Behinds Quote by Robert Trout

The myth that the founding of American Republic was based on the philosophy of John Locke could only have been maintained, because the history…

— Robert Trout

“English political sagacity is compounded of instinctive reactions to immediate situations and a wisdom, gained by cumulative experience, which guides instinct through the complexities,…

— Reinhold Neibuhr

Jefferson refused to pin his hopes on the occasional success of honest and unambitious men; on the contrary, the great danger was that philosophers…

— Daniel J. Boorstin

[John] Adams identified himself with the political theories of [James] Harrington, [John] Locke, and [Charles-Louis] Montesquieu, whose ideas of constitutionalism, he believed, were applicable…

— Gordon S. Wood

I join cordially in admiring and revering the Constitution of the United States, the result of the collected wisdom of our country. That wisdom…

— Thomas Jefferson

I think [John's Adams] descriptions of the personalities of [Benjamin] Franklin and [Tomas] Jefferson and others were pretty accurate. It is only when he…

— Gordon S. Wood

The gentlemen who wrote the Constitution were as suspicious of efficient government as they were wary of democracy, a "turbulence and a folly" that…

— Lewis H. Lapham

[Tomas] Jefferson believed that the United States was a chosen nation with a special responsibility to spread democracy around the world.

— Gordon S. Wood

In practice, US officials seem to know better than to indulge in the patriotic myth that our constitution is the greatest system of government…

— Matthew Yglesias

Deeply versed in history, [John Adams] said over and over that America had no special providence, no special role in history, that Americans were…

— Gordon S. Wood

However, it was the great 18th century social philosophers John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau who brought the concept of a social contract…

— Simon Mainwaring

“When we seek to understand liberty, equality, progress, constitutional governance, separation of church and state, and the meaning of the American Revolution, we do…

— R.B. Bernstein