tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1237087217187172116.post5625780882023043203..comments2024-03-28T10:44:30.518-06:00Comments on American Creation: All American Whigs Thought Alike on these SubjectsBrad Harthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17669677047039491864noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1237087217187172116.post-35875399776738127982016-10-22T21:10:21.214-06:002016-10-22T21:10:21.214-06:00"The law of nature and the law of revelation ...<br /><i>"The law of nature and the law of revelation are both Divine: they flow, though in different channels, from the same adorable source. It is indeed preposterous to separate them from each other."</i><br /><br />--James Wilson, Of the Law of Nature, 1804Tom Van Dykehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07121072404143877596noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1237087217187172116.post-54646120772981730152016-10-22T13:16:07.414-06:002016-10-22T13:16:07.414-06:00Well I think there was definitely a theistic under...Well I think there was definitely a theistic understanding of "nature" (natural law, natural right, natural rights). <br /><br />This quotation by John Adams best captures it:<br /><br />"To him who believes in the Existence and Attributes physical and moral of a God, there can be no obscurity or perplexity in defining the Law of Nature to be his wise benign and all powerful Will, discovered by Reason."<br /><br />– John Adams to Thomas Boylston Adams, March 19, 1794. Adams Papers (microfilm), reel 377, Library of Congress. Seen in James H. Hutson’s, “The Founders on Religion,” p. 132.Jonathan Rowehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04079637406589278386noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1237087217187172116.post-84252414258639163022016-10-22T12:09:47.516-06:002016-10-22T12:09:47.516-06:00The problem with the Straussian approach is they c...The problem with the Straussian approach is they care about the philosophy itself, not the history. But the historian's concern is only what the Founders, the "gentlemen," understood the philosophers, or as we have discussed, how the Founders may have hijacked them.<br /><br />It's the hijacking part that we care about. ;-)Tom Van Dykehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07121072404143877596noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1237087217187172116.post-14020891741907595392016-10-22T08:27:00.222-06:002016-10-22T08:27:00.222-06:00I think your quotation by Otis lends support to th...I think your quotation by Otis lends support to the thesis of my original piece. We don't need to discuss any theory of Hobbes' esoteric influence on Locke. The Founders, to a man, didn't like Hobbes. So we can for now cross his name off the list.<br /><br />(Though I do wonder if Otis knew something about Locke that later scholars (the Straussians) would conclude. Did Locke's social contract theory contradict Otis' assertions?)<br /><br />But both Locke and Harrington were influential. Otis is positing a competing theory that, the way he presents it, is in tension with the other two (or three).Jonathan Rowehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04079637406589278386noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1237087217187172116.post-16046895677570477842016-10-21T23:24:33.213-06:002016-10-21T23:24:33.213-06:00Straussian Michael Zuckert gives large credit to &...Straussian Michael Zuckert gives large credit to "radical" Whigs such as Joseph Priestley and Richard Price<br /><br />http://www.nlnrac.org/earlymodern/radical-whigs-and-natural-rights<br /><br />however, I question whether they were as influential as James Otis, Tom Paine and Alexander Hamilton when it come to America's true founding principle, [God-given] natural rights.<br /><br />"Government is founded not on force, as was the theory of Hobbes; nor on compact, as was the theory of Locke and of the revolution of 1688; nor on property, as was the assertion of Harrington. It springs from the necessities of our nature, and has an everlasting foundation in the unchangeable will of God."--Otis, 1764<br /><br />The reader would do well to review this exchange from this blog's golden age, esp Mark David Hall's remarks, and of course, mine. :-}<br /><br />http://americancreation.blogspot.com/2010/07/james-otis-forgotten-founder.html<br /><br /><br />James Wilson:<br /><br />"Man, says Mr. [Edmund] Burke, cannot enjoy the rights of an uncivil and of a civil state together. By an uncivil contradistinguished from a civil state, he must here mean a state of nature: by the rights of this uncivil state, he must mean the rights of nature: and is it possible that natural and civil rights cannot be enjoyed together? Are they really incompatible? Must our rights be removed from the stable foundation of nature, and placed on the precarious and fluctuating basis of human institution? Such seems to be the sentiment of Mr. Burke: and such too seems to have been the sentiment of a much higher authority than Mr. Burke -- Sir William Blackstone."Tom Van Dykehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07121072404143877596noreply@blogger.com