As several scholars, like Bernard Bailyn, Caroline Robbins, and Gordon Wood, have reminded us, a number of ideological influences have played a significant role in the creation of the American republic. Among them were two opposing concepts that were at the center of the Founders’ debate over the meaning of republicanism in America. One was […]
Burke and Adams: Tradition vs. Constitutionalism
In his 1953 classic The Conservative Mind, Russell Kirk stresses what he sees as the remarkable similarity in political thinking between Edmund Burke, the “Father of Western Conservatism,” and John Adams, often referred to as the first great American conservative. Kirk asserts that “it is difficult to draw any clear line of demarcation” between the […]
“A Signal, Like Dropping a Hat”: The Contentious Election of 1796
While scholars have justifiably given the election of 1800 much attention, the contest of 1796 deserves its own share of scholarly interest as Stephen Kurtz, Joanne Freeman, and John Ferling have demonstrated. Not only was it the first truly contested election involving political parties but it also signaled, as Kurtz observed, the beginning of the […]
Examining the Consistency of John Adams’s Political Thinking: What His Early Political Writings Can Tell Us
In her 1805 History of the Rise, Progress, and Termination of the American Revolution, family friend Mercy Otis Warren harshly criticized John Adams for what she alleged was his apostasy from republicanism, positing that his long residency in Europe had caused him to favor monarchy and aristocracy. In a series of venomous letters written to […]
Was Madison a Strict Constructionist?
As members of the First Congress convened in early April 1789 to begin the process of implementing the Constitution, James Madison knew better than anyone the challenges that lay before them as they attempted to put into effect an innovative system of government based on a text that had different meanings to different people: “We […]
