The American Founding 250 Years Later (Collection Page Cover)

The American Founding was an argument about liberty and power. Two hundred and fifty years later, that argument continues.

Explore essays, primary sources, podcasts, videos, and new content on the American Revolution, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the ideas that still shape America’s experiment in freedom.

In 1776, the Declaration of Independence announced a radical claim: all people possess rights no government creates and no government may rightfully destroy. Two hundred and fifty years later, that claim remains one of the most powerful—and unfinished—ideas in American history.

Created for the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, which is largely considered the start of the American Revolution, The American Founding: 250 Years Later revisits the Revolution, the Declaration, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the fierce debates that have shaped the United States. This collection brings together essays, primary sources, historical explainers, podcasts, videos, and new work from Lib​er​tar​i​an​ism​.org exploring the ideas that launched a nation and continue to challenge it: liberty, power, rights, dissent, self-​government, and the limits of political authority.

The American Founding was never a simple story. It was a revolution against imperial rule, a declaration of universal rights, a constitutional experiment, and an argument over how much power any government should be trusted to hold. Federalists and Anti-​Federalists clashed over the future of the republic. Advocates of liberty challenged inherited hierarchies. Critics of slavery and exclusion exposed the gap between America’s ideals and its institutions. Defenders of rights demanded stronger protections for speech, conscience, property, self-​government, and the liberties retained by the people.

America’s 250th anniversary is an opportunity to return to first principles and ask why the Founding’s central questions still matter: What rights belong to individuals by nature? What makes political power legitimate? How can free people restrain government before government restrains them? And what does the American experiment in liberty still demand of us?

Over the coming months, this collection will feature new and previously published content on the Founding’s enduring themes: revolution and natural rights, constitutionalism and dissent, federal power and local self-​government, civil liberties and the Bill of Rights, and the unfinished work of keeping freedom alive.

Declaring independence may have happened 250 years ago, but maintaining and protecting liberty must happen every day.

Articles
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Tocqueville, no text
Sarah Thomas
Democratic Vitality: Alexis de Tocqueville and the American Founding at 250

Sarah Thomas evaluates Tocqueville’s Democracy in America in light of the American Founding’s 250th anniversary, emphasizing two underappreciated themes: democracy as providential and conducive to peace, and American constitutionalism in relation to race. The essay also reflects on how Tocqueville might assess American democracy today, given progress in equality yet rising centralization.

Adams - Remember the Ladies
Abigail Adams
“Remember the Ladies”: A Letter from Abigail Adams to John Adams (1776)

In a letter to John Adams on March 31, 1776, Abigail Adams warned that the new American legislators should not replicate the injustices of the old political order. “Remember the Ladies,” she wrote, urging that women not be placed “in the unlimited power of the Husbands.”

Meany, Paul - The Boston Massacre and the Rule of Law (no text)
Paul Meany
The Boston Massacre and the Rule of Law

For the anniversary of the Boston Massacre, Paul Meany examines how ancient and Enlightenment thinkers ultimately influenced the future of the rule of law in the United States during the trials for the infamous confrontation.

Meany, Paul - The Black American Founders (no text)
Paul Meany
The Black American Founders

When the American founding formed from the professed creed that “all men are created equal,” it created the paradox of an egalitarian government that allowed slavery. Paul Meany explores the lives of lesser-​known revolutionary figures who truly fought for freedom for all.

A photograph of the desk used by Thomas Jefferson when writing the Declaration of Independence, and for much of the rest of his life.
Thomas Jefferson
Letter from Thomas Jefferson to Henry Lee about the Declaration of Independence

Jefferson explains that the Declaration of Independence sought to capture a particular strain of political thought that was important and prevalent in the time leading up to the American Revolution.

The American Founding: 250 Years Later (Collection Cover)
John Berlau
A Declaration of Independence from the Administrative State?

The decision in Jarkesey v. SEC offers an opportunity to reflect on the importance of checks and balances and the separation of powers.

Rome’s Fall and America’s Founding 1
Paul Meany
Rome’s Fall and America’s Founding

The writings of the ancient Roman Cicero inspired countless revolutionaries.

Autocracy, Democracy, and the American Founding
David Edwards
Autocracy, Democracy, and the American Founding

The American Founders saw themselves as engaged in a long English tradition of resistance to tyranny. They designed the Constitution to avoid tyrannies of both democratic and autocratic varieties.

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Paul Meany
The Fear of Standing Armies is the Root of the Second Amendment

As the debate around guns becomes increasingly divisive, it is important to know the original purpose of the Second Amendment.

Media Name: how_the_anti-federalists_shaped_the_constitution_0.jpg
David Edwards
How the Anti-​Federalists Shaped the Constitution

The Anti-​Federalists had a strong distrust of government power. A national government with too much power was, as far as they were concerned, a pathway to government oppression.

Rieger - The Right of Conscience From Locke to Jefferson
Michael Rieger
The Right of Conscience: From Locke to Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson’s ideas on religious freedom were heavily influenced by John Locke.

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Anonymous
“A Mere Monopoly of Men:” A Slave Writes to Thomas Jefferson

“O! Thomas, you have had a long nap, and spent a great number of years in ease & plenty, upon our hard earned property.”

Constitution: A Libertarianism.org Guide
Robert Yates
Brutus’s Anti-​Federalist No. 1

Anti-​federalist Robert Yates (under the pseudonym Brutus) argues against the constitution, foreseeing many of the expansions of federal power.

Constitution: A Libertarianism.org Guide
James Madison
The Federalist No. 45

Madison attempts to allay concerns about the expansion of federal powers under the Constitution.

Powell, Jim - A Right to Rebel A Biography of Thomas Paine
Jim Powell
A Right to Rebel: A Biography of Thomas Paine
Agitator and pamphleteer par excellence, Thomas Paine was involved in both the American and French Revolutions.