The English Radical Whig Origins of American Constitutionalism

A law-review article arguing that recent scholarship on early American constitutionalism has over-read its civic-republican strain and under-read its Whig one. Mayer traces the American framers’ vocabulary — mixed government, standing armies, corruption, the balanced constitution — back to the English radical Whig opposition writers, and argues that reading the founding as republican rather than Whig has misled a generation of interpretation.

Why it’s on the list: It sits in The American Experiment section among the works on where the founders’ ideas came from, next to Pocock’s Machiavellian Moment and Storing on the Anti-Federalists — the list deliberately includes the argument against the republican reading rather than only the republican reading itself.

Where I saw it: On Brendan McCord’s Philosopher-Entrepreneur Reading List, in the section on The American Experiment, saved to Kyle’s “Books To Read” Apple Note. The full 211-entry transcription lives on The Philosopher-Entrepreneur Reading List.

Connections

• The Philosopher-Entrepreneur Reading List — the list this came from.