American states of nature : the origins of independence, 1761-1775 / Mark Somos.
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Somos, Mark (författare)
- ISBN 9780190462857
- Publicerad: New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2019]
- Copyright: ©2019
- Engelska xiii, 406 pages
Innehållsförteckning
Sammanfattning
Ämnesord
Stäng
- List of figures -- Acknowledgments. Introduction : The background and varieties of state of nature theorizing -- The distinctive American state of nature discourse -- Method, scope, and outline. The state of nature: sources and traditions : The uncivilized state of nature -- Advertising America -- Nathaniel Ames's "Almanac" (1763) -- The state of nature in pre-revolutionary colonial education. Rights and constitutions: from "Paxton's Case" to the Stamp Act : John Adams, James Otis, and "Paxton's Case" (1761) -- Abraham Williams, election sermon (1762) -- Otis, "Rights" and "Considerations" (1764-65) -- Thomas Pownall. The Stamp Act and the state of nature : "Warren's Case" (1765-67) -- Enter Blackstone -- Boston against the Stamp Act -- The road to repeal -- Richard Bland, "Inquiry" (1766). Creating and contesting the American state of nature : The constitutive state of nature -- "English Liberties" (1680-1774) and "British Liberties" (1766-67) -- Ancient constitutionalism -- The freedoms of conscience, speech, religion, and the press -- Loyalist versus patriot states of nature (1769-72). The turn to self-defense : Colonial independence -- The Boston pamphlet -- Christian resistance -- The Boston Tea Party and the political economy of the state of nature -- Rival epistemologies. The First Continental Congress: the consolidation of an American constitutional trope : Galloway's plan and the state of nature -- Loyalist versus patriot states of nature (1773-76). On slavery and race : Chattel slavery -- Native Americans. Conclusion. Appendix 1: a manuscript source for John Adams's lost abstract of James Otis Jr.'s speech in the 1761 "Paxton's Case" -- Appendix 2: recent and ongoing Supreme Court cases that would benefit from an accurate historical reconstruction of the American state of nature discourse -- Bibliography -- Index.
- This book transforms our understanding of the American Revolution and the early making of the Constitution. The journey to an independent Untied States generated important arguments about the existing condition of Americans, in which rival interpretations of the term "state of nature" played a crucial role. "State of nature" typically implied a pre-political condition and was often invoked in support of individual rights to property, self-defense, and to leave or to form a political state. It could connote either a paradise - a baseline condition of virtue and health - or a hell on earth. This mutable phrase was well-known in Europe and its empires. In the British colonies, " state of nature" appeared thousands of times in juridical, theological, medical, political, economic, and other texts from 1630 to 1810. But by the 1760s, a distinctively American state-of-nature discourse started to emerge. It combined existing meaning and sidelined others in moments of intense contestation, such as the Stamp Act crisis of 1765-66 and the First Continental Congress of 1774. in laws, resolutions, petitions, sermons, broadsides, pamphlets, letters, and diaries, the American states of nature came to justify independence at least as much as colonial formulations of liberty, property, and individual rights did. In this groundbreaking book, the author focuses on the formative decade and a half just before the American Revolution. The author's investigation begins with a 1761 speech by James Otis that John Adams described as "a dissertation on the state of nature," and celebrated as the real start of the Revolution. Drawing on an enormous range of both public and personal writings, many rarely or never before discussed, the book follows the development of America's state-of-nature discourse to 1775. The founding generation transformed this flexible concept into a powerful theme that shapes their legacy to this day. No constitutional history of the Revolution can be written without it.
Ämnesord
- Nordamerikanska frihetskriget 1775-1783 (sao)
- Politiska förhållanden (sao)
- Naturrätt (sao)
- Naturfilosofi (sao)
- Natural law. (LCSH)
- Philosophy of nature -- United States. (LCSH)
- Nature and civilization -- United States. (LCSH)
- Natural law. (fast)
- Nature and civilization. (fast)
- Philosophy of nature. (fast)
- Politics and government. (fast)
- War -- Causes. (fast)
- Natural law (LCSH)
- Philosophy of nature (LCSH)
- United States -- Politics and government -- Philosophy. (LCSH)
- United States -- History -- Revolution, 1775-1783 -- Causes. (LCSH)
- United States. (fast)
- Förenta staterna
- 1775-1783 (fast)
Genre
- History. (fast)
Konferensnamn
- American Revolution (1775-1783)
Klassifikation
- JK54 (LCC)
- 973.3/1 (DDC)
- Kqa (kssb/8 (machine generated))
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