpose. In setting up Pennsylvania in the 1680s,William Penn, a Quaker, followed a similar course,making his colony a haven not only for his fellowcoreligionists, but, like Rhode Island, a refuge forpeople of all religious sects.

Pennsylvania and Rhode Island would preserveuninterrupted their traditions of religious liberty,but in Maryland, freedom of religion would becurtailed for Catholics once Protestants came topower in the last decade of the seventeenth century.Still, the idea that some degree of religious libertywas a healthful policy for government became

firmly rooted in America by the eighteenth century.Americans learned from the example ofseventeenth-century England that religiouspersecution was ultimately detrimental to thepolitical, social, and economic welfare of thenation. In America, where the Christian sects weremore numerous than in England, the repercussionsof religious intolerance would be especially adverseto the nation’s prospects. Americans’ devotion toreligious freedom, then, was a product of necessityand experience as well as reason.

The crisis of empire during the 1760s and1770s served to strengthenthe American commitmentto religious liberty. It was notonly the intrusive economicmeasures passed by Parliamentduring these years thatalarmed Americans. Patriotleaders also warned of thedanger of the Anglican

Church’s interference in American religious affairs.There was much talk that the British governmentwould install a bishop in America who wouldbecome the instrument of tyranny. This idea thatpolitical and religious liberty went hand in handwas reflected in the New York Constitution of1776, which explicitly connected “civil tyranny”with “spiritual oppression and intolerance.”

Nearly all the state constitutions writtenduring the American independence movementreflected a commitment to some degree ofreligious liberty. The Massachusetts Constitutionof 1780 promised that “no subject shall be hurt,molested, or restrained, in his person, liberty, orestate, for worshipping God in the manner andseason most agreeable to the dictates of his ownconscience.” The Virginia Declaration of Rights of1776, authored by George Mason, proclaimed“That Religion or the duty which we owe to ourCreator and the manner of discharging it, can bedirected only by reason and conviction, not byforce or violence.” Mason’s ideas mirrored Locke’sbelief that government should not intrude uponthe concerns of society.

But many states limited religious liberty toChristians in general, or to Protestants inparticular. The North Carolina Constitution of1776 decreed “That no person, who shall deny thebeing of God or the truth of the Protestantreligion . . . shall be capable of holding any office orplace of trust or profit in the civil departmentwithin this State.” Similarly, the New JerseyConstitution of the same year declared that “there

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shall be no establishment of any one religious sectin this Province, in preference to another,” butpromised Protestants alone full civil rights. Thankslargely to the efforts of Charles Carroll of Carrollton,a Roman Catholic, Maryland’s RevolutionaryConstitution was more liberal in its guarantee ofreligious liberty to “all persons, professing theChristian religion.”

The Protestant majority in America was indeedparticularly concerned about the Catholic minorityin its midst. Catholics constituted the largest non-Protestant creed in the country, and it was believedthat Catholicism demanded loyalty to the popeabove devotion to country. The connectionbetween Catholicism and absolutism was deeplyingrained in the AmericanProtestant mind and was alegacy of the Reformation,which Protestants saw as aperiod of liberation fromthe ignorance, superstition,and tyranny of the RomanCatholic Church. During thecrisis with England, a waveof religious hysteria swept over AmericanProtestants, who worried that the pope wouldpersonally lead the Catholics of Canada in a militaryassault on American forces. “Much more is to bedreaded from the growth of Popery in America,”patriot leader Samuel Adams asserted in 1768,“thanfrom Stamp-Acts or any other acts destructive ofmen’s civil rights.” This bigotry caused RomanCatholics to become outspoken proponents ofreligious toleration and the separation of churchand state. In a country dominated by Protestants,this was the only realistic course for them.

All thirteen states at the time of Americanindependence, then, acknowledged to some degreein their constitutions the principle of religiousliberty. Most also provided for some degree ofseparation of church and state. Several states wentso far as to prohibit clergymen from holding stateoffice, a restriction in the Georgia Constitution of1777 that the Reverend John Witherspoon of NewJersey would famously protest. But few statesprovided for a complete separation of church andstate, for it was believed that the governmentshould give some support to religion in general.Though a substantial number of American elites inthe late eighteenth century were not church-goingChristians, nearly all believed in the God of theOld Testament, and all recognized the practicalvalue of Christianity as a check on antisocialbehavior. Many of the state constitutions written

in the era of independence, therefore, required thatgovernment give some support to Christianity.Though the Massachusetts Constitution guaranteedthat “no subordination of any one sect ordenomination to another shall ever be establishedby law,” it also permitted the legislature to levytaxes “for the support and maintenance of publicprotestant teachers of piety, religion and morality.”Similarly, the Maryland Constitution of 1776permitted the legislature to “lay a general andequal tax for the support of the Christian religion.”

There were, however, calls for completereligious disestablishment at the state level. InVirginia, James Madison and Thomas Jeffersonwere two of the most prominent advocates of a

strict separation of churchand state. Their ideas aboutreligious liberty were clearlyinfluenced by John Lockeand fellow Virginian GeorgeMason. In 1785, the Virginialegislature considered a billthat would provide forpublic funding of Christian

instruction. The measure was backed by severalprominent statesmen, including Patrick Henry. ButJames Madison, then a member of the legislature,took the lead in opposing the bill, remindingVirginians that “torrents of blood have been spiltin the old world, by vain attempts of the seculararm, to extinguish Religious discord, by proscribingall difference in Religious opinion.” The bill wasdefeated, and the following year, Jefferson introduced“A Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom,” whichattempted to enshrine in law the idea “that no manshall be compelled to frequent or support anyreligious Worship place or Ministry whatsoever.”The bill passed with minor changes.

By the time of the Constitutional Conventionof 1787, there was a broad consensus regardingthe proper relationship between the nationalgovernment and religion: first, that the governmentought not to give support to any religious sect;second, that the government ought not to require areligious test for office; third, that the governmentought not to interfere with private religiouspractice; and fourth, that the government oughtnot to interfere with the right of the states to do asthey wished in regard to religious establishmentand religious liberty. These points of consensuswere reflected in both the body of the United StatesConstitution and in the First Amendment, whichwas ratified in 1791 as part of the Bill of Rights.Article VI of the Constitution explicitly stated that

Thomas Jefferson asserted that theFirst Amendment created “a wall of

separation between church and state.”What Jefferson meant by this term is a

subject of great debate.


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“no religious test shall ever be required as aqualification to any office or public trust under theUnited States.” The First Amendment declared that“Congress shall make no law respecting anestablishment of religion, or prohibiting the freeexercise thereof.”

The right of the states to set their own policy inregard to religion was implicitly acknowledged inArticle I of the Constitution, which stipulated thatto be eligible to vote in elections for the UnitedStates House of Representatives, “the elector ineach State shall have the qualifications requisite forelectors of the most numerous branch of the StateLegislature.” Several states at the time mandated areligious test as a requirement for the franchise,and the Constitution therefore tacitly approvedsuch tests. In addition, the First Amendment’sprohibition against religious establishment appliedexplicitly to the national Congress alone. Indeed, itwas not until after the American Civil War, in theincorporation cases, that the United States SupremeCourt ruled that some of the restrictions placed onthe federal government by the amendments alsoapplied to the state governments.

By 1800, then, there was a broad consensusamong Americans that religious freedom wasessential to political liberty and the well-being ofthe nation. During the next two centuries, thedefinition of freedom of religion would bebroadened, as states abandoned religious tests andachieved complete disestablishment and as stateand federal courts ruled that various subtle formsof government encouragement of religion wereunconstitutional. Shortly after the dawn of thenineteenth century, in a letter to a Baptistcongregation in Danbury, Connecticut, ThomasJefferson asserted that the First Amendmentcreated “a wall of separation between church andstate.” What Jefferson meant by this term is asubject of great debate. But there is no doubt thathis words have become part of the Americanpolitical creed and a rallying cry for those who seekto expand the definition of religious liberty, evento mean that religion should be removed frompublic life altogether.

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

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Suggestions for Further ReadingBerns, Walter. The First Amendment and the Future of American Democracy. New York: Basic Books, 1976.Dreisbach, Daniel. Thomas Jefferson and the Wall of Separation between Church and State. New York: New

York University Press, 2003.Levy, Leonard W. The Establishment Clause: Religion and the First Amendment. New York: MacMillan, 1989.Novak, Michael. On Two Wings: Humble Faith and Common Sense at the American Founding. San Francisco:

Encounter Books, 2003.


Thomas Jefferson accurately represented theconvictions of his fellow colonists when heobserved in the Declaration of Independence thata government, to be considered legitimate, must bebased on the consent of the people and respect theirnatural rights to “life, liberty and the pursuit ofhappiness.”Along with other leading members of thefounding generation, Jeffersonunderstood that these principlesdictated that the government begiven only limited powers that,ideally, are carefully described inwritten charters or constitutions.

Modern theorists like JohnLocke and the Baron deMontesquieu had been makingthe case for limited governmentand separation of powers duringthe century prior to the AmericanRevolution. Colonial Americanswere quite familiar with Locke’sargument from his Two Treatisesof Government that “AbsoluteArbitrary Power, or Governing without settledstanding Laws, can neither of them consist with theends of Society and Government. . . .” Locke addedthat the reason people “quit the freedom of thestate of Nature [is] to preserve their Lives, Libertiesand Fortunes.” Civil society has no higher end thanto provide for the safety and happiness of thepeople, and this is best done under a system ofknown rules or laws that apply equally to “the Rich and Poor, . . . the Favorite at Court, and theCountry Man at plough.” For his part, Montesquieuargued that only where governmental power islimited in scope, and then parceled out amongdifferent departments, will people be free fromoppression. Constitutional government, formodern natural rights theorists, should be limitedgovernment dedicated to the comfortablepreservation of the people—that is, to theirsecurity, freedom, and prosperity.

John Adams echoed the beliefs of manyAmericans when he argued that only by creating abalance of forces within the government could thepeople hope to escape despotism and misery. Anunchecked legislature, he observed, would becapable not only of making tyrannical laws, but of

executing them in a tyrannical manner as well. In hisfamous draft of a constitution for the commonwealthof Massachusetts, Adams declared that the“legislative, executive and judicial power shall beplaced in separate departments, to the end that itmight be a government of laws, and not of men.”This document, along with his Defence of the

Constitutions of Government ofthe United States of America,containing a strong case for checksand balances in government,were well known to the delegateswho attended the ConstitutionalConvention of 1787.

James Wilson, one of theforemost legal scholars of thefounding period and a delegatefrom Pennsylvania at theConstitutional Convention, agreedwith Adams’ insistence that thepower of government should bedivided to the end of advancingthe peace and happiness of the

people. In the words of Wilson, “In government,the perfection of the whole depends on the balanceof the parts, and the balance of the parts consists inthe independent exercise of their separate powers,and, when their powers are separately exercised,then in their mutual influence and operation onone another. Each part acts and is acted upon,supports and is supported, regulates and isregulated by the rest.”

Both the Articles of Confederation and theConstitution of the United States provided forgovernments with limited powers. As John Jay haddiscovered as America’s secretary of foreign affairs,the power of the central government was severelylimited under the Articles and, hence, could betrusted to a unitary legislative department. Fear ofgovernmental tyranny and a desire to preserve thepower enjoyed by the new states resulted in thecreation of a central government that could noteffectively oversee interstate commerce or do otherthings that were critical to ensuring the safety andhappiness of the people. In a letter to EdmundRandolph at the end of 1786, George Washingtonbemoaned the “awful situation of our affairs”which he attributed to “the want of sufficient power

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in the foederal head.”Washington quickly joined themovement to create a new governmental systemthat was equal to “the exigencies of Union,” toquote from the instructions given the delegates tothe Constitutional Convention of 1787.

The Constitution of 1787 grew out of a plandrafted largely by James Madison during the winterand spring before the Convention. The “VirginiaPlan” proposed a central government that wassupreme over the states. Evidence that the nationalgovernment was to be entrusted with considerablepower could be found in the provisions for abicameral legislature andindependent executive andjudicial departments.

The delegates whoattended the ConstitutionalConvention were sufficientlyversed in modern politicaltheory to understand thatthey would have to dividethe power of the national government if theyintended to entrust it with real authority over thelives of the people and the states. They understoodthe dangers of imparting considerable politicalpower to a unitary sovereign. In this connection,there was never any doubt in their minds that theyshould create a government of “delegated andenumerated” powers, that is, that the governmentshould only be entrusted with specified(enumerated) powers that derived directly fromthe people. While they worried about the“turbulence and follies” of democracy, theyrecognized that government had to be based on theconsent of the people to be legitimate.

The Virginia Plan anticipated the bicamerallegislature and independent executive and judicialdepartments found in the United States Constitutiontoday. Building on Madison’s model, the delegatesassigned responsibilities to the departments basedon their peculiar characteristics. The six-year termof senators, for example, seemed to make this aproper institution to involve in foreign policy (e.g.,ratification of treaties) since senators would havemore time than members of the House ofRepresentatives to acquaint themselves withinternational affairs and their longer terms andlarger constituencies (entire states) also would givethem more freedom to attend to matters otherthan the immediate interests of constituents backhome. The House of Representatives was entrustedwith the important power to initiate revenue(taxation) bills precisely because the members of

this chamber are tied so closely to the people byshort terms and small districts.

In addition to matching powers andgovernmental responsibilities, the delegates werecareful to position each department to “check andbalance” the other departments. Examples are the executive’s veto power, the congressionalimpeachment power, and the judicial review powerentrusted to the Supreme Court, the only nationalcourt formally established by the Constitution.Although in good Lockean fashion the legislativedepartment was designed to be the preeminent

department, it was stillsubjected to checks by theother branches of thegovernment. Separation ofpowers as well as the systemof checks and balances weredevices for reducing the threatof governmental tyranny, notexcluding legislative tyranny.

However, the constitutional arrangement, putinto its final wording by Gouverneur Morris, wasnot driven entirely by a desire to eliminate thethreat of tyrannical government. The system ofseparated and divided powers also was intended topromote competence in government. Thepresident can employ his veto not only to checklegislative action that he considers irresponsible,but to provoke Congress to improve a legislativeenactment. The Senate can use its authority toratify presidential nominations of cabinet officersor judges to ensure that qualified candidates arenamed to fill these positions.

Writing in Federalist No. 9, Alexander Hamiltonidentified the principle of separated and dividedpowers, along with checks and balances, as amongthe inventions of the new science of politics thathad made republican government defensible.Madison described in Federalist No. 51 the benefitsof the governmental arrangement represented inthe new Constitution: “In the compound republicof America, the power surrendered by the people isfirst divided between two distinct governments,and then the portion allotted to each subdividedamong distinct and separate departments. Hence adouble security arises to the rights of the people.The different governments will control each other,at the same time that each will be controlled byitself.” Significantly, Anti-Federalists as well asFederalists agreed that governmental powersshould be limited and that these powers should besubject to internal as well as external checks.

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There was never any doubt in theirminds that they should create agovernment of “delegated and

enumerated” powers . . .


It is important to emphasize that the Framerssettled on an arrangement that divided yet blendedthe legislative, executive, and judicial powers. Thisfacilitates interdepartmental checking whilepromoting mature deliberation. Their aim was tocreate a decent and competent democracy, somethingbeyond mere non-tyrannical government. Theyplaced the whole of the government, and even thepeople, under constitutional limitations. TheConstitution is the supreme law of the land, notthe enactments of Congress or the order of thepresident or the momentary will of the people. AsChief Justice Marshall declared in Marbury v.Madison (1803), “The distinction between agovernment with limited and unlimited powers isabolished, if those limits do not confine the personson whom they are imposed, and if acts prohibitedand acts allowed, are of equal obligation.” Even the

desires of the people are held in check by theConstitution. The political system still meets thecriteria of democratic government, however, sincethe people hold the power, through theirrepresentatives, to amend the Constitution.

The paradigm of constitutional governmentembraced by the American people in 1787, that is,limited government based on the consent of thepeople and committed to the protection offundamental rights, has become the dominant modelthroughout the world. The rhetoric of rights, whethercouched in the language of natural rights or humanrights, is universally appealing. Also universallyaccepted is the argument that rights are most securewhen governmental powers are limited in scopeand subject to internal and external checks.

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


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Suggestions for Further ReadingFrohnen, 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.Mansfield, Harvey C., Jr. Taming the Prince. New York: The Free Press, 1989.McDonald, Forrest. A Constitutional History of the United States. New York: Franklin Watts, 1982.Storing, Herbert J. What the Anti-Federalists Were For. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981.Wood, Gordon. The Creation of the American Republic, 1776–1787. New York: W.W. Norton, 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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AN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY GLOSSARY

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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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An Eighteenth-Century Glossary

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Answer Key

Answer Key

that the state should approve theConstitution only on the conditionthat amendments would be added assoon as possible.

3. During his second term as governor ofMassachusetts, Gerry approved a redis-tricting plan that gave an electoraladvantage to Republicans. One of thedistricts resembled a salamander, soFederalists termed the practice“gerrymandering.”

4. Answers will vary. Students could men-tion the X, Y, Z Affair and Gerry’sdecision to stay behind in France afterhe and his fellow delegates were asked tobribe French officials. This led to criti-cism of him by Federalists. Studentscould also mention Governor Gerry’sattempt to ensure the election of Repub-licans to the state senate through the tacticof “gerrymandering.” The unpopular-ity of this tactic contributed to Gerry’sdefeat in the next election for governor.

5. Answers will vary. In regard to politics,students should mention that Gerrywas active in the patriot movement andsympathetic to the idea of independence.In regard to personality, students shouldmention that Gerry was a stubborn anddifficult man who lacked a sense ofhumor and seemed to enjoy arguing.

Handout B—By His Own Hand:

Elbridge Gerry and GerrymanderingBelow are two examples of how studentscould draw district boundaries so as tofavor one party.

Example A: Republicans are favored in 7out of 10 districts.• Federalist Districts = 1, 2, 3• Republican Districts = 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

Example B: Federalists are favored in 8out of 10 districts.• Federalist Districts = 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9• Republican Districts = 8, 10

Patrick Henry

Handout A—Patrick Henry

(1736–1799)1. Saying he “smelled a rat,” Henry

feared that the meeting was a plot bythe powerful to construct a strongcentral government of which theywould be the masters.

2. Henry warned that the new Constitutionwould create a “consolidated” govern-ment in which power would be con-centrated in the hands of a few. Thedocument did not provide for adequatechecks and balances and therefore didnot protect the people against evil rulers.It gave the central government thedangerous power of direct taxation. Itcreated a standing army, which apower-hungry president could use toawe the people into submission. Italso lacked a bill of rights.

3. He disliked Thomas Jefferson and JamesMadison, the founders of the party.Also, as a devout Christian, Henry wasdisgusted by the party’s approval of theatheistic French Revolution.

4. In both cases, Henry questioned the rightof the British government to interfere inVirginia’s affairs. In the Parson’s Cause,Henry denounced the king’s repeal ofthe Two-Penny Act as “an instance ofmisrule” and perhaps tyranny. Duringthe Stamp Act Crisis, Henry assertedthat “the General Assembly of this

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Answer Key


Colony have the only and sole exclusiveRight & Power to lay . . . taxes upon theInhabitants of this Colony.”

5. Answers will vary, but students shouldrecognize that Henry’s speech was adefiant call for armed resistance toBritish forces. He declared that war, ineffect, had already begun.

Handout B—Context Questionsa. The document was written in 1788.b. It was written in Virginia.c. Patrick Henry wrote the document.d. The document is a speech.e. Henry wrote the speech to convince the

Virginia delegates to oppose ratificationof the Constitution.

f. The audience for this speech was theVirginia delegates in particular, but alsothe people of all the states.

Handout C—In His Own Words:

Patrick Henry on the ConstitutionMain idea of each passage:1. Majority Rule: Henry favors majority

rule and democratic government. Heargues that under the new Constitution,a small minority of Americans couldthwart the will of the majority by refusingto ratify a proposed amendment. Forexample, four small states—such as NewJersey, Rhode Island, Connecticut, andNew Hampshire—containing only fiveto ten percent of the total population ofthe country could block approval of anamendment favored by the remainingnine more populous states.

2. A Standing Army: Henry argues thatthe Constitution will create a standingarmy that the government will use tocrush any opposition to its exercise ofpower. The militia will be powerlessto stop it. Henry warns that the seat ofgovernment will become an armedfortress used by this army.

3. Liberty vs. Empire: Henry laments thefact that Americans seem to favor the

building of a great empire, which willcome at the expense of their liberty.

4. Good and Bad Rulers: Henry arguesthat the Constitution does not includesufficient safeguards against the abuseof power by evil officeholders.

5. The President, a Tyrant: Henry cautionsthat the presidency is poorly designedand that a power-hungry occupant ofthat office will be able to use thestanding army and the militia toestablish tyranny.

Thomas Jefferson

Handout A—Thomas Jefferson

(1743–1826)1. Jefferson had mixed feelings about

slavery.He warned that slavery might oneday tear the Union apart. He condemnedthe slave trade and proposed a plan forending it. But Jefferson owned more than200 slaves who lived on and near his greatplantation of Monticello, and he freednone of them while he lived. He didprovide in his will for the emancipationof seven of his slaves, including SallyHemings (the slave with whomJefferson is alleged to have had a sexualrelationship), her five children, andher nephew.

2. While he was president, Jeffersonreduced the number of publicemployees, cut military spending, andlowered the national debt.

3. Jefferson championed the right to beararms, religious freedom, the rights ofpeople accused of crimes, and the rightto property.

4. Answers will vary. Some students willpoint out the contradictions betweenJefferson’s opinions and his actions. Forexample, he condemned the slave trade,warned that slavery might one day tearthe Union apart, and proposed a planfor ending slavery in the United States.But he owned more than 200 slaves who

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