Last Best Hope of Earth

Tag: David Ramsay

  • Constitution Sunday: David Ramsay to Benjamin Lincoln

    Charleston, South Carolina

    January 29, 1788

    A letter from a South Carolinian to a Massachusettsan—and from a budding historian to a Revolutionary War hero—captured the spirit of the moment as South Carolina was preparing to assemble its convention to consider the Constitution. David Ramsay, who would soon publish a two-volume book about the American Revolution, wrote to Benjamin Lincoln of the recent happenings in South Carolina’s legislature and the tenor of the time as states were analyzing the potential for coexisting with a federal government.

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  • The Lesson of the American Revolution

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    Washington Crossing the Delaware. By: Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze.

    The American Revolution changed political theory and government. At the heart of that change was the empowerment of the people, which continues to present day America.

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  • Cap-Stone of the Great American Empire

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    James Wilson.

    The political theory that emerged from the Revolution and the debates surrounding the Constitution was not “a matter of deliberation as it was a matter of necessity.” Gordon Wood, The Creation of the American Republic: 1776-1787, 593.

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  • The Evil of Popular Despotism

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    James Madison. By: H.B. Grigsby.

    James Madison had extensive beliefs about the structure of American government and the sustainability of the system.

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  • Carrying Liberty to Excess

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    David Ramsay. By: Rembrandt Peale.

    While there were perceptions that America was suffering from a malaise in the 1780s, the political theory at the time had an explanation: licentiousness.

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