Last Best Hope of Earth

Tag: Licentiousness

  • Constitution Sunday: “An Old State Soldier” I

    Virginia Independent Chronicle (Richmond)

    January 16, 1788

    A former soldier sought to inform his fellow Virginians about the merits of the draft Constitution, and his fellow Virginians would be incorrect if they assumed that he was merely a soldier and would know nothing about the wisdom needed for setting up a new government. He described himself as a “fellow-citizen whose life has once been devoted to your service, and knows no other interest now than what is common to you all, solicits your attention for a new few moments on the new plan of government submitted to your consideration.” He was all too aware that some of the more intellectual arguments had already been made but also that his perspective would serve “to contradict some general opinions which may have grown out of circumstances too dangerous to our reputations to remain unanswered.”

    (more…)

  • The Evil of Popular Despotism

    james20madison2
    James Madison. By: H.B. Grigsby.

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

    (more…)

  • The Inadequacy of the Confederation

    jj-1958-306-pub-001-606x750
    John Jay. By: John Trumbull.

    By 1787, the strength and stability of the states was under scrutiny. Shays’ Rebellion had erupted, citizens had become more licentious, and state legislatures appeared to be running rampant, doing significant damage to the health of the country as a whole. See Gordon Wood, The Creation of the American Republic: 1776-1787, 465.

    (more…)

  • A Moral Reformation

    Imacon Color Scanner
    Patrick Henry. By: George Bagby Matthews.

    As eluded to in Virtue as a Principle and Foundation, vices had come to plague American society shortly after the American Revolution. Patrick Henry said, in 1780, that he “feared that our Body politic was dangerously sick,” as from top to bottom, society appeared to be embracing vice. Patrick Henry to Jefferson, Feb. 15, 1780, Boyd, ed., Jefferson Papers, III, 293.

    (more…)

  • Carrying Liberty to Excess

    1-2-6d9-25-ramsay_david20copy
    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.

    (more…)