John Cotton, 1584-1652 English-born American cleric who was vicar of Saint Botolph's Church in...

John Cotton, 1584-1652

English-born American cleric who was vicar of Saint Botolph's Church in England until he was summoned to court for his Puritanism. He fled to Boston, Massachusetts, where he became a civil and religious leader.

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John Cotton, The Devine Right to Occupy the Land (1630)

1. “The placing of a people in this or that country is from the appointment of the Lord.” In other words, God assigns land to a certain people.

2. God makes room for people in three ways:

• He casts out enemies of a people before them by lawful war. (Heathens)

• He gives a foreign people favor or rights to a land through purchase

• He makes available places in a country that are vacant, even if the land it not totally vacant

3. “…[N]o nation is to drive out another without special commission from Heaven, such as the Israelites had, unless the natives do unjustly wrong them, and will not recompense the wrongs done in a peaceful manner.”

4. “We (the Puritans) must discern how God appoints us this place.”


5. How do a people know if they should emigrate?

· Sake of knowledge

· Gain sake

· Establish a colony

· Talents are better employed elsewhere

· To escape bad authorities and avoid evils

· When some grievous sins overspread a country

· When escaping over-burdensome debts and miseries

· When persecuted

Questions:

Was North America vacant?

Does God really appoint a people land?


John Winthrop1588-1649

English colonial administrator who was the first governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony, serving seven terms between 1629 and 1649.

John Winthrop

A Model of Christian Charity

Main Points:

God has made different classes of men, and, indeed, of all things. All men are not created equal. The reason hereof:

1. In conformity to the rest of the world, and demonstrating his wisdom, God created a great variety and differences in his creatures for the preservation of the whole.

2. The differences give humans the opportunity to manifest the work of the Spirit within them.

• The poor should be loyal and honest in their service to their betters and to authorities.

• The rich and powerful should honestly and loyally dispense with justice and mercy to the poor.

3. God made variety and differences so that all men would have a need of one another. This mutual need knits mankind “more nearly together in the Bonds of Brotherly affection.” Thus, by serving his fellow mankind, man serves “the glory of his creator and the common good of the creature, man.”

John Winthrop, A Model of Christian Charity

We have made a covenant with God to form a new colony in a new land and live as God would want us.

If We Are Good: If we fulfill our covenant (i.e. do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God) the “Lord will be our God, and delight to dwell among us, as his own people, and will command a blessing upon us in all our ways. So that we shall see much more of his wisdom, power, goodness and truth, than formerly we have been acquainted. We shall find that the God of Israel is among us, when ten of us shall be able to resist a thousand of our enemies…” We will be considered to be a city upon a hill, and the eyes of all peoples will be upon us.

If We are Bad: “…if we shall neglect the observation of these articles which are the ends we have propounded, and, dissembling, with our God, shall fall to embrace the present world and prosecute our carnal intention, seeking great things for ourselves and our posterity, the Lord will surely break out in wrath against us; be revenged of such a [sinful] people and make us know the price of the breach of such a covenant.”

Questions:

1. Did the Puritans live up to their ideals?

2. Why was it necessary for them to leave England?

3. Does community negate individualism?

John Winthrop, A Model of Christian Charity

Questions:

1. In this world, does God always punish the wicked and bless the virtuous?

2. Are all men created equal or created different? What does God expect us to do in regard to treating people equally? When should men be considered equal? When should they be considered unequal?

3. What were Winthrop’s views of equality?

4. Winthrop’s views of community?

5. What was the Puritan covenant?

6. Were the eyes of the world really on the Puritans? Were they really a city upon a hill?

The Trial of Anne Hutchinson (1637)

Opening main point of Governor Winthrop:Anne Hutchinson has troubled the peace of the commonwealth and the churches here.

“…[Y]ou have maintained a meeting and an assembly in your house that hath been condemned by the general assembly as a thing not tolerable nor comely in the sight of God nor fitting for your sex….”

Anne Hutchinson:“I hear not things laid to my charge.”


Governor Winthrop’s accusation toward Hutchinson:You have meetings in which you express opinions different from the word of God that “may seduce many simple souls that resort unto you,…”

Hutchinson in her defense:“Now if you do condemn me for speaking what in my conscience I know to be truth I must commit myself unto the Lord.”

Question from Mr. Nowel: “How do you know that that was the spirit?

Hutchinson’s eventual reply:“…by an immediate revelation.”

Governor Winthrop’s conclusion:…[T]he ground work of her revelations is the immediate revelation of the spirit and not by the ministry of the word and that is the means by which she hath very much abused the country….”


“Mrs. Hutchinson, the sentence of the court you hear is that you are banished from out of our jurisdiction as being a woman not fit for our society, and are to be imprisoned till the court shall send you away.”

Verdict: Guilty

John Winthrop

Little Speech on Liberty

Main Points:

The question addressed: how does the authority of the magistrates stand in relation to the liberty of the people?

1. When you see weakness in the leaders (magistrates) you have chosen, you should reflect upon your own weaknesses since you chose them.

2. The magistrates try to govern and judge as best as can according to God’s laws, as well as our own.

3. If the magistrate’s error is clearly out of wickedness, he must be held accountable for his transgressions. However, if it is not clear that his error was due to evil intentions, then the people, who have a covenant with their leaders, need to bear the consequences of the error.

4. There are two kinds of liberty:

a. Natural liberty: This is a liberty man shares in common with beasts. Man, as he stands in relation to man, has the liberty to do good or evil. The exercise of [natural] liberty makes men grow more evil, and in time to be worse than brute beasts…. This is that great enemy of truth and peace, that wild beast, which all the ordinances [authorities] of God are bend against, to restrain and subdue it.

b. Civil or federal liberty: This liberty is in reference to the covenant between God and man, in the moral law, and the politic covenants and constitutions, amongst men themselves. This liberty is the proper end and object of authority…, it is a liberty to that only which is good, just, and honest. This liberty is maintained and exercised in a way of subjection to authority; it is of the same kind of liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free.

Analogy: women’s subjection to her husband’s authority makes her free.

Conclusion: The best way to preserve our civil liberties is to uphold and honor the power of authority. If we quietly and cheerfully subject ourselves to civil liberty, such as Christ allows us, it will be for our own good. If the magistrates fail honestly at any time, you should advise them. Since they are doing their best to follow God’s laws, the magistrates will hearken good advice. In this way, upholding and honoring the power of authority will preserve your liberties.

Remember to study Remember to study the questions at the the questions at the beginning of each beginning of each document.document.

Historical Context• Samuel Adams

– Graduate of Harvard University– Known as “The Man of the Town Meeting”– Came from prominent family in Boston, Mass.– He was an opponent to Parliament’s taxation– Argued against colonial compromise with parliament– One of the first to advocate separation from England– This article was penned under a committee of

correspondence, which was led by Adams

Samuel Adams -Samuel Adams -The Rights of the Colonists (1772)The Rights of the Colonists (1772)

Main Points“…to State the Rights of the Colonists and of this Province

in particular, as Men, as Christians, and as Subjects…”

“A Right to Life, Liberty, and Property”– To Support and defend them in the best manner– “Just and true liberty, equal and impartial liberty”

Religious freedom…“every man living in or out of a state of civil society has a right peaceably and quietly to worship God according to the dictates of his conscience.”…


Main Points (cont.)

As Subjects… Adams expressed a need for “a body politic, or civil society of men, united together to promote their mutual safety and prosperity by means of their union.”...he goes on to reference “personal security, personal liberty, and private property.”

“The natural liberty of man is to be free from any superior power on earth, and not to be under the will or legislative authority of man; but only to have the law of nature for his rule.”


Historical Significance

• Justified rebellion– On the basis of an individual’s natural rights

• Influenced other colonies– Committees of Correspondence for all– Increased the dissatisfaction with Britain

• Important in bringing about awareness– Colonists realized their own discontent– Eventually brought about the separation


Questions to Consider

• In what ways has the government violated traditional liberties?

• Are natural law and government compatible?


Samuel Johnson

Taxation No Tyranny (1775)

Main Points:

1. Americans are able to bear taxation.

2. Every adult pays taxes:

• “Of every empire all the subordinate communities are liable to taxation, because they all share the benefits of government, and, therefore, ought to all furnish their proportion of the expense.”

• “As all are born the subjects of some state or other, we may be said to have been all born contenting to some system of government.”

• “Humanity is very uniform. The Americans have this resemblance to Europeans, that they do not always know when they are well.”

Samuel Johnson

Taxation No Tyranny (1775)

3. Americans have no proof that parliament ever ceded to them exemption from obedience.

• Now there are only two choices: “to allow their claim to independence or to reduce them, by force, to submission and allegiance….

• “If the subject refuses to obey, it is the duty of authority to use compulsion. Society cannot subsist but by the power, first of making laws, and then of enforcing them….”

4. The American rebels are hypocrites.

• “If slavery be thus fatally contagious, how is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?”

Historical Context

About The Author:Born on January 29, 1737 in England to an impoverished Quaker family.

Had many different jobs including a corset maker, merchant seaman, a school teacher, even a job as tax collector.

With the advise and help from Benjamin Franklin, Pain Immigrated to the American Colonies in 1774.

Main Points of Common Sense

• The colonies were founded by people from many different nations, not just Britain.

“Europe, and not England, is the parent country of America.”

• America will constantly be at war with Britain’s enemies and will never be at peace.

“That she did not protect us from our enemies on our account, but from her enemies on her own account, from those who had no quarrel with us on any other account, and who will always be our enemies on the same account.”

• America is to big to be ruled by an island.“There is something very absurd, in supposing a continent to be perpetually governed by an island.”“For as in absolute governments the king is law, so in free countries the law ought to be king; and there ought to be no other.”

“A government of own is our natural right.”

Main Points OF Thomas Paine’s Common Sense• THERE IS NO GOING BACK AFTER BLOOD HAS BEEN SPILT. Any attempts to work with Great

Britain before the “nineteenth of April, i.e., to the commencement of hostilities, are…useless now…” “The blood of the slain, the weeping voice of nature cries, ‘tis time to part.” WE CAN SURVIVE ECONOMICALLY WELL WITHOUT THE BRITAIN. “I challenge the warmest advocate for

reconciliation to show, a single advantage that this continent can reap, by being connected with Great Britain.” • We should look at the many injuries that the colonies have undergone and will continue to undergo as long as

we are connected with Great Britain. (3rd¶)• BRITAIN IS PROTECTING HER OWN INTEREST, NOT OURS. We don’t need Britain for protection

against her enemies nor do we need her for commerce. “…whenever a war breaks out between England and any foreign power, the trade of America goes to ruin, because of her

connection with Britain.”

WE DO NOT NEED A KING TO GOVERN OURSELVES. Do away with monarchies because the divine law (of God) should be “King of America” and the people should form a government of their own (a republican charter). “…let a day be solemnly set apart for proclaiming the charter; let it be brought forth placed on the divine law the word of

God…law ought to be king”• England is not run by France even though the king is a descendant from France.

• AMERICA HAS GROWN UP. Children cannot survive on milk alone and never get any meat....The colonies have grown up and need to be set free to live on their own just as children do.

Thomas Jefferson, The Declaration of Independence

• Independence is declared.

• All men are created equal. “All men are created equal. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal….”

• Men have unalienable Rights: Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

• Governments derive their authority from the consent of the people. “Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

• When a government acts despotically, the people have a right and a duty to overthrow it. “But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”

• We have tried to compromise, but King George has persistently been a tyrant.

Facts about JeffersonThird President1801-1809Born: April 13, 1743 in Albemarle County, Virginia Died: July 4, 1826 in Monticello in Virginia Married to Martha Wayles Skelton JeffersonAuthor: The Declaration of IndependenceSupported by slave labor his entire lifeBought eight or more slaves while president

Slaves Born into Freedom• Children raised with parents till 21 • Government paid education/trade school • Colonized together• Sent to parts of the world for equal number of whites

Separation of the races is needed because deep rooted prejudices between white and black that will end in extermination of one or the other.)

Jefferson on Jefferson on SlaverySlavery (1784) (1784)

Differences of ColorSuperior beauty (why not in man)

The difference is fixed in nature• Greater degree of transpiration ….. (Work better in heat)• Require less sleep • Seem brave more adventuresome…… (Don’t think about what they

do)• Love seems to be a desire not a passion.• Memory is equal but reasoning is inferior to whites…• Arts…even Indians had traits of design..• Music...Very gifted…but composition questioned…• No poets …..Misery• Romans and Natural History…

Slavery and LawsBranded as thieves

No property…Can’t take a little from one who has taken all from him..

Morals….their situation their change their morals..?Slavery is Familiar

Children learn from their parents.Why work They are a firm basis for our nation...

Emancipation (Masters or Revolution)

Slavery is harmful the to slave owners and their Slavery is harmful the to slave owners and their posterity: posterity: “The whole commerce between master and “The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other. Our part, and degrading submissions on the other. Our children see this, and learn to imitate it…”children see this, and learn to imitate it…”

http://www.michaelcosm.com/sub_feat/feat_jeff.html

Thomas Jefferson is believed to have fathered children with his slave, Sally Hemings

http://www.cnn.com/US/9905/17/jefferson.reunion/

James Madison, Federalist #10 (1787-1788)Human nature is selfish and passionate, and when combined with

reason, individuals have “liberty.”

Liberty = pursuit of property => classes and factions (everyone cannot have equal property).

Factious Majority Factious Minority

Classes

REMOVE CAUSES: People could remove the causes of faction, but this would destroy liberty. This solution is worse than the problem.This solution is worse than the problem.

SOLUTION: The Federalists sought to work with human naturework with human nature. They advocated letting factions run their course, arguing that in a large republic they would compete with one another and effectively cancel each other out.

THREE FACTORS THAT WILL CHECK THE TYRANNY OF A FACTION:1. LARGE POLITY: Thousands of factions will result in a diffusion of factions that will

tend to cancel each other out.2. REPRESENTATION: Representative government will act as a filter, protecting the

republic form the passions of the masses.3. SEPARATION OF POWERS: A federal government and a separation of powers will

result in a system checks and balances in power.

Edmund Burke (1729-1797)• Conciliation with America

(1775)

Document Analysis: 3 main points

1. Use of force is not the best option– Last resort– Not the British way– More destruction than good, alienation– A temporary measure: subdue, but not govern

2. American colonies are different from Britain and as such requires their own government

– Liberty– Geographically remote– Only its own government can cope with

problems3. Britain should respect rights of its colony

Edmund Burke

• “the use of force alone is but temporary. It may subdue for a moment; but it does not remove the necessity of subduing again: and a nation is not governed , which is perpetually to be conquered.”

• “ My next objection is its uncertainty. Terror is not always the effect of force; and an armament is not a victory. If you do not succeed, you are without resource; for, conciliation failing, force remains; but, force failing, no further hope of reconciliation is left….”

• “A further objection to force is, that you impair the object by your very endeavours to preserve it. The thing you fought for is not the thing which you recover; but depreciated, sunk, wasted and consumed in the contest….” (Page 21.)

• Founder of Conservatism: “Burke maintained that society was a contract, but ‘the state ought not to be considered as nothing better than a partnership agreement in a trade of pepper and coffee, to be taken up for a temporary interest and to be dissolved by the fancy of the parties.’ The state was a partnership but one ‘not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead and those who are to be born.’ No one generation therefore has the right to destroy this partnership; instead, each generation has the duty to preserve and transmit it to the next. Burke advised against the violent overthrow of a government by revolution, but he did not reject the possibility of change. Sudden change was unacceptable, but that did not eliminate gradual or evolutionary improvements.” (Spielvogel, p. 612)

Adam Smith

America and the Wealth of Nations (1776)

1. Union of the people of Britain and those of her American colonies is important, and is in both peoples interests.

2. The uniting of the distant parts of the world has generated wealth and industry.

3. Native Americans have suffered “every sort of injustice” because of the Europeans’ superiority of force.

4. Nothing will better establish equality among nations “than that mutual communication of knowledge and of all sorts of improvements which an extensive commerce from all countries to all countries naturally, or rather necessarily, carries along with it.”

5. The unjust oppression of industry of other countries falls back…upon the heads of the oppressors, and crushes their industry more than it does that of those other countries.

The mercantile system deranges the “natural and most advantageous distribution of stock…. Monopoly of one kind or another…seems to be the sole engine of the mercantile system….”

Adam Smith• To what is Smith reacting?• The “invisible hand” of the laws of supply and

demand• Monopolies?• “Even the regulations by which each nation

endeavours to secure to itself the exclusive trade of its own colonies, are frequently more hurtful to the countries in favour of which they are established than to those against which they are established.”

Letters from an American FarmerWritten by Michel St. John De Crevecoeur

Main Points

• The metamorphosis of an European into an American– Crevecoeur likens poor Europeans to useless plants that are

transplanted and have take root and flourished in America

• The freedom and opportunities in North America (social, religious, etc.)– The chance to be a “freeman” and there are “no princes, for

whom we toil, starve, and bleed: we are the most perfect society now existing In the world. Here man is free as he ought to be;”

• To describe and define what it meant to be an American– “The American is a new man, who acts upon new principles; he

must therefore entertain new ideas, and form new opinions.”

Michel St. John de Crevecoeur

• Are Crevecoeur’s Letters a work of fiction or non-fiction?• Development of the wilderness• No system of vassalage: “It is not composed, as in Europe, of great lords who possess everything,

and of a herd of people who have nothing.”• More equality• People of cultivators• “Here the rewards of his industry follow with equal steps the progress of his labour…”• “As freemen they will be litigious; pride and obstinacy are often the cause of law suits.”• “Here religion demand but little of him; a small voluntary salary to the minister, and gratitude to God;

can he refuse these?”• “…the laws inspect our actions, our thoughts are left to God.”• “…how religious indifference becomes prevalent.”• On the frontier: “they are often in a perfect state of war.”• Who is Crevecoeur’s main intended audience?• The melting pot.• “He does not find, as in Europe, a crowded society, where every place is over-stocked.”• “The rich stay in Europe, it is only the middling and the poor that emigrate.”• “…he now feels himself a man, because he is treated as such.”• “[He] feel an ardour to labour he never felt before.”

George BancroftThe Office of the PeopleThe Office of the People (1835) (1835)

* Common judgment is the highest authority.* Common judgment is the highest authority.If it be true, that the gifts of mind and heart are universally diffused, if the sentiment of truth, justice, love, and beauty exists in every one, then it follows, as a necessary consequence, that the common judgment in taste, politics, and religion is the highest authority on earth, and the nearest possible approach to an infallible decision.

* Truth is one.* Truth is one. Truth is one. It never contradicts itself: One truth cannot contradict another truth. Hence truth is a bond of union. But error not only contradicts truth, but may contradict itself; so that there may be many errors, and each at variance with the rest. Truth is therefore of necessity an element of harmony; error as necessarily an element of discord. Thus there can be no continuing universal judgment but a right one. Men cannot agree in an absurdity; neither can they agree in a falsehood.

* Truth has been passed on by the collective truth of humanity through the ages, * Truth has been passed on by the collective truth of humanity through the ages, and even today, the public is wiser than the wisest critic.and even today, the public is wiser than the wisest critic.► …every sect that has ever flourished has benefited Humanity; for the errors of a sect pass away and are forgotten; its truths are received into the common inheritance.► For who are the best judges in matters of taste? Do you think the cultivated individual? Undoubtedly not; but the collective mind. The public is wiser than the wisest critic.

George Bancroft, The Office of the PeopleThe Office of the People (1835) (1835)

* True genius is inspired by reflecting and satisfying the wisdom of humanity, and not * True genius is inspired by reflecting and satisfying the wisdom of humanity, and not by reflecting or satisfying particular tastes.by reflecting or satisfying particular tastes.

[Genius] yearns for larger influences; it feeds on wide sympathies; and its perfect display can never exist except in an appeal to the general sentiment for the beautiful….

* The moral intelligence of the community should rule.* The moral intelligence of the community should rule.

• A government of equal rights must…rest upon the mind; not wealth, not brute force, the sum of the moral intelligence of the community should rule the State.

• …the common mind [is] the true material for a commonwealth.• The world can advance only through the culture of the moral and intellectual

powers of the people.• The duty of America is to secure the culture and the happiness of the masses by

their reliance on themselves.• …we have made Humanity our lawgiver and our oracle…• The government by the people is in very truth the strongest government in the

world. Discarding the implements of terror, it dares to rule by moral force, and has its citadel in the heart….

• …the measure of the progress of civilization is the progress of the people.• …the opinion which we respect is not the opinion of one or a few, but the sagacity

of the many.

John Cotton, 1584-1652 English-born American cleric who was vicar of Saint Botolph's Church in...

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