Details

Subject(s)

• Presbyterian Church—United States—Clergy—Biography [Browse]
• Statesmen—United States—Biography [Browse]
• Church and state—United States—History [Browse]
• United States—History—Revolution, 1775-1783 [Browse]
• United States—Politics and government—1775-1783 [Browse]
• United States—Declaration of Independence—Signers—Biography [Browse]
• United States Continental Congress—History [Browse]
• Princeton University—History—18th century [Browse]
• Witherspoon, John 1723-1794 [Browse]

Related name

• Omohundro Institute of Early American History & Culture [Browse]

Summary note

In 1768, John Witherspoon, Presbyterian leader of the evangelical Popular party faction in the Scottish Kirk, became the College of New Jersey's sixth president. At Princeton, he mentored constitutional architect James Madison; as a New Jersey delegate to the Continental Congress, he was the only clergyman to sign the Declaration of Independence. Although Witherspoon is often thought to be the chief conduit of moral sense philosophy in America, Mailer's comprehensive analysis of this founding father's writings demonstrates the resilience of his evangelical beliefs. Witherspoon's Presbyterian evangelicalism competed with, combined with and even superseded the civic influence of Scottish Enlightenment thought in the British Atlantic world. From back cover.

Notes

"Published for the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, Williamsburg, Virginia."

Bibliographic references

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Contents

• Introduction: Enlightenment and religion between Scotland and America
• "A road to distinction very different from that of his more successful companions": Augustinian piety in Witherspoon's Scotland
• "Of local and temporary reformation, local and occasional depravation": Kirk divisions and American prospects at midcentury
• "The bulwark of the religion and liberty of America": Presbyterian revivalism and American higher education before Witherspoon
• "All the conclusions drawn from these principles must be vague": American moral philosophy after Witherspoon
• "When their fathers have fallen asleep": domestic culture, public virtue, and the power of language
• "Every one of them full of the old Cameronian resisting sentiments": piety, Anglo-Scottish union, and American independence
• "How far the magistrate ought to interfere in matters of religion": public faith and the ambiguity of political representation after 1776
• "The latent causes of faction are thus sown in the nature of man": John Witherspoon, James Madison, and the American founding
• "Great things hath God done for his American Zion": Presbyterian moral philosophy and educational conflict during the nineteenth century.

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ISBN

• 9781469628189 ((cloth ; : alk. paper))
• 146962818X ((cloth ; : alk. paper))
• 146965220X ((paperback))
• 9781469652207 ((paperback))

LCCN

2016024829

OCLC

951190457

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