a hundred pages or more, some that were of book length, and a few multi-volume histories. Such lengthy texts could not be reprinted in full, yet to exclude some of them altogether would not only have repressed some extremely good writing but have denied notable and influential authors a rightful claim to stand with their peers in public memory. We chose in those instances to reproduce selected portions of the lengthy work.
Care has been taken to preserve the original text, with certain exceptions. The letters “f” and “s” are scarcely distinguishable in much of the original print. To ease readability we have made the letter “f” look the way it ought to. Aside from this consistent alteration, such other changes as were made are mentioned in the notes introducing the items where the revisions occur. These exceptions are rare. In general we have retained the original grammar and spelling whether correct or not. If a word could not be deciphered from the original a bracketed space is inserted in its place. If there is more than one version of a text available and some later editor has inserted the supposed word, we have placed this word in brackets. When more than one version of the text was available we chose the earliest version for reproduction. This usually meant choosing the newspaper version over the pamphlet form where both were available. In a few instances the newspaper version was so blurred that we felt more secure reproducing the later pamphlet form. If the newspaper version is being reprinted we have identified the title and date of the newspaper. If it is a pamphlet that is being reproduced, only the date and place of publication are noted. The original pagination of each essay is indicated by bracketed page numbers embedded in the text—the only other emendation made in the original.
Finally, the reader unfamiliar with the literature of the period should be warned that there is one important respect in which these essays are not representative of the massive outpouring of printed material during the era. Political writing then was often quite colorful as a result of being vituperative, self-serving, prone to name-calling, full of high-flown rhetoric, or just plain nasty. The anonymity of authors was as likely to be used so as to avoid action for libel as to avoid prosecution by authorities. The essays reproduced here retain a certain colorful quality, but the reasoned analysis they contain is exceptional, not necessarily typical.
CHARLES S. HYNEMAN
DONALD S. LUTZ
Charles S. Hyneman is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Indiana University. He is a past President of the American Political Science Association and author of many books and articles, including Popular Government in America and The Supreme Court on Trial.
Donald S. Lutz, a former student of Professor Hyneman, is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Houston. He is book review editor of Publius, The Journal of Federalism, and the author of Popular Consent and Popular Control.
This compilation of the best writing of the founding fathers received the warm support of William J. Baroody, Sr., from its inception until his death, and that relationship continued when William J. Baroody, Jr., succeeded his father as President of American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research. From the beginning AEI picked up the tab for travel and living costs incurred by either of the editors in visiting libraries and meeting occasionally in conference, and for reproduction of pamphlets and newspaper articles from which final selection of items was made. Howard R. Penniman was a skillful negotiator of the terms and conditions of this collaboration, later joined by Austin Ranney, who came to share with Penniman some of the responsibility for AEI’s projects relating to American politics. To all these men everyone who finds these two volumes useful is indebted. For two years the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars provided the senior editor a living and a room for work and accumulation of litter, all of which necessities for scholarship contributed substantially to this project. Finally, Richard Ware and the Earhart Foundation once more exhibited a disposition to come to the relief of the editors when commendable ambition of either of them rubbed too abrasively against limited resources.
There is no chance of saying too much in favor of the Huntington Library as a place to explore the holdings they have accumulated. For the literature of the founding period their collection is voluminous. Without miss, in several visits, the service staff was genial, courteous, diligent, and knowledgeable, words especially applicable to those we mainly did business with: Virginia J. Renner, Noelle Jackson, and Mary Wright in Readers’ Services; Barbara Quinn of Photographic Reproduction; and Senior Research Scholar Ray A. Billington. Staff of the Rare Book Room of the Library of Congress were consistently courteous and concerned to meet every request. Anne C. Palumbo at the Woodrow Wilson Center and Raymond L. Faust at Indiana University helped in the early stages of the search for elusive material and have earned our appreciation.
Jack P. Greene of the Johns Hopkins University, Ronald M. Peters of the University of Oklahoma, Gordon S. Wood of Brown University, and James M. Banner, Jr., Director of the American Association for the Advancement of the Humanities, each made suggestions for inclusion in this collection which were heeded. Although we appreciate their interest and efforts, their approval for what has finally appeared in these two volumes was neither sought nor given. Responsibility for what was finally included for publication rests solely with the editors.
Dean Charles F. Bonser, Professor Charles Moffatt, and Judy Deckard threw the doors of Indiana University wide open for the comfort and convenience of the senior member of the team. The junior member did much of the culling and assembly of the manuscript while on a leave granted by the Faculty Development Leave Committee of the University of Houston. Professor David Brady, Professor Richard Hofstetter, and Provost George Magner at the University of Houston each made administrative decisions which eased the work or made available resources for work on the manuscript. Final preparation of the manuscript by the junior editor was done as part of the program of Liberty Fund, Inc. Last but not least Sharon McCormick, Martha Knutson, Lucy Redding, and Denise Reddick ably assisted in the final manuscript preparation.
American Political Writing during the Founding Era 1760-1805 VOLUME I
[1] ABRAHAM WILLIAMS 1727-1784
Independent and audacious enough while a student at Harvard to be known in some ministerial groups as “the Grand Heretick Williams,” Abraham chose to pursue a course of caution and reasonableness after his selection for a Congregationalist pulpit in Sandwich, near Boston. “Doctrines and opinions that have been long and generally received,” he proclaimed, “have at least such a presumption in their favor as to demand a fair and impartial examination.” Examine them he did, but the limited amount we know about him affords no reason to suppose that his determination to be fair and impartial ever enticed the Reverend Williams to testify to something he did not believe or to find much to praise in the teachings of John Calvin. The sermon delivered before the Governor and General Court of Massachusetts at the age of thirty-five appears to mark his closest approach to an intrusion into political affairs. In this sermon he rather efficiently lays out almost all the basic assumptions underlying American political thinking on the eve of the Stamp Act—principles that would inform theoretical discourse during the Revolution until challenged by Federalist theory in the 1780s.
I COR. XII. 25.
That there should be no Schism in the Body, but that the Members should
