iiiFounders and the Constitution: In Their Own Words—Volume 2

r TABLE OF CONTENTS—VOLUME 2 s

Acknowledgements v

Preface vi

Thematic Essays:

Equality 1The Founders’ belief in the equality of natural rights reflected deeply-rooted Anglo-American tradition. Yet the statement from the Declarationof Independence regarding natural rights also represented a radicalbreak from the past. The Declaration, which Jefferson penned on behalfof the other privileged delegates to the Continental Congress, helped toinspire ordinary Americans to overturn timeworn social and politicalbarriers separating aristocrats from common people and the powerfulfrom the powerless.

By Robert M.S. McDonald, Ph.D.

Liberty 5Liberty was the central political principle of the American Revolution.The Founders’ political theory was born from John Locke’s principle thatpeople enter into society and form governments to better preserve thisnatural liberty. Equally influential was Locke’s argument that if agovernment violated its citizens’ liberty they could resist its edicts andcreate a new political authority. By making a revolution in its name, theFounders ensured that debates about the nature and extent of libertywould remain at the center of the American experiment in self-government.

By Craig Yirush, Ph.D.

Limited Government 8The Founders agreed that only by creating a balance of forces within thegovernment could the people hope to escape despotism and misery. JohnAdams declared, “legislative, executive and judicial power shall be placedin separate departments, to the end that it might be a government oflaws, and not of men.” They never doubted that they should create agovernment of “delegated and enumerated” powers; that is, that thegovernment should be entrusted only with specified powers that deriveddirectly from the people.

By David E. Marion, Ph.D.

Republican Government 11“We have it in our power to begin the world over again,” Thomas Painewrote in 1776, during the heady days of American independence. Indeed,the American Founders in 1787 were keenly aware that they possessed arare opportunity. With the eyes of the world and future generationsupon them, they were cognizant of the failures of republican experimentsthrough history, and yet determined to build a republic founded inliberty as an example to all nations for all time.

By Stephen M. Klugewicz, Ph.D.

Founders:

John Adams (1735–1826) 16MassachusettsLetters to Abigail Adams

Samuel Adams (1722–1803) 28MassachusettsThe Circular Letter to the Boston Committee of Correspondence

John Dickinson (1732–1808) 40PennsylvaniaLetters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania

iv Founders and the Constitution: In Their Own Words—Volume 2

Alexander Hamilton (1757–1804) 50New YorkFederalist No. 70

John Hancock (1737–1793) 62MassachusettsOration on the Anniversary of the Boston Massacre

John Jay (1745–1829) 72New YorkLetter to Elias Boudinot

Gouverneur Morris (1752–1816) 84New YorkThe Preamble to the Constitution of the United States

James Otis (1725–1783) 94MassachusettsThe Rights of the British Colonies Asserted and Proved

Thomas Paine (1737–1809) 106PennsylvaniaThe American Crisis

Benjamin Rush (1745–1813) 116PennsylvaniaThe Mode of Education Proper in a Republic

George Washington (1732–1799) 128VirginiaFarewell Address

James Wilson (1742–1798) 138PennsylvaniaA Charge Delivered to the Grand Jury

Answer Key 150

Glossary of Eighteenth-Century Definitions 164

Additional Classroom Activities 166

A Note On Standards 169