Tag: American Founding Era

THOMAS JEFFERSON LEADERSHIP A malignant fever … in the filth of Water street which gives great alarm. About 70. people had died of it two...

Founders Corner Library Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, by Joseph Story, 1833 Volume 3, Chapter 12,  PRIVILEGES AND POWERS OF BOTH HOUSES OF...

In 1776, the same year the Declaration of Independence appeared in America, Pelatiah Webster started publishing a series of essays on economic matters BY LAWRENCE...

FOUNDERS CORNER LIBRARY, MAJOR WORKS Commentaries on the Laws of England (Vol. 1 of 4), Introduction, Section 4 1765-1769 The kingdom of England, over which our...

American Debate Federalist Fisher Ames sends a draft treatise to a friend for review, in which he addresses the dangers he sees to the liberty...

FOUNDERS CORNER: SPEECHES, PAMPHLETS, LETTERS, QUOTES John Adams, March 3, 1756 Natural philosophy is the art of deducing the general laws and properties of material substances...

LIBERTY LETTERS WITH STEVE FARRELL In my home state, and probably in yours, we often hear about the deplorable state of public education. The cure always...

Founders Corner Library Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, by Joseph Story, 1833 Volume 1, PREFACE I now offer to the public another portion of...

Qualifications for suffrage debated by the Founding Fathers at the Constitutional Convention. Should there be property restrictions or not?

Qualifications for suffrage debated by the Founding Fathers at the Constitutional Convention. Should there be property restrictions or not?

Shortly before the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Samuel Adams writes his friend, Reverend Samuel Cooper—a guiding light of American independence.

In a series of papers published in 1801, Fisher Ames unleashes one of the Federalist’s most scathing attacks on the Anti-Federalist’s unbridled democratic principles. Ames does so by drawing their principles to their logical conclusions—illustrating his conclusions with the unprincipled actions of the European democrats and their American supporters and apologists. Said Ames: "Time is as little a friend to folly, as to hypocrisy."

As the common law secures equally all the rights of the citizens, and as the jacobin leaders loudly decry this system, it is obvious, that they extend their views still farther. Undoubtedly, they include in their plan of equality, that the citizens shall have assigned to them new rights, and different from what they now enjoy. - Fisher Ames

Let us consider ourselves as MEN — FREEMEN — CHRISTIAN FREEMEN — separated from the rest of the world, and firmly bound together by the same rights, interests and dangers. Let these keep our attention inflexibly fixed on the GREAT OBJECTS, which we must CONTINUALLY REGARD, in order to preserve those rights, to promote those interests, and to avert those dangers. ... The belief of these truths, I verily think, my countrymen, is indispensably necessary to your happiness. - American Founder, John Dickinson

And standing right next to them a collection of spineless selfish, some might call soulless Republican sidekicks -- non-Establishment men who tra-la-la along to the Eastern Liberal Establishment's blackguardish beat nonetheless ... because that's where the campaign cash is, that's where the media support is, that's how to 'win' elections, and, besides, they're either not conversant or not converted to that New Testament warning about the lukewarm. ... --Steve Farrell

Debate continues on equal vs. proportional representation in the second branch (the U.S. Senate).

Debate continues on equal vs. proportional representation in the second branch (the U.S. Senate).

Yet how many are there, so weak and sordid as to think they perform all the offices of life, if they earnestly endeavor to increase their own wealth, power, and credit, without the least regard for the society, under the protection of which they live; who, if they can make an immediate profit to themselves, by lending their assistance to those, whose projects plainly tend to the injury of their country, rejoice in their dexterity, and believe themselves entitled to the character of able politicians. Miserable men! -- John Dickinson, 1767

Resolved, That these United Colonies are, and of a right, ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved, from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved. - Richard Henry Lee

“Through a long life, Elder Leland sustained, with uniform consistency, the two-fold character of the patriot and the Christian. For his religious creed he acknowledged no directory but the Bible. He loved the pure, unadulterated word of truth. . . . His political creed was based upon the ‘sufficient truths’ of equality, and of inherent and inalienable rights, recognized by the master spirits of the revolution . . .” - Political Sermons, Ellis Sandoz