fbpx

Part of the Liberty Fund network

Friends-Divided
Essay  &  Liberty Law Talk
June 4, 2018
0:00
0:00
0:00

The Rivalry and Friendship of Jefferson and Adams: A Conversation with Gordon Wood

with Gordon S. Wood

Gordon Wood, the great historian of 18th century American political thought, returns to Liberty Law Talk to discuss his latest book Friends Divided.

Gordon S. Wood is Alva O. Way Professor of History Emeritus at Brown University. He is the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Radicalism of the American Revolution, the Bancroft Prize-winning The Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787, and Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815.
More by this author
Reader Discussion

Law & Liberty welcomes civil and lively discussion of its articles. Abusive comments will not be tolerated. We reserve the right to delete comments - or ban users - without notification or explanation.

on June 04, 2018 at 17:08:03 pm

Nice episode! quite informative.

How sad it must be for these two polar *compatriots* to see that the settlement reached, i.e., COTUS, has now been "moved" far to the Northern pole of (near) hereditary aristocracy (our governing elites).

read full comment
Image of gabe
gabe
on June 05, 2018 at 11:17:28 am

The difference between a Whig/Federalist like Adams and a democratic Republican like Jefferson is the subject of Chapters 3 and 7 of Richard D. Brown's "Revolutionary Politics in Massachusetts: The Boston Committee of Correspondence and the Towns 177-1774" (1970).

The Boston CC clearly reflected the liberal British Whig orientation the town had moved to after 1760 as is described by GB Warden in "Boston 1689-1776" (1970). The BCC wrote to the towns in the language of Locke and Blackstone. The Towns replied in the language of Coke, the Bible and the radical republicans who thrashed out the Massachusetts brand of democratic republicanism in the 1630s.

Both these books are long out of print and neither Brown nor Warden seem to appreciate how politically radical the first generation of the Massachusetts Bay settlers were or how this radical republicanism had become the political norm in the majority of towns outside of Boston, Cambridge, Salem and Charlestown. Of course, this rural radical republicanism was also a surprise to Samuel and John Adams; but Thomas Young (a member of the BCC), Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson recognized it immediately.

read full comment
Image of EK
EK
2

Law & Liberty welcomes civil and lively discussion of its articles. Abusive comments will not be tolerated. We reserve the right to delete comments - or ban users - without notification or explanation.

Related

Popular