John Witherspoon and the Founding of the American Republic (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "It is one of the little ironies of American history that Benjamin Rush, who once predicted that the accomplishments of his old friend the Rev..." (more)
Key Phrases: New Jersey, John Witherspoon, United States (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"[A] fine intellectual biography of the man—and the first extended study of Witherspoon's political thought ever written. . . ." -- The Weekly Standard, November 28, 2005

Product Description

Jeffry H. Morrison offers readers the first comprehensive look at the political thought and career of John Witherspoon—a Scottish Presbyterian minister and one of America’s most influential and overlooked founding fathers. Witherspoon was an active member of the Continental Congress and was the only clergyman both to sign the Declaration of Independence and to ratify the federal Constitution. During his tenure as president of the College of New Jersey at Princeton, Witherspoon became a mentor to James Madison and influenced many leaders and thinkers of the founding period. He was uniquely positioned at the crossroads of politics, religion, and education during the crucial first decades of the new republic.

Morrison locates Witherspoon in the context of early American political thought and charts the various influences on his thinking. This impressive work of scholarship offers a broad treatment of Witherspoon’s constitutionalism, including his contributions to the mediating institutions of religion and education, and to political institutions from the colonial through the early federal periods. This book will be appreciated by anyone with an interest in American political history and thought and in the relation of religion to American politics.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: University of Notre Dame Press; 1 edition (June 28, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0268034850
• ISBN-13: 978-0268034856
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,458,386 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A significant book on a neglected founder, February 4, 2006

By	B. C. Richards (Tucson, AZ, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Among the American Founding Fathers, it is unlikely that there is a man more influential and yet less well known and studied than Dr. John Witherspoon. Prof. Morrison seeks to help correct this neglect in this brief volume. Dr. John Witherspoon was a Scottish Presbyterian minister who came to America in the late 1760s to become the President of the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University), where he played an active and influential role in American politics, religion and education in the last quarter of the eighteenth century. He was the only minister to sign both the Declaration of Independence and to ratify the Constitution. He was probably Madison's most influential teacher, and, despite his staunch Christian orthodoxy, appears to have enjoyed universally high regard by the other founders, even those such as Franklin and Jefferson who had little use for Biblical Christianity. This book gives an excellent account of a number of interesting aspects of Witherspoon's life and thought.

Chapter 1 gives an overview of the importance of Witherspoon's career in America, including excerpts referring to him from the writings of many of his contemporaries on both sides of the Atlantic. It discusses the significance of his religious alignment, which was orthodox, Reformed, Biblical, Presbyterian Christianity, and how Witherspoon's stature in the colonies influenced the major role that Presbyterians played in the independence movement (King George III called the American Revolution the "Presbyterian rebellion"). The chapter closes by discussing some reasons why Witherspoon has been largely ignored by scholars, such as a scarcity of surviving material, and the fact that most modern scholars will feel very uncomfortable being reminded of a prominent Christian minister who played such an active and influential role in early American politics and who saw no distinction between his religious and his political activities (Witherspoon always insisted on wearing his clerical robes when he attended the Continental Congress).

Chapter 2 examines Witherspoon's religious views, and especially the role that he saw religion playing in the new United States. Witherspoon believed in political freedom of conscience, following the framers of the Westminster Confession, who say that "God alone is lord of the conscience." Nevertheless, he also shared the view common to the founders, that liberty, virtue and faith were equally indispensable in the foundation of a happy society. Witherspoon wrote that "Statesmen may plan and speculate for liberty, but it is religion and morality alone, which can establish the principles upon which freedom can securely stand." Despite his belief in personal religious liberty, Witherspoon could write that "those who are vested with civil authority ought also, with much care, to promote religion and good morals among all under their government" and that "Nothing is more certain than that a general profligacy and corruption of manners make a people ripe for destruction."

Chapter 3 discusses Witherspoon's influence as an educator, and the central place that education had in his day, when its importance for the prosperity and happiness of a nation was viewed as second only to religion. It examines his moral and philosophical teachings, which were drawn largely from Scottish common sense philosophy, and tended strongly toward pragmatism, which became a hallmark not only of early American politics, but also of American life and culture in general.

Chapter 4 considers Witherspoon's role in the American revolution, in terms of both his activities and his theological and philosophical views of liberty and resistance theory. Witherspoon saw little or no distinction between religious and civil tyranny. As a result, his idea of revolution was founded on John Calvin's right of resistance outlined in the Institutes of the Christian Religion, but was also influenced heavily by Locke's generalization of Calvin's idea to civil resistance.

Chapter 5 investigates Witherspoon's activity surrounding the development of the founding documents, including his vocal role at the Continental Congress and his advocacy of a strong and lasting union of the states. It discusses parallels between Witherspoon's writings and The Federalist Papers, his positions on economic questions, and his active role in the formation of the national Presbyterian Church in the United States and the drafting of the Presbyterian Constitution in 1787. In this context, Morrison discusses many of the parallels between the U.S. federal government and Presbyterian government, and he talks about Witherspoon's view of the very limited role that the federal government ought to play (he considered that the scope of the federal government was so limited that a permanent federal city was not a question of pressing importance).

The sixth and final chapter of Morrison's book explores Witherspoon's relation to early American political thinking. It compares his ideas with those of other founders, and it looks at his influence on thinkers such as Madison. In particular, one idea central to Witherspoon's thought that was shared by many of the founders and influential in the framing of the Constitution was the Calvinistic idea of the sinfulness of human nature. The final chapter also considers the influence of various political theorists in early American politics, and discusses the strong pragmatic and empirical spirit that characterized the political views of Witherspoon and the other founders.

If, as Morrison writes, "perhaps more than any other single founder, Witherspoon embodied all of the major intellectual and social elements behind the American founding", it is only to be hoped that we may soon have available a thorough biography of this "forgotten founder" to go along with Morrison's fine volume covering his political and social importance. However, in this oppressive age of political correctness, it is doubtful that a conservative Presbyterian minister will receive too much attention, however influential he may have been. This is an excellent book, and Morrison's rigorous scholarship is consistently obvious in the thorough footnotes (nearly 100 pages of the brief 220 page volume are devoted to appendices, footnotes, bibliography, and index). If you are serious about understanding the early development of the United States, this book will not disappoint you.

4.0 out of 5 stars Brief, but valuable volume on this founding father, November 26, 2009

By	Brian L. Hedrick (Marietta, GA USA) - See all my reviews

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John Witherspoon was a unique blend of educator, clergyman, and founding father. There are not many good books on this neglected founding father, and this one is by no means exhaustive, but it does give a good, balanced overview of his role as the president of Princeton College and the only clergyman to sign the Declaration of Independence, among other significant contributions to the founding of the United States of America. The list of his students at Princeton that went on to serve in government roles is staggering by itself, and secures his place in American History.

This book merely whets your appetite to know more about Witherspoon, but unfortunately, there are not many other sources to go deeper, so I recommend this great volume about a neglected founder that deserves more attention.

5 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars interesting but it didn't really grab me, March 15, 2006

By	R. M. Williams "just an avid reader" (tucson, arizona USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I come to this book by way of personal invitation, in fact scan down to the review labelled:
A significant book on a neglected founder, February 4, 2006
Reviewer: Alex Morden (Tucson, AZ, USA)

it is his copy of the book that i have in hand. and if you haven't read his review, do it now. It is much more interesting and thorough than is mine.
The book is basically a historical monograph, written to professional historians, to convince them to research Witherspoon. The theme of the book is on the next to the last page: "Perhaps more than any other single founder, Witherspoon embodied all of the major intellectual and social elements behind the American founding. This was partly circumstantial: Witherspoon was literally peerless among his founding brothers when it came to combining religious, education, and politics, and seldom in American history have so many key vocations been joined in one man. Witherspoon therefore offers us a chance that is genuinely incomparable, to trace the outlines of the american mind at the foundating..." Essentially i feel like an outsider reading over someone's shoulder with this book, it is addressed to and engages with professional historians. However it is not so dry nor so uninteresting a book that many of us amateurs can not gain from reading what is a short introduction to both the American Revolutionary War themes and Witherspoon, but beware it is not an exciting historical novel set in the same period. *grin*

If you are looking to see if this book ought to be on your shelf, just read the first chapter, it is a read from front to back type of book. Mostly because he does not repeat himself and you'll miss something if you don't read it in this manner. I found myself getting up from my easy reading chair and googling people and writings by name, it is a well researched and documented book, as befits the audience and the purpose, so read with a pen or highlighter in hand. It is not an extensive introduction to Witherspoon, it is a tease, a hint of what could be done if Witherspoon got more academic attention, it is not the last word, it is the first word.

So What? should i drop everything and study to become a Witherspoon expert? Maybe someone with the right outlook and right experience might very well read this book and do so, but i am not encouraged to do so. This book is enough Witherspoon for me, i pulled perhaps 50 quotes out of the book. Had a few nice thoughts about how theology and in particular, reformed and Presbyterian theology was influential beyond its numbers in both the lead up to the Revolutionary War and it its aftermath and constitution writing period. But this is not my major interest in history just an aside, if it is your interest this may rate an important read.

The one big idea that i will take away is "the great effect of Scottish Philosophy especially in its Common Sense forms and its in particular it's effect on moral philosophy, and the rejection of divine right of kings, and religious liberty for dissenters" see: pg 127, this way the book firms up a few things i've read in Mark Noll and George Marsden and now i have the name Witherspoon to research more throughly if i desire. Plus because of the extensive apparatus of the book, it becomes an entry point into the literature, certainly a reason not only to own the book but to keep it in mind. So i don't feel that i wasted my time on the book, but it did not strike me like it did the person i borrowed it from, as a book worth recommending and pursuing. However i would like to write better reviews and i will take the one referred to above as an excellent example of how to write a book review.