An Essay In Vindication Of The Continental Colonies Of America, from A Censure of Mr. Adam Smith, in his Theory of Moral Sentiments.
- Arthur Lee (author)
- Jack P. Greene (collection editor)
Published in 1764, this essay is a pamphlet by Arthur Lee — a Virginia-born lawyer and future American statesman — written in direct response to a critical remark https://oll.libertyfund.org/people/adam-smith had leveled against the American colonies in his https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/smith-the-theory-of-moral-sentiments-and-on-the-origins-of-languages-stewart-ed (1759). Smith had suggested that colonists, through their practice of slaveholding and their treatment of Indigenous peoples, demonstrated a deficiency of moral sympathy.
Lee pushes back against this censure, arguing in defense of the colonies' character and their fitness for self-governance. The pamphlet is notable as an early flashpoint in the transatlantic debate over American rights and identity, anticipating many of the arguments that would grow more urgent in the years leading up to the Revolution.
Show more
The text of these 18th century pamphlets has been converted by machine from scanned PDFs of the original microfilm copies. While the text has been machine-proofed, transcription errors may still remain. For example, the 18th-century long S, ſ , may be rendered as “f,” some words may be incorrectly transcribed, and there may be repeated words or phrases.