In May 1776, the Continental Congress in Philadelphia asked the colonies to form new governments, and the Virginia Convention appointed George Mason, James Madison and others to draft a constitution and bill of rights for Virginia.
Writing in the Raleigh Tavern, Mason produced the first draft of the Virginia Declaration of Rights, whose preamble contains language that Thomas Jefferson would include in the Declaration of Independence almost word for word:
That all Men are born equally free and independant, and have certain inherent natural Rights, of which they can not by any Compact, deprive or divest their Posterity; among which are the Enjoyment of Life and Liberty, with the Means of acquiring and possessing Property, and pursueing and obtaining Happiness and Safety.
Jefferson closely mirrored this language in his rough draft of the Declaration of Independence, before it was edited by John Adams and Benjamin Franklin:
We hold these truths to be sacred & undeniable; that all men are created equal & independant, that from that equal creation they derive rights inherent & inalienable, among which are the preservation of life, & liberty, & the pursuit of happiness.
Jefferson was sensitive to the charge of plagiarism. Nearly 50 years later, he wrote to a correspondent who, like many readers, was surprised by the similarities between Jefferson’s and Mason’s bills of particulars against King George III. Jefferson said that he had sent his own draft constitution for Virginia from Philadelphia to Williamsburg in 1776, along with a preamble justifying separation from Great Britain. Although Jefferson’s constitution arrived too late, he said, the Virginia House liked his preamble and inserted it into the final document.
“Thus my Preamble became tacked to the work of George Mason,” Jefferson explained defensively, while praising Mason as “one of our really great men and of the first order of greatness.”
Classical Greek and Roman moral philosophers, including Cicero, Seneca and Plutarch, influenced the Founders’ understanding of the pursuit of happiness as being good, not feeling good — the pursuit of long-term virtue rather than short-term pleasure. For the Founders, personal self-government was necessary for political self-government. And the influence of classical writings extended beyond the political realm, inspiring the Founders to a personal search for the good life on their own terms.
Benjamin Franklin, for example, recalled that in his early 20s, “I conceiv’d the bold and arduous project of arriving at moral perfection.” He had been reading some of the classical Greek and Roman philosophers — Pythagoras, Xenophon, Plutarch and Cicero. Jefferson compiled a vast library and had a Top 10 list of titles of classical and Enlightenment moral philosophy.
Concepts of ‘Free’
Mason, like Jefferson, derived his libertarian principles from his classical reading. Mason’s own library included many of the classic texts of moral and political philosophy that Jefferson read as well: Cicero’s De Officiis on morals, duties and obligations; Enlightenment philosopher John Locke on government and education; and Algernon Sidney, who challenged the theory of the divine right of kings and was executed amid allegations of a plot to overthrow the government of King Charles II.
Mason’s use of the phrase “all Men are born equally free and independant, and have certain inherent natural Rights” became a point of contention when the Virginia Convention began to debate Mason’s draft of the Declaration of Rights on May 29, 1776. One delegate objected to the phrase on the grounds that it could be interpreted as a call to abolish slavery or to encourage insurrections by the enslaved.
The delegates debated the issue until June 3, when they modified the language in the following way: “That all men are by nature equally free and independent and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity.”
The legalistic addition hardly resolved the inconsistency of slavery and natural law, but it sufficiently muddled the issue by implying that enslaved people were not in “a state of society” and therefore (paradoxically) were not owed their natural rights. The language passed without further amendment.
Influences
One obvious source for Mason’s claim that “all Men are born equally free and independant” is Locke’s Second Treatise on Government, which declares that “all” are “equal and independent.”
Another is Cato’s Letters, a four-volume series of “essays on liberty” by the Whig polemicists John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon, who chose the pseudonym “Cato” as a tribute to Marcus Porcius Cato the Younger, the patriot who defended the Roman Republic against Julius Caesar. First published in the London Journal in 1720 and reprinted in colonial newspapers in the 1770s, Cato’s Letters were the most widely read and influential efforts to synthesize the classical liberalism of Locke and the civic republicanism of the Italian political philosopher Niccolò Machiavelli with the libertarianism of Whig defenders of England’s Glorious Revolution of 1688, which led to the deposition of James II.
“Liberty is the unalienable right of all mankind,” Trenchard and Gordon wrote in letter 59. The same essay continues, “All men are born free; liberty is a gift which they receive from God himself.”
Emphasizing that “no man has power over his own life, or to dispose of his own religion,” the letter writers maintained that he “cannot consequently transfer the power of either to any body else” or “give away the lives and liberties, religion or acquired property of his posterity.” As a result, Trenchard and Gordon concluded in letter 48, the people’s “happiness and security...are the very ends of magistracy.”
Mason’s phrase in Article 15 of the Virginia Declaration about “the blessings of liberty” is a quotation from Cato’s Letters as well. Letter 25 concludes that the “blessings of liberty” make the people “great and happy” while tyranny and despotic power lead to slavery, which makes the people “little, wicked, and miserable.”
Mason and other Founders repeatedly compared themselves to slaves of the king while refusing to free the human beings they themselves held in bondage.
‘Everlasting Maxim’
In their letters, which compare the corruption of Britain to the fall of Rome, Trenchard and Gordon quoted Cicero’s maxim “Salus populi suprema lex esto” (the health of the people should be the supreme law). They declared, “That the benefit and safety of the people constitutes the supreme law, is a universal and everlasting maxim in government.” And they returned to a series of themes that Mason would synthesize into the core principles of the American Revolution: In Caesar’s Rome and George’s Britain, wicked ministers had corrupted the people by playing on their “prevailing passions” — namely, “avarice and ambition.”
Several of the Cato letters include extensive quotations from Sidney, the Whig revolutionary whose Discourses Concerning Government Jefferson had identified as another of his main inspirations. Sidney’s execution was due largely to the libertarian principles he embraced in the Discourses, which helped to inspire the Glorious Revolution in 1688 and the American Revolution in 1776. The Discourses oppose the divine right of kings and defend the idea that kings can rule only with the consent of the people, who have a right to alert or abolish government whenever it becomes corrupt or tyrannical.
Trenchard and Gordon also quoted Machiavelli’s famous maxim, in his Discourses on Livy, that for republics to exist for a long time, they need to return frequently to the principles of frugality and virtue on which they were founded: “Machiavel tells us, that no government can long subsist, but by recurring often to its first principles; but this can never be done while men live at ease and in luxury; for then they cannot be persuaded to see distant dangers, of which they feel no part.”
Drawing on Cato’s Letters, Machiavelli and Sidney, Mason’s Article 15 in the Virginia Declaration makes explicit the connection between the classical virtues and the pursuit of happiness:
That no free government, or the blessings of liberty, can be preserved to any people but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue and by frequent recurrence to fundamental principles.
Warning Signs
James Madison, meanwhile, found inspiration, as well as cautionary tales, in his classical reading.
In 1787, Madison traveled to Philadelphia with Athens on his mind. Madison had spent the year before the Constitutional Convention reading two trunkfuls of books on the history of failed democracies, sent to him from Paris by Jefferson. Madison was determined, in drafting the U.S. Constitution, to avoid the fate of those “ancient and modern confederacies,” which he believed had succumbed to rule by demagogues and mobs.
Madison’s reading convinced him that direct democracies — such as the assembly in Athens, where 6,000 citizens were required for a quorum — unleashed populist passions that overcame the cool, deliberative reason prized above all by Enlightenment thinkers.
“In all very numerous assemblies, of whatever character composed, passion never fails to wrest the sceptre from reason,” he argued in The Federalist Papers, the essays he wrote with Alexander Hamilton and John Jay to build support for the ratification of the Constitution. “Had every Athenian citizen been a Socrates, every Athenian assembly would still have been a mob.”
On his way to Philadelphia, Madison remembered that Athenian citizens had been swayed by crude and ambitious politicians who had played on their emotions. The demagogue Cleon was said to have seduced the assembly into becoming more hawkish toward Athens’ opponents in the Peloponnesian War, and even the reformer Solon canceled debts and debased the currency.
In Madison’s view, history seemed to be repeating itself in America.
After the Revolutionary War, he had observed in Massachusetts “a rage for paper money, for an abolition of debts, for an equal division of property.” That populist rage had led to Shays’ Rebellion, the riots that helped convince George Washington and other elites that it was time for the Articles of Confederation to be replaced in order to create a government restrained enough to protect liberty but strong and deliberative enough to resist foreign threats and the mob.
According to classical theory, republics could exist only in relatively small territories, where citizens could know one another personally and assemble face-to-face. Plato would have capped the number of citizens capable of self-government at 5,040.
Madison, however, thought Plato’s small-republic thesis was wrong. He believed the ease of communication in small republics was precisely what allowed hastily formed majorities to suppress minorities.
“Extend the sphere” of a territory, Madison wrote, “and you take in a greater variety of parties and interests; you make it less probable that a majority of the whole will have a common motive to invade the rights of other citizens; or if such a common motive exists, it will be more difficult for all who feel it to discover their own strength, and to act in unison with each other.”
Reading the books the Founders read and following their daily attempts at self-accounting offer a better understanding of the largely forgotten core of their moral and political philosophy: that moderating emotions is the secret of tranquility of mind; that tranquility of mind is the secret of happiness; that daily habits are the secret of self-improvement; and that personal self-government is the secret of political self-government.
It’s not a surprise that the Founders often fell short of their own ideals of moral perfection. But what is a surprise is the seriousness with which they took the quest, on a daily basis, to become more perfect.
Plutarch
BORN ca. 45 CE
DIED After 119 CE
A Greek philosopher, historian, essayist and biographer, Plutarch wrote on a variety of topics, including ethics, religion and politics. His works influenced how essays and history were written, and his pursuit of moral excellence shaped an understanding of what constituted a moral life. Happiness and fulfillment, he believed, were attained through the cultivation of good character. His works often featured lessons in leadership, providing examples to emulate. Plutarch was often a critic of Stoicism, a philosophy that flourished in ancient Greece and Rome. It teaches the development of self-control as a means to overcome destructive emotions and extols the virtues of courage, temperance, justice and wisdom.
Best-Known Works
- Parallel Lives
- Moralia
John Locke
BORN 1632
DIED 1704
John Locke was an English philosopher and physician who believed that individuals were naturally endowed with the rights to life, liberty and property. A proponent of limited government, Locke argued that government had obligations to its citizens but limited power over them — and that citizens could overthrow the government in certain circumstances. Citizens, he said, take part in a social contract in which they transfer to the government some of their rights to serve the public good by protecting life, liberty and property. Because government exists to protect the rights of the people, he said, it can be resisted or replaced with another government when it fails to provide that protection.
Best-Known Works
- An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
- Two Treatises of Government
Cicero
BORN 106 BCE
DIED 43 BCE
Marcus Tullius Cicero was a Roman statesman, orator and author of philosophical and political treatises. Cicero believed that individuals should live in accordance with reason and virtue. Natural law, he said, calls for individuals to contribute to the greater good of society. States exist, he said, to uphold laws that are in harmony with universal principles of nature. Thomas Jefferson called him “the father of eloquence and philosophy.”
Best-Known Works
- De Re Publica
(On the Commonwealth) - De Legibus (On Laws)
Seneca
BORN ca. 4 BCE
DIED 65 CE
Lucius Annaeus Seneca was a Roman philosopher and playwright who was considered an intellectual leader in the 1st century. He advanced an aspect of Stoicism that held that removing false beliefs about value was the only path to a happy life, and he focused on moral and ethical matters in much of his texts. Cultivating a strong character and living in accordance with reason were keys to a fulfilled life. He pointed to the dangers of anger and recommended tolerance and calm in all situations. Seneca also believed that one could live in the political and philosophical realms at the same time, as politics could provide good to the community and the philosophical could have a positive influence on the world.
Best-Known Work
- Epistulae morales ad Lucilium
(Moral Letters to Lucilius)
Thomas Jefferson’s Books
In 1771, Thomas Jefferson provided a list of recommended books to Robert Skipwith, who was soon to be Jefferson’s brother-in-law. Jefferson responded to Skipwith’s request with a very long list — more than 100 books — which were divided into categories. Here are a few samples:
Fine Arts Homer’s Iliad
Politics Locke on Government
Enlightment Philosophy A Philosophical Survey of Nature (author unknown)
Law Commentaries on the Laws of England (Sir William Blackstone)
History, Ancient Plutarch’s Lives
History, Modern The History of England (David Hume)
Plant Science The Principles of Agriculture and Vegetation (Francis Home)