Revolution and the Founding Era, 1763–1800

By the eve of the American Revolution, Loyalists were some of the most consistent defenders of the hallowed Christian commonwealth ideal, including the principle of social hierarchy. Among Patriots, certain Christian beliefs were also employed by conservatives such as John Dickinson and John Adams to apply the brakes to the more radical implications of the Revolution. Although the new Federal Constitution’s secular character rankled some conservatives, under the emerging First Party system, many High Federalists still stressed the political value of religion. Meanwhile, the radicalism of the French Revolution prompted conservatives to use explicitly Christian arguments to answer Enlightenment challenges to orthodox belief while painting their political opponents as infidels. By the turn of the nineteenth century, evangelicals were becoming more individualistic and less committed to the larger social and institutional project of conservatism.

Introduction

The revolutionary lawyers, including Adams’s idol James Otis Jr., Pennsylvania’s John Dickinson, and Virginians Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry, along with Adams and others deployed the skills of their profession to further the public welfare in crisis times. They were the framers of the American Revolution and the governments that followed. The words of these lawyers are part of American Scripture and the lawyers sit in the pantheon of the Founding Fathers. But it is a mistake to forget that before and while they were Political leaders, they were practicing counsel. The way that people earn their bread leaves deep traces in the way they explain themselves to one another and to posterity. The lawyers’ years of practice, and the habits of thinking and pleading they mastered as part of that practice, influenced how they approached the crisis and how they fabricated the new nation’s idea of law.