John Winthrop
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What were Winthrop’s views of equality?
Winthrop’s views of community
Does community negate individualism?
The Puritan covenant
City upon a hill…
“thou must give him according to his
necessity, rather than led him as he
requires.”
John Cotton
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God appoints a place for his people
Special commission from God
What constitutes lawful war?
Did Indians give the Puritans their land?
Did the Indians consider their lands vacant?
Edmund Burke
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“the use of force alone is but temporary. It may subdue for a moment; but it does not
remove the necessity of subduing again: and a nation is not governed , which is
perpetually to be conquered.”
“ My next objection is its uncertainty. Terror is not always the effect of force; and an
armament is not a victory. If you do not succeed, you are without resource; for,
conciliation failing, force remains; but, force failing, no further hope of reconciliation
is left….”
“A further objection to force is, that you impair the object by your very endeavours to
preserve it. The thing you fought for is not the thing which you recover; but
depreciated, sunk, wasted and consumed in the contest….” (Page 21.)
Founder of Conservatism: “Burke maintained that society was a contract, but ‘the
state ought not to be considered as nothing better than a partnership agreement in a
trade of pepper and coffee, to be taken up for a temporary interest and to be
dissolved by the fancy of the parties.’ The state was a partnership but one ‘not only
between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead
and those who are to be born.’ No one generation therefore has the right to destroy
this partnership; instead, each generation has the duty to preserve and transmit it to
the next. Burke advised against the violent overthrow of a government by revolution,
but he did not reject the possibility of change. Sudden change was unacceptable,
but that did not eliminate gradual or evolutionary improvements.” (Spielvogel, p. 612)
Adam Smith
• To what is Smith reacting?
• The “invisible hand” of the laws of supply
and demand
• Monopolies?
• “Even the regulations by which each nation
endeavours to secure to itself the exclusive
trade of its own colonies, are frequently
more hurtful to the countries in favour of
which they are established than to those
against which they are established.”
Michel St. John de Crevecoeur
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Are Crevecoeur’s Letters a work of fiction or non-fiction?
Development of the wilderness
No system of vassalage: “It is not composed, as in Europe, of great lords who possess everything, and of
a herd of people who have nothing.”
More equality
People of cultivators
“Here the rewards of his industry follow with equal steps the progress of his labour…”
“As freemen they will be litigious; pride and obstinacy are often the cause of law suits.”
“Here religion demand but little of him; a small voluntary salary to the minister, and gratitude to God;
can he refuse these?”
“…the laws inspect our actions, our thoughts are left to God.”
“…how religious indifference becomes prevalent.”
On the frontier: “they are often in a perfect state of war.”
Who is Crevecoeur’s main intended audience?
The melting pot.
“He does not find, as in Europe, a crowded society, where every place is over-stocked.”
“The rich stay in Europe, it is only the middling and the poor that emigrate.”
“…he now feels himself a man, because he is treated as such.”
“[He] feel an ardour to labour he never felt before.”
Thomas Jefferson on Slavery
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“Deep rooted prejudices entertained by the whites; ten thousand recollections, by the blacks, of the injuries they
have sustained; new provocations; the real distinctions which nature has made; and many other circumstances,
will divide us into parties, and produce convulsions which will probably never end but in the extermination of
the one or the other race. To these objection, which are political, may be added others, which are physical and
moral.”
Who is Sally Hemings, and how her relationship to Jefferson affect our reading of Jefferson on slavery?
“The circumstance of superior beauty, is thought worthy attention in the propagation of our horses, dogs, and
other domestic animals; why not in that of man?”
sweat and disagreeable odor
“They are more ardent after their female; but love seems with them to be more an eager desire, than a tender
delicate mixture of sentiment and sensation. Their griefs are transient. Those numberless afflictions, which
render it doubtful whether heaven his given life to us in mercy or in wrath, are less felt, and sooner forgotten
with them. In general, their existence appears to participate more of sensation than reflection.” Are the above
generalities useful? Jefferson is a keen observer, but is he as keen as an empathizer?
“…in memory they are equal to the whites; in reason much inferior…”
“Among the blacks is misery enough, God knows, but no poetry.” Is Jefferson’s assessment of good poetry
broad or narrow? What factors is he not taking into consideration?
“…though for a century and a half we have had under our eyes the races of black and red men, they have never
yet been viewed by us as subjects of natural history. I advance it therefore as a suspicion only, that the blacks,
whether originally a distinct race, or made distinct by time and circumstances, are inferior to the whites in the
endowments both of body and mind.” What does such a conclusion by one of our most important Founding
Fathers who wrote that “all men are created equal” in the Declaration of Independence tell us about the deep
roots of prejudice and racism in our country?
“The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the
most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other. Our children see this, and
learn to imitate it…”
Jefferson and Adams on Aristocracy
• Adams: “…parties and factions will not suffer improvements to be made. As soon
as one man hints at an improvement, his rival opposes it. No sooner has one party
discovered or invented any amelioration of the condition of man, or the order of
society than the opposite party belies it, misconstrues it, misrepresents it, ridicules it,
insults it, and persecutes it. Records are destroyed. Histories are annihilated or
interpolated or prohibited; sometimes by Popes, sometimes by Emperors, sometimes
by aristocratical, and sometimes by democratical assemblies, and sometimes by
mobs….” What is Adam’s view of humankind and its ability to govern itself? Why
might he caution against democratic government?
• What is natural and artificial aristocracy, according to Jefferson?
• How does Jefferson hope to avoid unenlightened mob rule in a democratic society?
• Primogeniture
• Jefferson: “Every one, by his property, or by his satisfactory situation, is interested
in the support of law and order.”
• Jefferson on Europe: “Science had liberated the ideas of those who read and reflect,
and the American example had kindled feelings of right in the people. An
insurrection has consequently begun, of science, talents and courage against rank
and birth, which have fallen into contempt.”
• Jefferson: “Every folly must run its round; and so, I suppose, must that of selflearning, and self sufficiency; of rejecting the knowledge acquired in past ages, and
starting on the new ground of intuition. When sobered by experience I hope our
successors will turn their attention to the advantages of education.”
Daniel Webster, Against Universal Manhood Suffrage
“It is [Mr. Harrington’s] leading object, in his Oceana, to prove, that power
naturally and necessarily follows property. He maintains that a government
founded on property is legitimately founded; and that a government founded on
the disregard of property is founded in injustice, and can only be maintained by
military force…. To this sentiment, Sir, I entirely agree. It seems to me to be
plain, that, in the absence of military force, political power naturally and
necessarily goes into the hands which hold the property. In my judgement,
therefore, a republican form of government rest, not more on political
constitutions, than on those laws which regulate the descent and transmission
of property.”
If the nature of our institutions be to found government on property, and that
it should look to those who hold property for its protection, it is entirely just
that property should have its due weight and consideration in political
arrangements. Life and personal liberty are no doubt to be protected by law;
but property is also to be protected by law, and is the fund out of which the
means for protecting life and liberty are usually furnished. We have no
experience that teaches us that any other rights are safe where property is not
safe. Confiscation and plunder are generally, in revolutionary commotions, not
far before banishment, imprisonment, and death.” (p. 49)
Eric Foner: The Birth of American Freedom
• “In the ancient world, lack of self-control was understood as a form of slavery, the
antithesis of a free life. ‘Show me a man who isn’t a slave,’ wrote Seneca.” “’One is
a slave to sex, another to money, another to ambition.’” (3-4)
• Freedom to the Puritans: “Freedom meant abandoning this life of sin to embrace the
teaching of Christ. …John Winthrop…distinguished sharply between ‘natural
liberty,’ which suggested ‘a liberty to evil,’ and ‘moral liberty…a liberty to do only
what is good’” (4)
• Liberty and the law: “…Aristotle had cautioned men not to ‘think is slavery to live
according to the rule of the constitution….’” “Liberty, wrote John Locke, meant not
leaving every person free to do as he desired, but “having a standing rule to live by,
common to every one of that society, and made by the legislative power.” (5)
• “British freedom celebrated the rule of law, the right to live under legislation to
which one’s community had consented, restraints on the arbitrary exercise of
political authority, and rights like trial by jury enshrined in the common law. It was
closely identified with the Protestant religion and was invoked most stridently to
contrast Britons with the “servile” subjects of Catholic countries.” (5)
• Medieval Liberties: formal privileges such as self-government or exemption from
taxation granted to particular groups by contract, charter or royal decree. (6)
Eric Foner: The Birth of American Freedom
continued
• The popular ideology of liberty as resistance to tyranny: “Power and
liberty were widely believed to be natural antagonists, and in their
balance constitutions and the principle that no man, even the king, is
above the law, Britons claimed to have devised the best means of
preventing political absolutism. These ideas sank deep roots not only
within the political nation but far more broadly in British society.
Laborers, sailors, and artisans spoke the language of common law rights
and British freedom as insistently as pamphleteers and Parliamentarians.
By the eighteenth century, the category of free person had become not
simply a legal status, as in medieval times, but a powerful element of
popular ideology. On both sides of the Atlantic, liberty emerged as ‘the
battle cry of the rebellious.’ Frequent crowd actions protesting
infringements on traditional rights gave concrete expression to the
definition of liberty as resistance to tyranny.” (7)
Eric Foner: The Birth of American Freedom
continued
• Virtue: It was assumed in the eighteenth century that only propertyowning citizens possessed virtue. Virtue was understood “not simply as
a personal, moral quality but as a willingness to subordinate private
passions and desires to the public good. ‘Only a virtuous people are
capable of freedom,’ wrote Benjamin Franklin.” (7-8)
• “Those who did not control their own lives ought not to have a voice in
governing the state. Political freedom required economic independence.
(9)
• Sir William Blackstone: men without property would inevitably fall
“under the immediate domination of others.” Lacking a will of their
own, their votes would threaten the “general liberty.” Not only personal
depended, as in the case of a domestic servant, but working for wages
was widely viewed as disreputable. (9)
Eric Foner: The Birth of American Freedom
continued
• The New World promised “to be liberation from the economic inequalities and
widespread economic dependence of the Old. John Smith had barely landed at
Jamestown in 1607 when he observed that in America, ‘every man may be
master and owner of his owne labour and land.’” “The visions of liberty that
emigrants brought to colonial America always included the promise of
economic independence and the ability to pass a freehold on to one’s children.”
(10)
• Who were considered free in eighteenth-century America? White propertyowning males.
• James Madison: the U.S. was the “workshop of liberty to the Civilized
World.” (15)
• Conservative patriots struggled valiantly to reassert the rationale for the old
restrictions. Property, and property alone, John Adams insisted, meant
independence; those without it had no “judgement of their own. They talk and
vote as they are directed by some man of property.” (18)
Eric Foner: The Birth of American Freedom
continued
• “By 1800, indentured servitude had all but disappeared from the United
States, and apprenticeship was on the wane, developments that sharpened
the dichotomy between freedom and slavery and between a northern
economy relying on what would come to be called ‘free labor’ and a
South every more heavily bound to the labor of slaves.” (19)
• “Blacks recognized both hypocrisy and opportunity in the ideology of
freedom.” (34)
• “By invoking the Revolution’s ideology of liberty to demand their own
rights and defining freedom as a universal entitlement, blacks
demonstrated how American they had become, even as they sought to
redefine what American freedom in fact represented.” (35)