John Cotton, 1584-1652

1
John Cotton, 1584-1652 English-born American
cleric who was vicar of Saint Botolph's Church in
England until he was summoned to court for his
Puritanism. He fled to Boston, Massachusetts,
where he became a civil and religious leader.
2

• John Cotton, The Devine Right to Occupy the Land
  (1630)
• The placing of a people in this or that country
  is from the appointment of the Lord. In other
  words, God assigns land to a certain people.
•  
• God makes room for people in three ways
• He casts out enemies of a people before them by
  lawful war. (Heathens)
• He gives a foreign people favor or rights to a
  land through purchase
• He makes available places in a country that are
  vacant, even if the land it not totally vacant
•  
• No nation is to drive out another without
  special commission from Heaven, such as the
  Israelites had, unless the natives do unjustly
  wrong them, and will not recompense the wrongs
  done in a peaceful manner.
•  
• We (the Puritans) must discern how God appoints
  us this place.
•  

3
 5. How do a people know if they should
emigrate?        Sake of knowledge        Gain
sake        Establish a colony        Talents
are better employed elsewhere        To escape
bad authorities and avoid evils        When some
grievous sins overspread a country        When
escaping over-burdensome debts and
miseries        When persecuted   Questions Was
North America vacant? Does God really appoint a
people land?
4
John Winthrop 1588-1649 English colonial
administrator who was the first governor of
Massachusetts Bay Colony, serving seven terms
between 1629 and 1649.
5

• John Winthrop
• A Model of Christian Charity
•  
• Main Points
• God has made different classes of men, and,
  indeed, of all things. All men are not created
  equal. The reason hereof
• In conformity to the rest of the world, and
  demonstrating his wisdom, God created a great
  variety and differences in his creatures for the
  preservation of the whole.
• The differences give humans the opportunity to
  manifest the work of the Spirit within them.
• The poor should be loyal and honest in their
  service to their betters and to authorities.
• The rich and powerful should honestly and loyally
  dispense with justice and mercy to the poor.
• God made variety and differences so that all men
  would have a need of one another. This mutual
  need knits mankind more nearly together in the
  Bonds of Brotherly affection. Thus, by serving
  his fellow mankind, man serves the glory of his
  creator and the common good of the creature,
  man.

6

• John Winthrop, A Model of Christian Charity
• We have made a covenant with God to form a new
  colony in a new land and live as God would want
  us.
• If We Are Good If we fulfill our covenant (i.e.
  do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with our
  God) the Lord will be our God, and delight to
  dwell among us, as his own people, and will
  command a blessing upon us in all our ways. So
  that we shall see much more of his wisdom, power,
  goodness and truth, than formerly we have been
  acquainted. We shall find that the God of Israel
  is among us, when ten of us shall be able to
  resist a thousand of our enemies We will be
  considered to be a city upon a hill, and the eyes
  of all peoples will be upon us.
• If We are Bad if we shall neglect the
  observation of these articles which are the ends
  we have propounded, and, dissembling, with our
  God, shall fall to embrace the present world and
  prosecute our carnal intention, seeking great
  things for ourselves and our posterity, the Lord
  will surely break out in wrath against us be
  revenged of such a sinful people and make us
  know the price of the breach of such a covenant.
  
• Questions
• Did the Puritans live up to their ideals?
• Why was it necessary for them to leave England?
• Does community negate individualism?

7

• John Winthrop, A Model of Christian Charity
• Questions
• In this world, does God always punish the wicked
  and bless the virtuous?
• Are all men created equal or created different?
  What does God expect us to do in regard to
  treating people equally? When should men be
  considered equal? When should they be considered
  unequal?
• What were Winthrops views of equality?
• Winthrops views of community?
• What was the Puritan covenant?
• Were the eyes of the world really on the
  Puritans? Were they really a city upon a hill?

8
The Trial of Anne Hutchinson (1637) Opening main
point of Governor Winthrop Anne Hutchinson has
troubled the peace of the commonwealth and the
churches here. You have maintained a meeting
and an assembly in your house that hath been
condemned by the general assembly as a thing not
tolerable nor comely in the sight of God nor
fitting for your sex. Anne Hutchinson I
hear not things laid to my charge.
9
The Trial of Anne Hutchinson (1637) Governor
Winthrops accusation toward Hutchinson You have
meetings in which you express opinions different
from the word of God that may seduce many simple
souls that resort unto you, Hutchinson in her
defense Now if you do condemn me for speaking
what in my conscience I know to be truth I must
commit myself unto the Lord. Question from Mr.
Nowel How do you know that that was the
spirit? Hutchinsons eventual reply by an
immediate revelation. Governor Winthrops
conclusion The ground work of her revelations
is the immediate revelation of the spirit and not
by the ministry of the word and that is the means
by which she hath very much abused the
country.
10
The Trial of Anne Hutchinson (1637) Mrs.
Hutchinson, the sentence of the court you hear is
that you are banished from out of our
jurisdiction as being a woman not fit for our
society, and are to be imprisoned till the court
shall send you away.
Verdict Guilty
11

• John Winthrop
• Little Speech on Liberty
•  
• Main Points
•  
• The question addressed how does the authority of
  the magistrates stand in relation to the liberty
  of the people?
•  
• When you see weakness in the leaders
  (magistrates) you have chosen, you should reflect
  upon your own weaknesses since you chose them.
• The magistrates try to govern and judge as best
  as can according to Gods laws, as well as our
  own.
• If the magistrates error is clearly out of
  wickedness, he must be held accountable for his
  transgressions. However, if it is not clear that
  his error was due to evil intentions, then the
  people, who have a covenant with their leaders,
  need to bear the consequences of the error.

12
4. There are two kinds of liberty  a.    
Natural liberty This is a liberty man shares in
common with beasts. Man, as he stands in relation
to man, has the liberty to do good or evil. The
exercise of natural liberty makes men grow more
evil, and in time to be worse than brute beasts.
This is that great enemy of truth and peace, that
wild beast, which all the ordinances
authorities of God are bend against, to
restrain and subdue it.  b.     Civil or federal
liberty This liberty is in reference to the
covenant between God and man, in the moral law,
and the politic covenants and constitutions,
amongst men themselves. This liberty is the
proper end and object of authority, it is a
liberty to that only which is good, just, and
honest. This liberty is maintained and exercised
in a way of subjection to authority it is of the
same kind of liberty wherewith Christ hath made
us free. Analogy womens subjection to her
husbands authority makes her free.
13
Conclusion The best way to preserve our civil
liberties is to uphold and honor the power of
authority. If we quietly and cheerfully subject
ourselves to civil liberty, such as Christ allows
us, it will be for our own good. If the
magistrates fail honestly at any time, you should
advise them. Since they are doing their best to
follow Gods laws, the magistrates will hearken
good advice. In this way, upholding and honoring
the power of authority will preserve your
liberties.
Remember to study the questions at the beginning
of each document.
14
Samuel Adams, The Rights of the Colonists (1772)

• Natural Rights of the Colonists as Men
• Right to life
• Right to Liberty
• Right to Property with support to defend it
• Right to enter or leave a society

• Those are evident Branches ofthe first Law of
  Nature
• All men have a Right to remain in a State of
  Nature as long as they please And in case of
  intollerable Oppression, Civil or Religious, to
  leave the Society they belong to, and enter into
  another.
• All positive and civil laws, should conform as
  far as possible, to the law of natural reason and
  equity.

15

• Samuel Johnson
• Taxation No Tyranny (1775)
•  
• Main Points
• 1. Americans are able to bear taxation.
•  
• Every adult pays taxes
• Of every empire all the subordinate communities
  are liable to taxation, because they all share
  the benefits of government, and, therefore, ought
  to all furnish their proportion of the expense.
• As all are born the subjects of some state or
  other, we may be said to have been all born
  contenting to some system of government.
• Humanity is very uniform. The Americans have
  this resemblance to Europeans, that they do not
  always know when they are well.

16
Samuel Johnson Taxation No Tyranny (1775)

• 3. Americans have no proof that parliament ever
  ceded to them exemption from obedience.
• Now there are only two choices to allow their
  claim to independence or to reduce them, by
  force, to submission and allegiance.
• If the subject refuses to obey, it is the duty
  of authority to use compulsion. Society cannot
  subsist but by the power, first of making laws,
  and then of enforcing them.
•  4. The American rebels are hypocrites.
•  If slavery be thus fatally contagious, how is
  it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty
  among the drivers of negroes?

17
Historical Context
About The Author
Born on January 29, 1737 in England to an
impoverished Quaker family.
Had many different jobs including a corset maker,
merchant seaman, a school teacher, even a job as
tax collector.
With the advise and help from Benjamin Franklin,
Pain Immigrated to the American Colonies in 1774.
18
Main Points of Common Sense

• The colonies were founded by people from many
  different nations, not just Britain.
• Europe, and not England, is the parent country
  of America.
• America will constantly be at war with Britains
  enemies and will never be at peace.
• That she did not protect us from our enemies on
  our account, but from her enemies on her own
  account, from those who had no quarrel with us on
  any other account, and who will always be our
  enemies on the same account.
• America is to big to be ruled by an island.
• There is something very absurd, in supposing a
  continent to be perpetually governed by an
  island.
• For as in absolute governments the king is law,
  so in free countries the law ought to be king
  and there ought to be no other.
• A government of own is our natural right.

19
Main Points OF Thomas Paines Common Sense

• THERE IS NO GOING BACK AFTER BLOOD HAS BEEN
  SPILT. Any attempts to work with Great Britain
  before the nineteenth of April, i.e., to the
  commencement of hostilities, areuseless now
  The blood of the slain, the weeping voice of
  nature cries, tis time to part.
• WE CAN SURVIVE ECONOMICALLY WELL WITHOUT THE
  BRITAIN. I challenge the warmest advocate for
  reconciliation to show, a single advantage that
  this continent can reap, by being connected with
  Great Britain.
• We should look at the many injuries that the
  colonies have undergone and will continue to
  undergo as long as we are connected with Great
  Britain. (3rd)
• BRITAIN IS PROTECTING HER OWN INTEREST, NOT OURS.
  We dont need Britain for protection against her
  enemies nor do we need her for commerce.
• whenever a war breaks out between England and
  any foreign power, the trade of America goes to
  ruin, because of her connection with Britain.
• WE DO NOT NEED A KING TO GOVERN OURSELVES. Do
  away with monarchies because the divine law (of
  God) should be King of America and the people
  should form a government of their own (a
  republican charter).
• let a day be solemnly set apart for proclaiming
  the charter let it be brought forth placed on
  the divine law the word of Godlaw ought to be
  king
• England is not run by France even though the king
  is a descendant from France.
• AMERICA HAS GROWN UP. Children cannot survive on
  milk alone and never get any meat....The colonies
  have grown up and need to be set free to live on
  their own just as children do.

20
Thomas Jefferson

• Born in 1743
• Albemarle County, Virginia
• Died July 4, 1826
• Monticello in Virginia
• Married to Martha Jefferson
• United States Third President
• Third President 1801-1809 Author of The
  Deceleration of Independence

21
MAIN POINTS

• All men are created equal with the same equal
  rights.
• In the end its up to the people to alter or
  abolish them.
• Among the rights are life, liberty and the
  Pursuit of Happiness

22
Grievances toward Britain (Crimes)

• Interferences with the right of representation in
  the legislature.
• King George does not want to pass laws until he
  looks at them, however he does not want to look
  at them (they never get passes)
• He refuses to pass other law to help large
  districts of people, unless those people give up
  their right to representative in the legislature.
• King George picks meeting place in far off place
  so everyone will be to exhausted and be more
  agreeable for his terms

23
Interferences With King George In Establishing
The Judiciary Powers

• He had made judges depended upon them for their
  salaries and the length of their term.
• He brings troops over here in times of peace and
  forces us to put them up in our houses.
• The troops are protected through mock trial even
  if they kill the innocent.

24

No Communication equals Separation eminent

• Every time they tried to communicate with them
  the reply was always violence.
• This left the Colonies with no other choice, but
  to separate themselves from Great Britain.

25
Historical Significance

• Declares Independence from Great Britain
• Sovereignty changes from being the right of a
  monarch to being codified in a constitution.

26

• Thomas Jefferson, The Declaration of
  Independence
• Independence is declared.
• All men are created equal. All men are created
  equal. We hold these truths to be self-evident,
  that all men are created equal.
• Men have unalienable Rights Life, Liberty and
  the pursuit of Happiness.
• Governments derive their authority from the
  consent of the people. Governments are
  instituted among Men, deriving their just powers
  from the consent of the governed.
• When a government acts despotically, the people
  have a right and a duty to overthrow it. 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.
• We have tried to compromise, but King George has
  persistently been a tyrant.
•  

27
Thomas Jefferson is believed to have fathered
children with his slave, Sally Hemings
http//www.cnn.com/US/9905/17/jefferson.reunion/
http//www.michaelcosm.com/sub_feat/feat_jeff.html
28
Thomas Jefferson, Jefferson on Slavery
(1784) Main Points 1. Do to the deep rooted
discontent of the black race during slavery
reconciliation between the two races would be
futile. Deportation of the black race would be
the only option. To emancipate all slaves
born after passing the act That they should
continue with their parents to a certain age,
then they should be brought up, at the public
expense, to tillage, arts or sciences, according
to their geniuses, till the females should be
eighteen, and the males twenty-one years of age,
when they should be colonized to such places as
the circumstances of the times should render most
proper Why not retain and incorporate the
blacks into the state Deep rooted prejudices
entertained by the whites ten thousand
recollections by the blacks of injuries they have
sustained produce convulsions which will
probably never end but in the extermination of
one race or the other race.
29
Thomas Jefferson, Jefferson on Slavery (1784)

• 2. Besides those of color, figure and hair,
  there are other physical distinctions proving a
  different race.
• Smell
• More tolerable to heat
• Inferior in reason and imagination
• Skilled in music, but lacking in ability to
  compose
• Misery and love exist only in senses, not in
  their imagination
• Griefs
• 3. Blacks are inferior to whites.
• 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.

30
Thomas Jefferson, Jefferson on Slavery (1784)

• Because our nation has taken the blacks
  unalienable rights, we will incur Gods wrath.
• Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect
  that God is just that his justice cannot sleep
  for ever that considering numbers nature and
  natural means only, a revolution in the wheel of
  fortune, an exchange of situation is among
  possible events that it may become probable by
  supernatural interference! The Almighty has no
  attribute which can take side with us in such a
  contest.
• 5. Slavery is harmful to the slave owners and
  their posterity.
• Our children see this, and learn to imitate it
  for man is an imitative animal. From his cradle
  to his grave he is learning to do what he sees
  others do. If a parent could fine no motive
  either in his philanthropy or his self-love, for
  restraining the intemperance of passion towards
  his slave, it should always be a sufficient one
  that his child is present. But generally it is
  not sufficient.

31
Edmund Burkes Conciliation with AmericaDocument
Analysis Main Points

• Use of force is not the best option
• Not the British way
• Last resort. The use of force leads to uncertain
  consequences.
• 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.
• More destruction than good, alienation
• 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.
• A temporary measure subdue, but not govern
• 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.

32
Main Points continued

• 2. American colonies are different from Britain
  and as such requires their own government
• Liberty
• Geographically remote
• Only its own government can cope with problems
• 3. Britain should respect rights of its colony

33
Edmund Burke, A Founder of Conservatism

• 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)

34

• America and the Wealth of Nations (1776)
• By Adam Smith
• Main Points
• . There should be a union between Britain and
  all of its colonies, because close economic ties
  and commerce are in all parties best interest.
• By uniting, in some measure, the most distant
  parts of the world, enabling them to relieve one
  anothers wants, to increase one anothers
  enjoyments, and to encourage one anothers
  industry, their general tendency would seem to be
  beneficial.
• . The balance of power will equal out because of
  trade.
• Hereafter, perhaps, the natives of those
  countries may grow stronger, or those of Europe
  may grow weaker, and the inhabitants of all the
  different quarters of the world may arrive at
  that equality
• But nothing seems more likely to establish this
  equality of force than that mutual communication
  of knowledge and of all sorts of improvements
  which an extensive commerce from all countries to
  all countries naturally, or rather necessarily,
  carries along with it.

35

• America and the Wealth of Nations (1776)
• By Adam Smith
• Main Points
• 3. The Mercantile System was elevated because of
  Britain putting so much emphasis on trading only
  with their colonies.
• one of the principle effects of those
  discoveries has been to raise the mercantile
  system to a degree of splendor and glory which it
  could never otherwise have attained to. It is the
  object of that system to enrich a great nation
  rather by trade and manufactures than by the
  improvement and cultivation of land, rather by
  industry of towns than by that of the country.
• 4. The way to really prosper is to allow free
  trade with colonies and other countries.
• After all the unjust attempts, therefore, of
  every country in Europe to engross to itself the
  whole advantage of the trade of its own colonies,
  no country has yet been able to engross to itself
  any thing but the expense of supporting in time
  of peace and of defending in time of war the
  oppressive authority which it assumes over them.

36
James Madison, Federalist 10 (1787-1788) Human
nature is selfish and passionate, and when
combined with reason, individuals have liberty.
Liberty pursuit of property gt classes and
factions (everyone cannot have equal
property).
Classes

• REMOVE CAUSES People could remove the causes of
  faction, but this would destroy liberty. This
  solution is worse than the problem.
• SOLUTION The Federalists sought to work with
  human nature. They advocated letting factions
  run their course, arguing that in a large
  republic they would compete with one another and
  effectively cancel each other out.
• THREE FACTORS THAT WILL CHECK THE TYRANNY OF A
  FACTION
• LARGE POLITY Thousands of factions will result
  in a diffusion of factions that will tend to
  cancel each other out.
• REPRESENTATION Representative government will
  act as a filter, protecting the republic form the
  passions of the masses.
• SEPARATION OF POWERS A federal government and a
  separation of powers will result in a system
  checks and balances in power.

37
Michel St. John De Crevecoeur Letters from an
American Farmer Main Points 1. Describes that
the American is a new man who is establishing
his own country based on a common set of
ideals. What then is the American, this new
man? He is either an European, or the descendant
of an European, hence that strange mixture of
blood, which you will find in no other country. I
could point out to you a family whose grandfather
was an Englishman, whose wife was Dutch, whose
son married a French woman, and whose present
four sons have now four wives of different
nations. He is an American, who leaving behind
him all his ancient prejudices and manners,
receives new ones from the new mode of life he
has embraced, the new government he obeys, and
the new rank he holds. The American ought
therefore to love this country much better than
that wherein either he or his forefathers were
born. Here the rewards of his industry follow
with equal steps the progress of his labour his
labour is founded on the basis of nature,
self-interest can it want a stronger
allurement?
38
Michel St. John De Crevecoeur Letters from an
American Farmer
2. There is a sense of one social class unlike
in Europe. Because of the personal control a man
gains by owning land. He is free from kings and
monarchs. It is not composed, as in Europe, of
great lords who possess every thing and of a herd
of people who have nothing. Here are no
aristocratical families, no courts, no kings, no
bishops, no ecclesiastical dominion, no invisible
power giving to a few a very visible one no
great manufacturers employing thousands, no great
refinements of luxury. The rich and the poor are
not so far removed from each other as they are in
Europe. Some few towns excepted, we are all
tillers of the earth, from Nova Scotia to West
Florida. We are a people of cultivators,
scattered over an immense territory communicating
with each other by means of good roads and
navigable rivers, united by the silken bands of
mild government, all respecting the laws, without
dreading their power, because they are equitable.
We are all animated with the spirit of an
industry which is unfettered. 3. Ubi panis ibi
patria (The land I work is my country) is the
motto of the emigrants he says. The laws, the
indulgent laws, protect them as they arrive,
stamping on them the symbol of adoption they
receive ample rewards for their labours these
accumulated rewards procure them lands those
lands confer on them the title of freemen, and to
that title every benefit is affixed which men can
possibly require.
39
Michel St. John De Crevecoeur Letters from an
American Farmer
4. First to describe the melting pot concept.
Peoples from different lands have come to America
to start over. By blending their backgrounds
together they melt together. The next wish
of this traveller will be to know whence came all
these people? they are mixture of English,
Scotch, Irish, French, Dutch, Germans, and
Swedes. From this promiscuous breed, that race
now called Americans have arisen. Here
individuals of all nations are melted into a new
race of men, whose labours and posterity will one
day cause great changes in the world.
40
How do we choose the best leaders?
Thomas Jefferson and John Adams on Aristocracy
(1813)
41

• Thomas Jefferson and John Adams on Aristocracy
  (1813)
• Some Main Points
• Adams Aristocracy and democracy are always at
  odds. whig and Tory belong to natural history.
• There is a natural aristocracy based on virtue
  and talents.
• Adams there is a natural aristocracy among
  men, the grounds of which are virtue and
  talents.
• Jefferson there is a natural aristocracy among
  men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents.

42

• Thomas Jefferson and John Adams on Aristocracy
  (1813)
• Some Main Points
• Adams Aristocracy has its pitfalls, but
  entrusting power to the people may be worse.
• When I consider the weakness, the folly, the
  pride, the vanity, the selfishness, the artifice,
  the low craft and mean cunning, the want of
  principle, the avarice, the unbounded ambition,
  the unfair cruelty of the majority of those (in
  all nations) who are allowed an aristocratical
  influence, and, on the other hand the stupidity
  with which the more numerous multitude not only
  become their dupes, but even love to be taken by
  their tricks, I feel a stronger disposition to
  weep at their destiny, than to laugh at their
  folly.
• Adams Although a natural aristocracy is
  difficult to determine, we have done a pretty
  good job, and the virtuous, public-spirited
  leaders of the United States will preserve the
  federative republic.
• Your distinction between natural and artificial
  aristocracy, does not appear to me founded.
• Our pure, virtuous, public-spirited, federative
  republic will last forever, govern the globe, and
  introduce the perfection of man

43

• Jefferson We should have faith in democracy
  and in the peoples ability to elect the natural
  aristocracy to positions of power. I think the
  best remedy is exactly that provided by all our
  constitutions, to leave to the citizens the free
  election and separation of the aristocrats from
  the pseudo-aristocrats, of the wheat from the
  chaff. In general they will elect the real good
  and wise in some instances, wealth may corrupt,
  and birth blind them but not in sufficient
  degree to endanger the society.
• Jefferson on property and democracy 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 on education and democracy Every
  folly must run its round and so, I suppose, must
  that of self-learning, 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.
• How does Jefferson hope to avoid unenlightened
  mob rule in a democratic society?

44

• Against Universal Manhood Suffrage (1820)
• Daniel Webster
• Main Points
• 1. Government is and should be bound to property.
  
• Property ensures our right to life and liberty
• Property must be represented respected in
  government to maintain proper order
• Propertied people naturally will posses the
  political power
• 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.

45

• Against Universal Manhood Suffrage (1820)
• Daniel Webster
• Main Points
• 2. Limiting political participation is the right
  and choice of those creating or defining a
  government.
• Holding office is not a right to be extended to
  every member of a social contract
• Voters are licensed to choose one candidate over
  another on a ballot. Therefore, preventing
  candidates from ever appearing on a ballot is
  rightly the voters prerogative as well.

46

• George Bancroft
• The Office of the People (1835)
• Common judgment is the highest authority.
• If it be true, that the gifts of mind and heart
  are universally diffused, if the sentiment of
  truth, justice, love, and beauty exists in every
  one, then it follows, as a necessary consequence,
  that the common judgment in taste, politics, and
  religion is the highest authority on earth, and
  the nearest possible approach to an infallible
  decision.
• Truth is one.
• Truth is one. It never contradicts itself One
  truth cannot contradict another truth. Hence
  truth is a bond of union. But error not only
  contradicts truth, but may contradict itself so
  that there may be many errors, and each at
  variance with the rest. Truth is therefore of
  necessity an element of harmony error as
  necessarily an element of discord. Thus there can
  be no continuing universal judgment but a right
  one. Men cannot agree in an absurdity neither
  can they agree in a falsehood.
• Truth has been passed on by the collective
  truth of humanity through the ages, and even
  today, the public is wiser than the wisest
  critic.
• ? every sect that has ever flourished has
  benefited Humanity for the errors of a sect pass
  away and are forgotten its truths are received
  into the common inheritance.
• ? For who are the best judges in matters of
  taste? Do you think the cultivated individual?
  Undoubtedly not but the collective mind. The
  public is wiser than the wisest critic.

47

• George Bancroft, The Office of the People (1835)
• True genius is inspired by reflecting and
  satisfying the wisdom of humanity, and not by
  reflecting or satisfying particular tastes.
• Genius yearns for larger influences it feeds
  on wide sympathies and its perfect display can
  never exist except in an appeal to the general
  sentiment for the beautiful.
• The moral intelligence of the community should
  rule.
• A government of equal rights mustrest upon the
  mind not wealth, not brute force, the sum of the
  moral intelligence of the community should rule
  the State.
• the common mind is the true material for a
  commonwealth.
• The world can advance only through the culture of
  the moral and intellectual powers of the people.
• The duty of America is to secure the culture and
  the happiness of the masses by their reliance on
  themselves.
• we have made Humanity our lawgiver and our
  oracle
• The government by the people is in very truth the
  strongest government in the world. Discarding the
  implements of terror, it dares to rule by moral
  force, and has its citadel in the heart.
• the measure of the progress of civilization is
  the progress of the people.
• the opinion which we respect is not the opinion
  of one or a few, but the sagacity of the many.

48
Alexis de Toqueville Democracy in America (1835)
The majority lives in the perpetual practice of
self-applause, and there are certain truths which
the Americans can only learn from strangers or
from experience.
49
Main Points

• Democratic government sovereignty of the
  majority
• The very essence of government consists in the
  absolute sovereignty of the majority for there
  is nothing in democratic states which is capable
  of resisting it.
• The moral and intellectual authority of the
  majority.
• The moral authority of the majority is partly
  based upon the notion, that there is more
  intelligence and more wisdom in a great number of
  men collected together than in a single
  individual, and that the quantity of legislators
  is more important than their quality. The theory
  of equality is in fact applied to the intellect
  of man.
• The majority can do no wrong.
• The French, under the old monarchy, held it for a
  maxim (which is still a fundamental principle of
  the English Constitution) that the King could do
  no wrong and if he did do wrong, the blame was
  imputed to his advisers. This notion was highly
  favorable to habits of obedience, and it enabled
  the subject to complain of the law without
  ceasing to love and honor the lawgiver. The
  Americans entertain the same opinion with respect
  to the majority.

50
Main Points (continued)

• The majority is not immune to misusing absolute
  power.
• If it be admitted that a man, possessing
  absolute power, may misuse that power by wronging
  his adversaries, why should a majority not be
  liable to the same reproach? Men are not apt to
  change their characters by agglomeration nor
  does their patience in the presence of obstacles
  increase with the consciousness of their
  strength.
•  
• The system of checks and balances merely through
  a separation of powers is a delusion.
• The form of government which is usually termed
  mixed has always appeared to me to be a mere
  chimera. Accurately speaking there is no such
  thing as a mixed government, (with the meaning
  usually given to that word), because in all
  communities some one principle of action may be
  discovered, which preponderates over the others.
•  
• The main evil of the present the democratic
  institutions of the United States arise from
  their overpowering strength.
• In my opinion the main evil of the present
  democratic institutions of the United States does
  not arise, as is often asserted in Europe, from
  their weakness, but from their overpowering
  strength and I am not so much alarmed at the
  excessive liberty which reigns in that country,
  as at the very inadequate securities which exist
  against tyranny.

51
Main Points (continued)

• What Tocqueville would prefer If, on the other
  hand, a legislative power could be so constituted
  as to represent the majority without necessarily
  being the slave of its passions an executive so
  as to retain a certain degree of uncontrolled
  authority and a judiciary, so as to remain
  independent of the two other powers a government
  would be formed which would still be democratic,
  without incurring any risk tyrannical abuse.
• Unlike monarchies, the authority of the majority
  is both moral and physical.
• The authority of a king is purely physical, and
  it controls the actions of the subject without
  subduing his private will but the majority
  possesses a power which is physical and moral at
  the same time it acts upon the will as well as
  upon the actions of men, and it represses not
  only all contest, but all controversy. I know no
  country in which there is so little true
  independence of mind and freedom of discussion as
  in America. I know no country in which there is
  so little true independence of mind and freedom
  of discussion as in America.
• If one goes outside the barriers of acceptable
  public opinion, as deemed by the majority, there
  is very little liberty of opinion.
• In America the majority raises very formidable
  barriers to the liberty of opinion within these
  barriers an author may write whatever he pleases,
  but he will repent it if he ever step beyond
  them. Not that he is exposed to the terrors of an
  auto-da-fe, but he is tormented by the slights
  and persecutions of daily obloquy.
• Auto-da-fe (1) public announcement of the
  sentences imposed on persons tried by the
  Inquisition and the public execution of those
  sentences by the secular authorities. (2) The
  burning of a heretic at the stake.
• Obloquy (1) abusively detractive language or
  utterance calumny. (2) The condition of
  disgrace suffered as a result of abuse or
  vilification ill repute.

52
Main Points (continued)

• Democratic Republics enslave the souls of their
  citizens through oppressive pressures to conform.
• The excesses of monarchical power had devised a
  variety of physical means of oppression the
  democratic republics of the present day have
  rendered it as entirely an affair of the mind as
  that will which it is intended to coerce. Under
  the absolute sway of an individual despot the
  body was attacked in order to subdue the soul,
  and the soul escaped the blows which were
  directed against it and rose superior to the
  attempt but such is not the course adopted by
  tyranny in democratic republics there the body
  is left free, and the soul is enslaved. The
  sovereign can no longer say, You shall think as
  I do on pain of death but he says, You are
  free to think differently from me, and to retain
  your life, your property, and all that you
  possess but if such be your determination, you
  are henceforth an alien among your people.
• Your fellow creatures will shun you like an
  impure being and those who are most persuaded of
  Your innocence will abandon you too, lest they
  should be shunned in their turn. Go in peace! I
  have given you your life, but it is in an
  existence incomparably worse than death.
• The majority lives in the perpetual practice of
  self-applause, and there are certain truths which
  the Americans can only learn from strangers or
  from experience.

53
Main Points (continued)

• Lawyers are an important check against the
  passions of the majority.
• In visiting the Americans and in studying their
  laws, we perceive that the authority they have
  entrusted to members of the legal profession, and
  the influence which these individuals exercise in
  the Government, is the most powerful existing
  security against the excesses of democracy.
• Lawyers are attached to public order beyond every
  other consideration, and the best security of
  public order is authority.
• Lawyers the American Aristocracy. In America
  there are no nobles or men of letters, and the
  people is apt to mistrust the wealthy lawyers
  consequently form the highest political class,
  and the most cultivated circle of society. They
  have therefore nothing to gain by innovation,
  which adds a conservative interest to their
  natural taste for public order. If I were asked
  where I place the American aristocracy, I should
  reply without hesitation that it is not composed
  of the rich, who are united together by no common
  tie, but that it occupies the judicial bench and
  the bar.

54
Main Points (continued)

• An expansive frontier makes American democracy
  viable in practice.
• Their ancestors gave them love of equality and of
  freedom but God himself gave them the means of
  remaining equal and free, by placing them upon a
  boundless continent, which is open to their
  exertions.
• Millions of men are marching at once towards the
  same horizon their language, their religion,
  their manners differ, their object is the same.
  The gifts of fortune are promised in the West,
  and to the West they bend their course.
• The passions which agitate the Americans most
  deeply are not their political but their
  commercial passions or, to speak more correctly,
  they introduce the habits they contract in
  business into their political life. They love
  order, without which affairs do not prosper and
  they set an especial value upon a regular
  conduct, which is the foundation of a solid
  business they prefer the good sense which
  amasses large fortunes to that enterprising
  spirit which frequently dissipates them general
  ideas alarm their minds, which are accustomed to
  positive calculations, and they hold practice in
  more honor than theory.