Introduction
This week’s article, as I mentioned last week, is from my research class and is the first two chapters of a history textbook I am working on for homeschooled junior and senior high school students whose parents are looking for a more in-depth, primary source based curriculum.
Chapter One: The Philosophy of the Early Colonies
The American story begins with the first settlements in America, which would form the basis for the colonies. The earliest established and well-documented settlements were Jamestown, which was established in 1607 on May 14th, and Plymouth, which was established in September of 1620. Most of the information we have about Jamestown was preserved by Thomas Jefferson, who collected copies of the original documents from individuals who usually did not understand the worth. As for Plymouth, the main sources of information available to modern scholars come in the form of copies of their laws and statutes, the Mayflower Compact, and the journals of William Bradford and Edward Winslow, who compiled Mourt’s Relation—a collection of his own letters and journal entries as well as some narratives he received from other members of the colony. In order to understand American history and much of what would follow after the establishment of these colonies, we must first examine the philosophies of two groups: the early colonists and the Founding Fathers. This chapter examines the first.
When examining the philosophies and histories of the early colonies, it quickly becomes clear that there were two separate philosophies, which led to two very different stories for the colonies. The first was that of Jamestown, which was to spread over the whole of the South. The second was that of Plymouth—and shortly after, Massachusetts Bay Colony—and this was to spread throughout the North. We begin with Jamestown.
Jamestown
The first clear difference we can examine between Plymouth and Jamestown is in the settlers themselves. The settlers of Jamestown were mostly men who were looking for adventure and profit. They contracted with the Virginia Company for land in the New World and the funds to support it. In exchange, they were to send their profits from the land back to the Virginia Company. So the reason for the colonists of Jamestown to go to the New World was business from the start. They drew up a contract with the Virginia Company, and on the advice of the Company, they selected an area that was fertile and also easily defensible in the event that one of the other European nations also establishing colonies in the New World attempted to invade.
Notably, the men who went were mostly of the Anglican tradition and were, therefore, members of the official church of England. This had a profound impact on their beliefs and their philosophy regarding the settlement of the land they were now going into. Anglicans viewed the King of England as the head of their church, and what he said went. The Anglican tradition was an offshoot of Catholicism and carried many of the very same trappings as the other church, but instead of answering to the Pope, the church answered to the king. This not only is key for the purposes of understanding the people behind Jamestown’s settling but also to understanding the reasons behind the later establishment of Plymouth, as we will shortly see. The Anglican tradition itself was no more steeped in laypeople’s knowledge of Scripture than the Catholic tradition it came from. The church goers relied on the priest to tell them what was acceptable or not according to Scripture, and reading it for themselves was not an activity strongly encouraged. The priests were bound to teach in line with whatever most pleased the current king, and so the imperialistic mindset towards land and private property predominated when approaching the issue of the New World and settlement.
This settlement approach is the second difference. First, the Jamestown colony started out socialist in set up. They also made use of martial law. Both were in keeping with English life as the economic policy at the time was that the king owned all of the land and dispensed it as he saw fit to the remainder of the collective. So, in a sense, most people in England did not truly own their own property. It was merely on loan from the king or a noble to whom the king had given the deed. It is hardly surprising, then, that the settlers, who were well-accustomed to this way of life, would carry this philosophy with them. This is precisely what they did, and it was to devastating effect. Bad philosophy very rarely leaves lives untouched by misfortune.
The first of the misfortunes was in their handling of the land. Many of the men spent their time looking for gold and doing little to no work whatever on the communal land of the settlement. Acclaimed economist Richard Maybury, in his article “The Great Thanksgiving Hoax”, noted that “Most of the work was being done by only one-fifth of the men, the other four-fifths choosing to be parasites.”[1] Even the company who funded the venture considered them to be lazy, even going so far as to call them criminals. The result of their refusal to work was that they ended up with no food to sustain them through the winter despite the verdant nature of the land they had settled on. They only made it through the long harsh winter because the native Powhatan tribe took pity on them and brought them food. As we will see in our chapter on Jamestown, the settlers did not appreciate the unwarranted kindness and would later take advantage of them horribly.
The second great travesty that would come from their philosophy was the mistreatment and abuse of the natives. The settlers’ abuse grew out of the combination of a socialistic mindset, which disregarded the Biblical precept that those who did not work should not eat, and the belief in the absolute sovereignty of their king. This last belief stemmed, once again, from the Anglican tradition at the time and the lack of reading the Bible they claimed to follow. The Anglican church’s beliefs regarding the king’s absolute sovereignty as head of the church led them to believe that if the king said he owned land and would grant it to them, then he owned it. It did not matter that there were natives who lived there. Even if those natives viewed it as their land and had been living there for generations, the land belonged to the king and therefore to whomever he chose to grant it to. The Jamestown settlers moved in onto native land with no regard whatever for personal property and without any offer to pay the natives. Their abuses did not stop with this, however. They would go on to enslave the native population in whatever ways they could to force them to work. Later on in our study, we will examine in more detail the history of the colony and the two men who tried to beat the laziness and socialism out of the Jamestown colony, but for now, we will leave our discussion of this by saying they met with no real success, and the abuses of the natives around the colony would continue unabated.
Plymouth
We turn our attention now to Plymouth. The differences between the people who started Jamestown and those who started Plymouth is startling. First of all, the settlers of Plymouth—whom most will know as the Pilgrims—did not come from the Anglican tradition. They were among those who dissented from the church and suffered great persecution for it. In his journals on the events leading to the establishment of Plymouth colony, William Bradford writes:
When as by the travail and diligence of some godly and zealous preachers, and God’s blessing upon their labors, as in other places of the land, so in the north parts many became enlightened by the word of God and had their ignorance and sins discovered unto them, and began by his grace to reform their lives and make conscience of their ways. The work of God was no sooner manifest in them, but presently they were both scoffed and scorned by the profane multitude, and the ministers urged with the yoke of subscriptions or else must be silenced. The poor people were so vexed with apparitors and pursuivants, and the commissary courts, as truly their affliction was not small. Notwithstanding, they bore sundry years with much patience, till they were occasioned (by the continuance and increase of these troubles, and other means which the Lord raised up in those days) to see further into things by the light of the word of God: how not only these base and beggarly ceremonies were unlawful, but also that the lordly and tyrannous power of the prelates ought not to be submitted unto; which thus, contrary to the freedom of the gospel, would load and burden men’s consciences, and by their compulsive power make a profane mixture of persons and things in the worship of God. And that their offices and callings, courts and cannons, etc. were unlawful and antichristian; being such as have no warrant in the word of God; but the same that were used in popery, and still retained… [2]
The difference between the two sets of colonists did not end with their understanding of and love for Scripture. Not only did the Pilgrims have a firm basis in God’s Word before they ever left England, but they ended up establishing their colony without being beholden to any company. While Bradford recounts that they did attempt to establish a contract through the Virginia Company, the inability of the company and the refusal of the king to guarantee to them the right of religious freedom ended any inclination they had to establish such a contract. So, instead, they worked together with the help of private investors—whom they agreed to later pay off through whatever means they were able once settled—to procure the necessary supplies and ships. Their freedom from a charter that held them to sending all of their profits back to a company in England and their sincere desire to settle in the New World for the sake of freedom from an oppressive regime would make a big difference in their approach to settlement.
While the colony in Plymouth also started out socialist, just as Jamestown did, unlike Jamestown, these men and women looked to the Scriptures to provide their basis of operations. Their laws were clearly linked back to Scripture, and they quickly abandoned socialism when they discovered it led to women trying to avoid working in the fields as they knew they could just get what they needed from the public store. The socialist system, once again, proved it was harmful, and despite the much better character of the Pilgrims, they did not fare much better under it than Jamestown did. However, they too were helped by friendly natives, this time by the Massasoit tribe. Unlike the Jamestown settlers, however, as we will see in more detail later, the Plymouth settlers did not mistreat the natives and were grateful for the help they received. Their philosophy was grounded solidly on Scripture, and so not only did they believe in treating their neighbors well, but they also understood property rights and sought to respect the natives’ rights to the land. Their settlement philosophy led them to avoid settling on land that belonged to another without first coming to an agreement on how they might purchase the land or at least use it, and it also led them to abandon socialism very quickly. According to William Bradford’s journal the year he as governor and the colony’s council voted out collectivism,
The failure of that experiment of communal system, the taking away of private property, and the possession of it in community by the commonwealth, was found to breed much confusion and discontent, and retard much employment which would have been to the general benefit.” He noted of the changes in mentality at Plymouth after the voting out of collectivism that it “had very good success, for it made all hands industrious, so as much corn was planted than otherwise would have been by any other means the governor or any other could use…and gave far better content. The women now went willingly into the field and took their little ones with them to set corn, which before would allege weakness and inability. Any general want or famine hath not been amongst them to this day. [3]
The difference in philosophy certainly brought a much different outcome for the colony at Plymouth. The people prospered and found favor with the tribes surrounding them for a long time, up until King Philip’s War and the tensions between various tribes and other settlements boiled over.
The Effects of the Two Differing Philosophies
At this point, our attention must turn to examining what the effects would be of the two different philosophies. Certainly, even a brief overview of these two colonies’ stories tells an astute student of history that they had much different results in their survival rates, their prosperity, and their relationships with the natives around them. But this was not the end of the differences. The two philosophies were to spread to other colonies in the area, with Jamestown’s philosophy operating within the southern colonies and reaping the same results and with Plymouth’s philosophy working within the northern colonies with its same results.
The northern colonies, on the whole, up until mistreatment of the natives in general and general anger within tribes over the conversion of their members to Christianity and their subsequent refusals to participate in some of the more barbaric traditions of the tribes resulted in widespread hostility, had no issues with the natives. In fact, numerous sources, including an early American encyclopedia, Appleton’s Cyclopedia of American Biography, noted that in Pennsylvania in particular, Penn’s adoption of the principles held by Plymouth were so well known among the Indians that being a follower of his was a guarantee of Indian protection and hospitality in the area. Certainly quite a different response from the one that the settlers in the Southern colonies garnered from their Indian neighbors!
Plymouth’s legacy was that it was the foundation for most of the philosophy held by the Founding Fathers, the foundation for many of the rights we still enjoy today, the first colony to write a constitution (the Mayflower Compact), and the first to establish a complete body of laws in America. Their philosophy and its outgrowth was one grounded in Biblical precepts, not just a vague sense of Christian duty and morality, and they would be the foundation upon which the North and the abolitionist movement could grow. While not the only contributing factor, without them, America would look very different today.
The legacy of Jamestown, however, is much more disheartening and far grimmer. Theirs was a legacy of abuses of natural rights, superstition and mysticism without any founding in Scripture, and—not surprisingly—slavery. Out of Jamestown would grow the destructive force of slavery that would eventually become a major contributing factor to tearing the nation in two when the Civil War erupted. While the legacy of Virginia did boast a few great men who broke with the traditional views and philosophies of the Jamestown colony, men such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Patrick Henry—most of what it offered the New World and the fledgling country was to be a philosophy and legacy of the worst of imperialism, injustice, socialism, and elitist thinking. Their philosophy would be responsible for the travesties that occurred leading up to, during, and after the Civil War.
As we consider the impact that these two colonies’ philosophies would have, and as we begin to see how interwoven history is, the main lesson to learn from this is that philosophy matters. The why behind history matters. It isn’t so much the what as the why that drives men’s actions. Both colonies started out with socialist systems, but one had a why based in laziness and pride, which led to horrific tragedy, and the other had a why based in Scripture, which led to great men and women who would fight back against the injustices caused by the other’s bad philosophy. The map[4] included below along with Appendix A should be reviewed as you conclude this chapter. The map in particular is from 1888 and was created by John Smith to show the results of the two different colonies’ philosophies and beliefs. The appendix for this chapter provides you with key documents from both colonies to help give you further insight into the colonies and their laws. It includes laws and documents relating to religion in early Virginia (1606-1660) and the Mayflower Compact. You will also read through Bradford’s History of Plimouth Plantation and Mourt’s Relation as further supplemental reading.
Chapter Two: The Philosophy of the Founders
Our final discussion regarding philosophy specifically will be on the philosophy of the Founders. While understanding the philosophy of the early colonies is important to understanding where the colonies were at in the years leading up to the Revolution and Founding, the philosophy of the Founders themselves is even more crucial to understanding the birth of America as a nation. To begin with, we must understand the basis for the new government.
The Founders were all very well-read, and many of them had studied classical ideas on government through reading Aristotle, Cicero, and many others. They also were well-versed in the writings that came out of the Great Awakening, many of which focused on natural rights, tyranny, and religious freedom. Their philosophy was grounded in these ideas, observations, and writings. The basis for the new government was founded in historical, philosophical, and religious bases.
Historical Basis
As mentioned earlier, the Founders had a strong grasp on history, particularly that of Greece and Rome, two empires that they strongly wished to avoid emulating. When it came to how to strike a balance in the new government while avoiding both tyranny of the few (as happened in Rome) or tyranny of the mob (the end result of democracy in Greece) and the abuses of natural rights that occurred under both, there were strong disagreements. The Anti-Federalist and Federalist papers are the clearest examples of those disagreements.
The Anti-Federalists were a group against strong centralized government. They pointed to the historical abuses of power that came as the result of granting a centralized government too much power. However, they couldn’t argue that their own recent history with the Articles of Confederation had been a disaster due to the lack of power granted to the central government. Nevertheless, while they admitted some power beyond what they had already been allowed by the states in that first convention would be needed, they were not happy with the idea of giving too much. Further, they were concerned about representation and wanted to ensure that the minority was protected from the majority’s desires. They wanted a system that would protect the smaller states from the larger so that the smaller ones could not be forced to go along with tyranny that harmed them for the benefit of the larger states. One good example of their concerns for protecting the smaller states comes from the notes that James Madison took during the Federal Convention of 1787. There was a debate going on between the two sides regarding representation methods to avoid tyranny of the majority or tyranny of the few, and Madison records:
The great difficulty lies in the affair of Representation; and if this could be adjusted, all others would be surmountable. It was admitted by both the gentlemen from New Jersey, [Mr. Brearly and Mr. Paterson] that it would not be just to allow Virginia which was 16 times as large as Delaware on equal vote only. Their language was that it would not be safe for Delaware to allow Virginia 16 times as many votes.[5]
The Federalists, on the other hand, were for a strong, centralized government. While the group did still feel it was important to have checks and balances to avoid tyranny, they felt the benefits of a strong, centralized government would outweigh the risks. This group included Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison. The three of them together headed the group up and were the authors of the Federalist papers. In the Federalist Number XVII, entitled “The Subject Continued and Illustrated by Examples to Show the Tendency of Federal Governments Rather to Anarchy Among the Members than Tyranny in the Head”, Hamilton sums up their views on centralized federal government over less central government and stronger state governments. He says:
It may be said that it would tend to render the government of the Union too powerful, and to enable it to absorb those residuary authorities, which it might be judged proper to leave with the States for local purposes. Allowing the utmost latitude to the love of power which any reasonable man can require, I confess I am at a loss to discover what temptation the persons intrusted with the administration of the general government could ever feel to divest the States of the authorities of that description. The regulation of the mere domestic police of a State appears to me to hold out slender allurements to ambition…But let it be admitted, for argument’s sake, that mere wantonness and lust of domination would be sufficient to beget that disposition; still it may be safely affirmed that the sense of the constituent body of the national representatives, or, in other words, the people of the several States, would control the indulgence of so extravagant an appetite.[6]
As we can see from this example, the Federalists believed that there was little danger of a strong federal government overstepping its bounds as long as there were checks and balances. Their concerns were more with the State governments overstepping their bounds and abusing individual rights. By now, even with a brief glimpse at the concerns of each, it should become clear that both sides were concerned with different aspects of avoiding the tyranny they observed both in their situation with Britain and in historical situations like those of Rome and Greece. Despite vast differences in ideas for avoiding the issues, all of them saw the issues as being the same even if they believed the tyranny was more of a threat from one quarter than another.
Philosophical Basis
Now we turn our attention to the philosophical basis. We can see glimpses of their philosophical basis throughout all of their writings. The majority of their philosophical basis was grounded in two things: Christianity and classical thought. Even the less religious founders such as Benjamin Franklin or John Locke operated from basic Christian and Classical principles in their work and believed that, at the very least, the principles of morality, virtue, and a general belief in a Creator were key to a well-functioning society. Many of them, once again, ascribed to the ideas of both government and natural rights that ancient philosophers such as Cicero and Aristotle taught in their treatises on government and philosophy.
If we take a look at their writings, the philosophy they held in common becomes quickly apparent, particularly in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Consider the Declaration of Independence’s opening statement:
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government.[7]
These ideas of natural rights coming from how man is naturally as a created being stem all the way from the Roman Republic and early philosophers. However, they also came from observing Scripture and the teachings of well-known pastors. For example, one of the best-known treatises in the twenty years prior to the Declaration of Independence and the Revolutionary War was Elisha Williams’ treatise “The Essential Rights and Liberties of Protestants” defended the concept of religious liberty beautifully and clearly. His piece became well-known in England, as did the essay by Jonathan Mayhew entitled “A Discourse Concerning Unlimited Submission and Non-Resistance to the Higher Powers”.[8] The most intriguing thing about these pieces is that they were written at least twenty years before the Declaration of Independence, but the language in them is echoed in the Declaration of Independence. The influence of thinkers like Mayhew and Williams is so clearly seen in both the Declaration and the Constitution for anyone who has read both their writings and the Founding documents. This brings us to our final point in this chapter: the religious basis of the Founding philosophy.
Religious Basis
As mentioned in our last section, religion was highly tied to the Founding philosophy. One of the main complaints that the colonies had was with the insistence of King George III upon forcing the Anglican tradition on them. Recall from our first chapter that while Jamestown and many of the Southern colonies were Anglican and formally sent by British sponsors like the Virginia London Company, which sent the Jamestown settlers, the settlers at Plymouth as well as many of the Northern colonies that followed after were fleeing religious persecution. By the time that the Revolutionary War exploded in the colonies, they had become quite accustomed to religious freedom, and many even had stipulations regarding it in the charters that were signed by the king himself. But the king and the governors he sent for the various colonies and regions frequently disregarded this, tried to press the other sects of Christianity into paying tithes and homage to the Anglican church, and frequently abused the rights that they had codified in their charters.
These abuses were actually the whole reason that Williams wrote his treatise on the religious freedom of the individual and the natural rights of freedom of conscience, freedom of thought, and autonomy in deciding what to believe. The Founders all knew this very well, and when the Constitution was written up and sent to Jefferson, he urged them to include the Bill of Rights to protect that freedom of religious opinion and thought. He would later work on a bill for establishing religious freedom as a project to create a stronger constitution for the state of Virginia, which he discusses in his autobiography, stating,
The bill for establishing religious freedom, the principles of which had, to a certain degree, been enacted before, I had drawn in all the latitude of reason and right. It still met with opposition; but with some mutilations in the preamble, it was finally passed; and a singular proposition proved that its protection of opinion was meant to be universal. Where the preamble declares, that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed, by inserting the word “Jesus Christ” so that it should read, “a departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion;” the insertion was rejected by a great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mahometan, the Hindoo, and Infidel of every denomination.[9]
This focus on religious freedom and securing the natural rights of every man regardless of religion was hardly a phenomenon specific to Jefferson, which is easily seen when the Bill of Rights is considered. That set of amendments was heavily debated and discussed just as the Constitution had been, but one of the key things that was continually pushed for and agreed upon was that there should be a clause protecting religious freedoms, and while Jefferson—who was a major advocate for the Bill of Rights to begin with—did not see all of the rights he wished ensured placed into these amendments, he did have the gratification of seeing this one passed with little dissent.
While it is true that not all of the Founders were traditional Christians (Jefferson adopted some fringe beliefs toward the end of his life, Franklin was a Deist), they all recognized the value of natural rights, which they traced back to a Creator even if they did not believe in traditional Christianity.
It should be pointed out here that, while the Founders drew heavily on John Locke’s treatises, Locke himself was not a Founding Father in the sense that he was not directly involved in the Founding. This is a commonly stated misconception in conversation and Locke is often held up as an example of how unchristian the Founders really were and the atheistic nature of their beliefs. Because he did heavily influence their philosophical beliefs and even, to a degree, their religious beliefs regarding tolerance of differing religious opinions, it is often suggested that this is an indication of the religious opinions of the Founders as a whole. While the opinion is vastly illogical as one man’s opinion does not constitute that of a whole class of people any more than his actions can be attributed to an entire class of people who may agree with him in part on his opinions, there is also a deeper flaw in the reasoning as even John Locke and Benjamin Franklin, two of the least religious figures involved in the American Revolution’s philosophy and reasoning, still admitted the importance of Scriptural principles, even if they did not think much of the religious sects of Christianity they saw around them.
The Founding, a site run by the American Heritage Education Foundation, notes that Locke—who is known to be one of the most secularist thinkers among those who influenced the Founders—still came from the perspective that there was a Creator and man had a purpose. His idea of that purpose was just slightly different than most religious people thought it to be at the time. The Founding states:
British Enlightenment philosopher, physician, and civil servant John Locke—later influential to the American Founders and the Declaration of Independence—was a relatively early proponent of religious tolerance and freedom of belief. While known as a secular thinker of the Enlightenment era, Locke asserted a remarkably similar, Bible-based position as American colonizers Roger Williams, who wrote The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution for the Cause of Conscience in 1644, and William Penn, who wrote The Great Case of Liberty of Conscience Debated and Defended by the Authority of Reason, Scripture, and Antiquity in 1670, on the issues of freedom of belief and religious tolerance.
Locke, who attended Oxford University in England, favored the use of man’s reason to search for and understand truth in life and society. This rational search was, he believed, part of man’s God-given purpose. His sensible views may have influenced his support for tolerance as necessary in man’s search for truth.[10]
About the year 1734 there arrived among us from Ireland a young Presbyterian preacher named Hemphill, who delivered with a good voice, and apparently extempore, most excellent discourses, which drew together considerable numbers of different persuasions, who joined admiring them. Among the rest I became one of his constant hearers, his sermons pleasing me as they had little of the dogmatical kind but inculcated strongly the practice of virtue, or what in the religious style are called “good works.” Those, however, of our congregation who considered themselves as orthodox Presbyterians disapproved his doctrine and were joined by most of the old clergy, who arraigned him of heterodoxy before the synod in order to have him silenced. I became his zealous partisan and contributed all I could to raise a party in his favour, and we combated for him a while with some hopes of success. There was much scribbling pro and con upon the occasion; and finding that tho’ an elegant preacher he was but a poor writer, I lent him my pen and wrote for him two or three pamphlets, and one piece in the Gazette of April 1735. Those pamphlets, as is generally the case with controversial writings, tho’ eagerly read the time, were soon out of vogue, and I question whether a single copy of them now exists.
During the contest an unlucky occurrence hurt his cause exceedingly. One of our adversaries, having heard him preach a sermon that was much admired, thought he had somewhere read that sermon before, or at least a part of it. On search he found that part quoted at length in one of the British reviews, from a discourse of Dr. Foster’s. This detection gave many of our party disgust, who accordingly abandoned his cause and occasioned our more speedy discomfiture in the synod. I stuck by him, however, as I rather approved his giving us good sermons composed by others than bad ones of his own manufacture, tho’ the latter was the practice of our common teachers. He afterwards acknowledged to me that none of those he preached were his own; adding that his memory was such as enabled him to retain and repeat any sermon after one reading only. On our defeat he left us in search elsewhere of better fortune, and I quitted the congregation, never joining it after, tho’ I continued many years my subscription for the support of its ministers.[11]
So we see that even one of the least religious founders still based his work on principles in line with the Bible. Perhaps we might best sum up their religious basis, on the whole, as one grounded in Scripture. The Founding Fathers came from a wide range of sects within Christianity or, as in the case of Franklin, from a blend of Christian principles (or virtues, as he calls them) and enlightenment philosophy. All of them found it wise to base the system of government on these principles even as they sought to ensure that the nation would be one without coercion to any particular belief or way of thinking.
Conclusion
In later chapters, we will discuss the individuals quoted here and others in more detail. You will learn about their individual accomplishments, who they were, and why they acted as they did. Rather than learning a collection of random or even key facts that are not in any way connected, your goal should be to learn how various events shaped the trajectory that American history would follow, how and why various individuals were so influential, and the reasons and philosophies that guided key events and figures. These first two chapters were presented first with the aim to give the student a framework within which to place everything that comes after.
While this will be the last focused discussion we have on philosophy in this textbook, you will see many of the same themes and concepts crop up again and again as we examine events, places, and people that were influential in shaping what America as the United States would become. It is never enough to simply memorize a list of dates and key events when it comes to history. If history is to be any use, its students must understand what happened and, most importantly, why it happened. This is the only way in which humanity can avoid the mistakes of the past while simultaneously building off the wisdom taught by it. So as you dive into the rest of this textbook and begin to examine the events of early American history and the lives of the men who shaped it, keep the bigger picture in mind and remember how it will all come together. With that vision and context in mind, you will be much better equipped to understand all that is to follow.
References
Bradford, William, Edward Winslow, and Thomas Philbrick. Plymouth Plantation: Selections from the Narratives of William Bradford and Edward Winslow. Chicago, IL: R.R. Donnelley & Sons Co., 2009.
Bradford, William. “Bradford’s History of ‘Plimoth Plantation’ by William Bradford.” Project Gutenberg, March 29, 2008. http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/24950.
Founding, The. “Philosopher John Locke & His Letters Concerning Toleration …” The Founding. The American Heritage Education Foundation, October 19, 2017. https://thefounding.net/philosopher-john-locke-and-his-support-for-religious-tolerance/.
Franklin, Benjamin, Jesse Lemisch, Carla Mulford, and Benjamin Franklin. Benjamin Franklin: the Autobiography and Other Writings. New York, NY: Signet Classic, 2001.
Hamilton, Alexander, James Madison, John Jay, Richard R. Beeman, and Alexander Hamilton. “The Federalist Number XVII.” Essay. In The Federalist Papers, 156–59. New York, NY: Penguin Books, 2012.
Jefferson, Thomas, Adrienne Koch, William Peden, and Thomas Jefferson. “Autobiography of Thomas Jefferson Including the Declaration of Independence.” Essay. In The Life and Selected Writings of Thomas Jefferson, 3–114. New York, NY: Modern Library, 2004.
Jefferson, Thomas. “The Declaration of Independence.” National Archives and Records Administration. National Archives and Records Administration, 1776. https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration.
Ketcham, Ralph Louis. The Anti-Federalist Papers ; The Constitutional Convention Debates. New York, NY: Signet Classic, 2003.
Maybury, Richard. “The Great Thanksgiving Hoax.” Mises Institute, November 24, 2014. https://mises.org/library/great-thanksgiving-hoax-1.
Smith, John. Historical Geography by John F. Smith. 1888. Library of Congress. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.gmd/g3701e.ct000802.
Endnotes:
[1] Richard Maybury, “The Great Thanksgiving Hoax,” Mises Institute, November 24, 2014, https://mises.org/library/great-thanksgiving-hoax-1.
[2] William Bradford, Edward Winslow, and Thomas Philbrick, Plymouth Plantation: Selections from the Narratives of William Bradford and Edward Winslow (Chicago, IL: R.R. Donnelley & Sons Co., 2009), 3-5.
[3] William Bradford, “Bradford’s History of ‘Plimoth Plantation’ by William Bradford,” Project Gutenberg, March 29, 2008, http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/24950, 177-178.
[4] John Smith, 1888, Library of Congress, http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.gmd/g3701e.ct000802.
[5] Ralph Louis Ketcham, The Anti-Federalist Papers ; The Constitutional Convention Debates (New York, NY: Signet Classic, 2003), 85.
[6] Alexander Hamilton et al., “The Federalist Number XVII,” in The Federalist Papers (New York, NY: Penguin Books, 2012), pp. 156-159, 156.
[7] Thomas Jefferson, “The Declaration of Independence,” National Archives and Records Administration (National Archives and Records Administration, 1776), https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration.
[8] These may be found at the following links in ebook format: https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Essential_Rights_and_Liberties_of_Pr.html?id=FyNALQ79qNsC and https://lc.org/PDFs/A%20Discourse%20Concerning%20Unlimited%20Submission%20and%20Non-Resistance%20to%20the%20Higher%20Powers%20-%20Jonathan%20Mayhew%20-%201750.pdf.
[9] Thomas Jefferson et al., “Autobiography of Thomas Jefferson Including the Declaration of Independence,” in The Life and Selected Writings of Thomas Jefferson (New York, NY: Modern Library, 2004), pp. 3-114, 47.
[10] The Founding, “Philosopher John Locke & His Letters Concerning Toleration …,” The Founding (The American Heritage Education Foundation, October 19, 2017), https://thefounding.net/philosopher-john-locke-and-his-support-for-religious-tolerance/.
[11] Benjamin Franklin et al., Benjamin Franklin: the Autobiography and Other Writings (New York, NY: Signet Classic, 2001), 109-110.
