Last Best Hope of Earth

Tag: Tyranny

  • Constitution Sunday: Reply to Wilson’s Speech: “A Democratic Federalist”

    Reply to Wilson’s Speech: “A Democratic Federalist”

    Pennsylvania Herald (Philadelphia), October 17, 1787

    Following are excerpts from the article, published in response to James Wilson’s speech: (more…)

  • A Check on Dangerous Usurpations

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    Samuel Chase. By: John Beale Bordley.

    While an upper house of state legislatures was desirable to some, as explained in The Birth of the Senate, it also had its detractors. Those detractors argued that it was a mere redundancy, wholly irrelevant to the founding of a stable government. In taking that position, the detractors ignored many of the benefits of having a second house in the legislature.

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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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  • Building the Momentum of the Revolution

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    James Iredell. By: Charles Balthazar Julien Fevret de Saint-Memin.

    For a revolution, and particularly a bloodless revolution, to occur, the momentum must build so that the population’s outrage culminates in a change of power and a change of government. How the people sparking the flame that leads to the roaring fire of revolution is a subject worth studying, as revolutions are an inevitable fact of life in the world.

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  • The Greatest Question Ever Yet Agitated

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    Samuel Johnson. By: Joshua Reynolds.

    In the early 1770s, the colonists and Britain began to debate “the greatest Question ever yet agitated.” John Adams, entry, Mar. 4, 1773, Butterfield, ed., Diary of Adams, II, 77. That question was focused on sovereignty and John Adams expressed the view that it was necessary and “should some where be lodged a supreme power over the whole.” Id.

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  • The Greatest Republic

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    John Adams, Samuel Adams, and James Bowdoin Drafting the Massachusetts Constitution of 1780. By: Albert Herter.

    As the colonies went through the Revolution, it became clear that republicanism would take the place of English imperialism. Americans were aware that republicanism put “social and moral demands” upon the people, which would change how people lived. Gordon Wood, The Creation of the American Republic: 1776-1787, 91.

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  • Preventing and Facilitating Tyranny

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    Virginia State Capitol. By: William Goodacre.

    As the American Revolution became more and more inevitable, states began contemplating the role and responsibilities of their legislatures. Those contemplations centered around curing the perceived ills and shortcomings of the English constitution.

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  • The Pyramid of Tyranny

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    Signing of Declaration of Independence. By: Armand Dumaresq.

    Tyranny, one of the early Americans’ greatest fears, may seem to contemporary Americans an unjustified fear. Perhaps that is because the early Americans’ precautionary actions relegated the threat of tyranny to the 18th Century. Perhaps not. (more…)