Home > Free Saturday Seminars > Previous Seminars > The Founding and Slavery (November 3, 2001)
The American Founding, The Problem of Slavery, and the Contrast with the Modern State
Instructor: Thomas G. West, University of Dallas
Saturday, November 3, 2001
10:00 am to 2:00 pm
Founders Seminar Room, Ashland University, Ashland, Ohio
Download Adobe PDF Brochure
This seminar will explore the meaning of the American founding.We will
focus on three topics. (1) We will clarify the meaning of the natural rights
theory of the Declaration of Independence: What exactly does it mean to say
that all men are created equal? (2) We will look at the problem of slavery
and race as a way to understand the application of the natural rights theory
in practice. (3) We will contrast the natural-rights constitutionalism of the
Founders with the administrative-state constitutionalism of today.
Thomas G.West is professor of politics at the University of Dallas and a
senior fellow at the Claremont Institute. He is the author of Vindicating the
Founders: Race, Sex, Class, and Justice in the Origins of America (Rowman
and Littlefield, 1997). He is the editor of Discourses Concerning Government
by Algernon Sidney (Liberty Classics, 1990). He is the translator of Four
Texts on Socrates: Plato’s Euthyphro, Apology, and Crito, and Aristophanes’
Clouds (Cornell University Press, 1984) and Plato’s Apology of Socrates
(Cornell University Press, 1979).
Readings
Thomas G. West, Vindicating the Founders (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 1997)
Thomas G. West, Handouts on the Themes of Vindicating the Founders
Founding Principles
Slavery and the Founding
- Today's View of the Founders on Slavery (Morison, Wood, O'Brien, and Abernathy)
- Thurgood Marshall, "Reflections on the Bicentennial" (1787)
- Five Founders on Slavery (Washington, Adams, Franklin, Hamilton, Madison)
- James Madison, Federalist 54, exerpt on slavery (1788)
- Thomas Jefferson, draft of the Declaration of Independence (1776)
- Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, Query 18, "Manners," (1787)
- Jefferson to Gregoire on equal rights of blacks (1809)
- Hamilton to Jay on arming blacks (1779)
- Jay to Society for Manumission (1788)
- Madison, Memorandum on an African Colony for Freed Slaves (1789)
- Jefferson to Holmes, "fire bell in the night" (1820)
The Civil War, Slavery, and the Founding
- Supreme Court, majority opinion of Roger Taney, Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857)
- Abraham Lincoln, speech on Dred Scott (1857)
- Lincoln-Douglas Debates, excerpt on the Declaration of Independence (1858)
- Alexander Stephens, Cornerstone Speech (1861)
- John C. Calhoun, Speech on the Oregon Bill (1848)
- South Carolina, Declaration of Causes Which Justify Secession (1860)
- Lincoln, First Inaugural Address (1861)
- Lincoln, Gettysburg Address (1863)
- Lincoln, Second Inaugural Address (1865)
- Pauline Maier, American Scripture (1998)
- Walter Williams, "The Civil War Wasn't about Slavery" (1998)
Property Rights and the Founding
Women's Rights and the Founding
- Today's View of the Founders on Women (Wilson, Kerber, Current, Mason, etc.)
- Abigail and John Adams letters on women's rights (1776)
- Adams, letter to Sullivan on women, the poor, and voting rights (1776)
- Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, Query 6, on Indian women (1787)
Poverty and Welfare in the Founding
Immigration and the Moral Conditions of Citizenship
- Benjamin Franklin, "Information to Those Who Would Remove to America" (1766)
- Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, Query 8, "Population"
- George Washington, First Inaugural Address (1789)
- George Washington, First Annual Message to Congress (January 8, 1790)
- George Washington, letter to the Quakers (1789)
- George Washington, letter to Hebrew Congregation in Newport (1790)
- George Washington, Farewell Address, remark on religion and morality (1796)
- Jefferson, Report of the Commissioners for University of Virginia (1818)
- Abraham Lincoln, "Electric Cord" speech at Chicago (July 10, 1858)
Liberals Reject the Founding
- Woodrow Wilson, The New Freedom, pp. 3-7, 19-22, 41-54 (1913)
- Franklin D. Roosevelt, Commonwealth Club Address (1932)
- U.S. Supreme Court, Harris v. McRae, Thurgood Marshall dissent (1980)
- U.S. Supreme Court, Memoirs v. Massachusetts, from Clark and Douglas opinions (1966)
- American Council of Learned Societies, "Speaking for the Humanities" (1989)
- Gordon Wood, "The Fundamentalists and the Constitution" (1987)
Conservatives Reject the Founding
|
