The Founders' Library

The most widely cited classical work in the founders' correspondence. De Officiis argues that moral duty and public service are inseparable — a direct influence on the founders' conception of civic virtue. De Re Publica defines the republic as res publica, the public thing, belonging to the people. Madison, Hamilton, and Adams all cite Cicero directly.

Biographies of Greek and Roman statesmen and generals, paired for comparison. The founders read Plutarch as a primary source on republican virtue, civic courage, and the danger of tyranny. Lives of Lycurgus, Solon, Brutus, and Caesar were the most cited. The pseudonyms "Plutarch" and "Publius" (used in the Federalist Papers) derive from this tradition.

The founders read Thucydides as a case study in the failure of Athenian democracy — mob rule, demagogy, and imperial overreach. Madison drew on the Peloponnesian War in Federalist No. 18 as evidence for why small republics could not survive without union. The Melian Dialogue is the founders' source for the argument that the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.

The account of Roman imperial corruption and the destruction of the republic. The founders used Tacitus as a warning — what happens to a free people when power concentrates. The pen name "Tacitus" was used by multiple founders in political pamphlets. John Adams called him "the greatest Painter of the Portrait of Tyranny that ever existed."

The founding text of international law and natural rights theory. Grotius argued that certain rights existed independent of government or religion — rights that belonged to human beings by nature. His framework gave the founders a non-theological basis for the claim that rights pre-existed government. Jefferson's phrase "the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God" in the Declaration draws on this tradition.

Pufendorf extended Grotius's natural law framework and argued that the social contract was the foundation of legitimate government. His work was the standard text in colonial colleges on natural law, read by nearly every founder who attended university. Jefferson listed Pufendorf alongside Locke and Sidney as one of the three essential natural law sources.

The most directly influential text on the Declaration of Independence. Locke's Second Treatise argues that all men are created equal, that they possess natural rights to life, liberty, and property, and that the purpose of government is to protect those rights. When government violates them, the people have the right to dissolve it. Jefferson's "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" adapts Locke's "life, liberty, and estate."

Hume's political essays were widely read in the colonies and had direct influence on Madison's Federalist No. 10. His essay "Idea of a Perfect Commonwealth" proposed a large extended republic as more stable than a small direct democracy — reversing the received wisdom from Montesquieu that republics could only survive in small territories. Madison adapted this argument directly. "Of the Balance of Power," "Of Parties in General," and "Of the Independence of Parliament" were among the most cited. Hume also argued that commerce and liberty were mutually reinforcing — an argument Hamilton developed in his economic program.

One hundred and forty-four letters published in the London Journal and British Journal, taking as their pen name the Roman senator Cato the Younger — the last defender of the Republic against Julius Caesar. Cato's Letters argued for liberty of the press, freedom of conscience, the corruption of standing armies, and the right of the people to resist tyrannical government. They were the most widely read political writings in the American colonies in the decades before the Revolution — more widely distributed than Locke. Nearly every colonial printer owned a bound set. The letters are the direct source of the colonial habit of signing political pamphlets with classical Roman pseudonyms.

Harrington's fictional commonwealth argued that political power follows economic power — whoever owns the land governs. He was the first to argue that a republic required a broad distribution of property to survive. His ideas on separation of powers, rotation of office, and written constitutions influenced both the English Commonwealth and the American founders. John Adams cited Harrington extensively in A Defence of the Constitutions of Government.

The source of separation of powers theory as applied by the founders. Montesquieu argued that liberty required the legislative, executive, and judicial powers to be held by different bodies. The Constitutional Convention debated Montesquieu extensively. He is cited more than any other author in the Federalist Papers — 16 direct references by name. Madison's argument in Federalist No. 47 on separation of powers is built entirely on Montesquieu.

Sidney was executed in 1683 for treason — the manuscript of Discourses was used as evidence against him. Published fifteen years after his death, it became a foundational text of Whig republicanism and colonial resistance. Jefferson listed Sidney alongside Locke and Aristotle as essential reading. The phrase "resistance to tyrants is obedience to God" is often attributed to Sidney, though the original source is disputed.

Burlamaqui's Principles of Natural and Politic Law synthesized Grotius and Pufendorf into a more accessible form and was widely used as a textbook in colonial colleges. His argument that happiness is the goal of natural law — and that governments exist to secure the conditions of human happiness — is reflected directly in Jefferson's "pursuit of happiness" in the Declaration.

The founders knew Magna Carta primarily through Blackstone's Commentaries and Edward Coke's Institutes of the Laws of England. Coke had argued in the early 1600s that Magna Carta established principles no Parliament could override — a direct ancestor of the idea that fundamental law limits legislative power. James Otis cited Magna Carta in his 1761 argument against writs of assistance. It is the origin point of due process, trial by jury, and the rule of law in the Anglo-American tradition.

Enacted following the Glorious Revolution, the English Bill of Rights established parliamentary supremacy, prohibited standing armies in peacetime without Parliamentary consent, guaranteed free elections, and protected the right to petition. The founders read it as proof that even the English constitution recognized limits on royal power. The American Bill of Rights adapts many of its provisions — and in several cases strengthens them.

The standard legal reference for every American lawyer of the founding generation. Nearly every colonial attorney — including Jefferson, Hamilton, Adams, and Madison — read Blackstone. His definition of natural rights, his account of English common law, and his framework for parliamentary sovereignty were the baseline from which the founders argued. When they pushed back against Parliament, they argued from Blackstone's own principles.

The first major American pamphlet asserting colonial rights under natural law. Otis argued that taxation without representation violated both natural law and the English constitution. John Adams called Otis's 1761 speech against writs of assistance "the first act of opposition to the arbitrary claims of Great Britain" — the speech from which the Revolution grew. This pamphlet is the written version of that argument.

Published the same year as Otis, Hopkins made the colonial argument against parliamentary taxation from the position of Rhode Island — a colony with a unique self-governing charter. He argued that Parliament had authority over matters of general imperial concern but not over the internal taxation of the colonies, which had their own legislatures. Written a decade before Common Sense and eleven years before the first shots at Lexington. The original pamphlet is at the Brown University Digital Repository.

Twelve letters published anonymously in the Pennsylvania Chronicle and widely reprinted across all thirteen colonies. Dickinson argued that Parliament had the right to regulate colonial trade but not to tax the colonies for revenue — a distinction that became the basis of the colonial constitutional argument. Franklin arranged for the letters to be published in London. Benjamin Rush called Dickinson "the Penman of the Revolution."

The pamphlet that made independence thinkable to ordinary colonists. Paine's argument was not rooted in English constitutional law — he dismissed the English constitution as a relic of Norman conquest. He argued from first principles: monarchy was absurd, hereditary government was absurd, and independence was not only possible but immediately necessary. Washington wrote to Joseph Reed in January 1776 that Common Sense was "working a powerful change in the minds of many men." Full text at Yale Avalon and Project Gutenberg.

Eighty-five essays published under the pseudonym Publius arguing for ratification of the Constitution. Hamilton wrote 51, Madison 29, Jay 5. The papers cover separation of powers (Federalist 51), faction (Federalist 10), the dangers of a bill of rights (Federalist 84), the treaty power (Federalist 64, Jay), and the case for union. They remain the primary interpretive source for the Constitution's meaning as understood by its drafters. Full text at Yale Avalon and the LOC.

Adams's three-volume defense of bicameralism, separation of powers, and balanced government, written while he served as Minister to Great Britain. Drawing on Harrington, Montesquieu, Cicero, and classical history, Adams argued that pure democracy always collapsed and that republican government required institutions to balance the competing interests of the few and the many. It was controversial — critics thought it too aristocratic — but it influenced the Constitutional Convention.