Early American Political Thought

This course examines, in depth, American political thought from 1630 to 1800. It analyzes the major Anglo-European intellectual traditions that shaped the thought of early Americans—classical liberalism and classical republicanism as they emerged from the thinking of early modern Britain and the Enlightenment; and reformed Protestantism in America. It examines how the American revolutionaries drew on these traditions to justify revolution and then explore how they both used and modified the same traditions of thought to create the American republic.