Jeffry H. Morrison offers readers the first comprehensive look at the political thought and career of John Witherspoon—a Scottish Presbyterian minister and one of America’s most influential and overlooked founding fathers. Witherspoon was an active member of the Continental Congress and was the only clergyman both to sign the Declaration of Independence and to ratify the federal Constitution. During his tenure as president of the College of New Jersey at Princeton, Witherspoon became a mentor to James Madison and influenced many leaders and thinkers of the founding period. He was uniquely positioned at the crossroads of politics, religion, and education during the crucial first decades of the new republic. Morrison locates Witherspoon in the context of early American political thought and charts the various influences on his thinking. This impressive work of scholarship offers a broad treatment of Witherspoon’s constitutionalism, including his contributions to the mediating institutions of religion and education, and to political institutions from the colonial through the early federal periods. This book will be appreciated by anyone with an interest in American political history and thought and in the relation of religion to American politics.
“A delight . . . rewarding insight into Washington and his times . . . and an illuminating section on the religious outlook of this American founder.” —Journal of American History George Washington is revered as the father of his country, a clever and skilled general, and a man of restrained principle—but not as a political thinker. This short introduction to Washington’s political philosophy reveals him as a thoughtful public intellectual who was well equipped to lead the young United States. Though Washington left little explicit writing on political philosophy, Jeffry Morrison examines his key writings, actions, education, and political and professional lives. He finds that Washington held closely to a trinity of foundational principles—classical republicanism, British liberalism, and Protestant Christianity—with greater fidelity than many of the other founding fathers. In unearthing Washington’s ideological growth, Morrison reveals the intellectual heritage of his political thought and shows how these beliefs motivated him to action. This insightful, concise story makes clearer the complexities of the revolutionary era and shows how the first president’s political ideas shaped governmental institutions and instantiated the nation’s foundational principles. “Those who accept the ‘dumb general’ caricature should be chastened by Morrison’s elegant and concise sampling of Washington’s writings . . . This work deserves to be studied and debated by political scientists, historians, and public intellectuals concerned with America’s fundamental political principles and those of liberal democracy.” —Review of Politics
Jeffry H. Morrison offers readers the first comprehensive look at the political thought and career of John Witherspoon—a Scottish Presbyterian minister and one of America’s most influential and overlooked founding fathers. Witherspoon was an active member of the Continental Congress and was the only clergyman both to sign the Declaration of Independence and to ratify the federal Constitution. During his tenure as president of the College of New Jersey at Princeton, Witherspoon became a mentor to James Madison and influenced many leaders and thinkers of the founding period. He was uniquely positioned at the crossroads of politics, religion, and education during the crucial first decades of the new republic. Morrison locates Witherspoon in the context of early American political thought and charts the various influences on his thinking. This impressive work of scholarship offers a broad treatment of Witherspoon’s constitutionalism, including his contributions to the mediating institutions of religion and education, and to political institutions from the colonial through the early federal periods. This book will be appreciated by anyone with an interest in American political history and thought and in the relation of religion to American politics.
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