Political Sermons of the Founding Era
This is a Reading List based upon a Liberty Fund Conference on “Liberty in the Political Sermons of the American Founding Era.”
Liberty in the Political Sermons of the American Founding Era
Guide to the Readings
Edition used:
See also the Topic:
- Collections: The American Revolution and Constitution.
Session I: Liberty and Religious Understandings of Civil Government.
- §3 Elisha Williams’s “The Essential Rights and Liberties of Protestants” (1744), pages 55–78 and 97–118
- § 32 Samuel Langdon’s “The Republic of the Israelites an Example to the American States” (1788), pages 945–967
Session II: The Connections of Religious and Civil Liberty.
- §17 John Witherspoon’s “The Dominion of Providence Over the Passions of Men” (1776), pages 533–558
- §37 John Leland’s “The Rights of Conscience Inalienable” (1791), pages 1083–1099
Session III: Christianity, Liberty, and Rebellion.
- §12 from Samuel Sherwood’s “Scriptural Instructions to Civil Rulers” (1774), pages 394–407
- §13 John Wesley’s “A Calm Address to Our American Colonies” (1775), pages 413–420
Session IV: Religious Practice and Religious Liberty After Disestablishment.
- §11 Isaac Backus’s “An Appeal to the Public for Religious Liberty” (1773), pages 331–367
- §38 David Tappan’s “A Sermon for the Day of General Election” (1792), pages 1105–1127
Session V: Comparing American Religion and Religious Liberty to the British Experience.
- §34 Richard Price’s “A Discourse on the Love of Our Country” (1790), pages 1009–1028
Session VI: Comparing American Religion and Religious Liberty to the French Experience.
Reading Lists
- Addison and Smith: Freedom and Responsibility
- American Liberty in Political Documents before 1787
- An Introduction to the Major Writings of Ludwig von Mises
- Banned Books
- British and French Sources of American Constitutionalism
- Burlamaqui, Bayle: Freedom Tolerance, Natural Law
- Cato’s Letters: Liberty and Responsibility
- Cobden: Liberty and Peace
- Constant’s Principles of Politics
- Emerson on Anti-slavery
- Eric Mack, An Introduction to the Political Thought of John Locke
- Gibbon and the Rise of Christianity and Islam
- Homer’s Iliad: Liberty and Responsibility
- Hume, Smith, and Ferguson: Wealth, Commerce, and Corruption
- Hume: History of England
- James Tyrrell on Authority and Liberty
- Jefferson-Hamilton Debate
- John Milton: Liberty in his Prose and Poetry
- Major Political Thinkers: Plato to Mill
- Mandeville: Vice, Virtue and Liberty
- Mill-Macaulay Debate on Government
- Old Testament and English Political Thought
- Political Sermons of the Founding Era
- Readings from the OLL Reader
- Rousseau and Hume: Contrasting Views of Liberty
- Shakespeare and Marlowe: Liberty in Four Plays
- Shakespeare: Liberty and Responsibility
- Socialist Tracts
- Sophocles and Aeschylus: Blood Justice and the Founding of Legal Order
- Tacitus: Liberty and Tyranny in the Annals
- The Ruling Class and the State: An Anthology
- Thomas Paine and American Liberty
- Thucydides: War, Empire, and Liberty