Natural Rights and the New Republicanism

by Michael Zuckert

Overview

In Natural Rights and the New Republicanism, Michael Zuckert proposes a new view of the political philosophy that lay behind the founding of the United States. In a book that will interest political scientists, historians, and philosophers, Zuckert looks at the Whig or opposition tradition as it developed in England. He argues that there were, in fact, three opposition traditions: Protestant, Grotian, and Lockean. Before the English Civil War the opposition was inspired by the effort to find the "one true Protestant politics--an effort that was seen to be a failure by the end of the Interregnum period. The Restoration saw the emergence of the Whigs, who sought a way to ground politics free from the sectarian theological-scriptural conflicts of the previous period.


The Whigs were particularly influenced by the Dutch natural law philosopher Hugo Grotius. However, as Zuckert shows, by the mid-eighteenth century John Locke had replaced Grotius as the philosopher of the Whigs. Zuckert's analysis concludes with a penetrating examination of John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon, the English "Cato," who, he argues, brought together Lockean political philosophy and pre-existing Whig political science into a new and powerful synthesis. Although it has been misleadingly presented as a separate "classical republican" tradition in recent scholarly discussions, it is this "new republicanism" that served as the philosophical point of departure for the founders of the American republic.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780691059709
Publisher:	Princeton University Press
Publication date:	03/09/1998
Edition description:	REPRINT
Pages:	410
Product dimensions:	7.75(w) x 10.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Michael P. Zuckert is Congdon Professor of Political Science at Carleton College. He is the author of The National Rights Republic: Studies on the Foundations of the American Political Tradition.

Table of Contents

Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Prologue	3
Pt. 1	Protestants	27
Ch. 1	Aristotelian Royalism and Reformation Absolutism: Divine Right Theory	29
Ch. 2	Aristotelian Constitutionalism and Reformation Contractarianism: From Ancient Constitution to Original Contract	49
Ch. 3	Contract and Christian Liberty: John Milton	77
Pt. 2	Whigs	95
Ch. 4	Whig Contractarianisms and Rights	97
Ch. 5	The Master of Whig Political Philosophy	119
Ch. 6	A Neo-Harringtonian Moment? Whig Political Science and the Old Republicanism	150
Pt. 3	Natural Rights and the New Republicanism	185
Ch. 7	Locke and the Reformation of Natural Law: Questions Concerning the Law of Nature	187
Ch. 8	Locke and the Reformation of Natural Law: Two Treatises of Government	216
Ch. 9	Locke and the Reformation of Natural Law: Of Property	247
Ch. 10	Locke and the Transformation of Whig Political Philosophy	289
Notes	321
Bibliography	377
Index	391

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"Zuckert has written a very fine book. It makes sense—and good sense—out of the political thought of Locke's predecessors and establishes both the distinctiveness of Whig thought and the radicalism of Locke's departure from it."—Wilson Carey McWilliams, Rutgers University

Wilson Carey McWilliams

Zuckert has written a very fine book. It makes sense—and good sense—out of the political thought of Locke's predecessors and establishes both the distinctiveness of Whig thought and the radicalism of Locke's departure from it.
— Wilson Carey McWilliams, Rutgers University

Editorial Reviews

"This exemplary work of historical reconstruction dramatically transforms our understanding of the genealogy of early American political thought. No one who deals with the eighteenth-century Anglo-American political tradition will be able to avoid the unsettling challenge of Zuckert's original and painstakingly documented reinterpretation, for this is one of those rare scholarly achievements, at once capacious and meticulous, that forces all of us back to the drawing boards."---Thomas L. Pangle, William and Mary Quarterly

"This is a work of careful scholarship and vast erudition.... By illustrating how Lockean and republican ideas came to be blended, Zuckert forcefully recounts the origins of the American republic."---Richard Vernier, The Journal of American History

From the Publisher

This is a work of careful scholarship and vast erudition.... By illustrating how Lockean and republican ideas came to be blended, Zuckert forcefully recounts the origins of the American republic.

The Journal of American History - Richard Vernier

This exemplary work of historical reconstruction dramatically transforms our understanding of the genealogy of early American political thought. No one who deals with the eighteenth-century Anglo-American political tradition will be able to avoid the unsettling challenge of Zuckert's original and painstakingly documented reinterpretation, for this is one of those rare scholarly achievements, at once capacious and meticulous, that forces all of us back to the drawing boards.
— Thomas L. Pangle

William and Mary Quarterly

This is a work of careful scholarship and vast erudition.... By illustrating how Lockean and republican ideas came to be blended, Zuckert forcefully recounts the origins of the American republic.
— Richard Vernier

The Journal of American History

This exemplary work of historical reconstruction dramatically transforms our understanding of the genealogy of early American political thought. No one who deals with the eighteenth-century Anglo-American political tradition will be able to avoid the unsettling challenge of Zuckert's original and painstakingly documented reinterpretation, for this is one of those rare scholarly achievements, at once capacious and meticulous, that forces all of us back to the drawing boards.

William and Mary Quarterly - Thomas L. Pangle