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The ultimate guide to the thinkers and ideas that have shaped the United States, featuring essential primary sources introduced by leading scholars
The Princeton History of American Political Thought showcases the defining voices and debates in U.S. political history, spanning from the 1600s to the present. Each set of primary sources is accompanied by a short, accessible essay by a leading scholar, situating the writings in a broader American conversation about what the nation is, has been, and could be. Without shying away from the disagreements that have shaped the nation, the book shows how these controversies have played out within a broadly consistent set of questions, commitments, and concerns. The result captures the diversity, depth, and power of the American political tradition.
An essential reference, The Princeton History of American Political Thought is not just for scholars and students but for anyone who seeks to understand the United States: its past, its present, and its future possibilities.
- Features short primary sources that range from the 1600s to the present
- Includes accessible introductions and essays about each set of sources, written by leading experts
- Showcases the wide variety of perspectives that characterize the American political tradition
Price: $55.00
Pages: 904
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Imprint: Princeton University Press
Publication Date:
05 January 2027
ISBN: 9780691243177
Format: Hardcover
BISACs:
Susan McWilliams Barndt is professor of politics at Pomona College. Her books include The American Road Trip and American Political Thought and A Political Companion to James Baldwin. Nicholas Buccola is professor of government and the Dr. Jules M. Whitehill Professor of Humanism and Ethics at Claremont McKenna College. His books include One Man’s Freedom: Goldwater, King, and the Struggle over an American Ideal (Princeton). Roosevelt Montás is the John and Margaret Bard Professor in Liberal Education and Civic Life at Bard College and the author of Rescuing Socrates: How the Great Books Changed My Life and Why They Matter for a New Generation (Princeton).
- Preface
- Introduction Susan McWilliams Barndt, Nicholas Buccola, and Roosevelt Montás
- 1: The American Puritans Andrew Delbanco and Roosevelt Montás
- John Winthrop, A Model of Christian Charity (1630)
- The Examination of Mrs. Anne Hutchinson (1637)
- Afterword
- 2: Roger Williams (c. 1603–1683) Teresa M. Bejan and Matthew H. Young
- A Key into the Language of America (1643)
- Mr. Cottons Letter Lately Printed, Examined and Answered (1644)
- The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution, for Cause of Conscience (1644)
- The Ship of State Letter (1655)
- George Fox Digg’d Out of his Burrowes (1676)
- Afterword
- 3: King Philip’s War Daniel Mandell
- Edward Winslow, from A Relation or Journal of the Beginnings and Proceedings of the English Plantation settled at Plimoth in New England (“Mourt’s Relation”) (1622)
- John Easton, A Relation of the Indian Warre (1675)
- Roger Williams, Letter (1676)
- Edward Wharton, New-England’s Present Sufferings under Their Cruel Neighboring Indians (1675)
- Increase Mather, Brief History of the Warr with the Indians in New-England (1676)
- William Hubbard, The Present State of New England Being a Narrative of the Troubles with the Indians in New England (1677)
- Daniel Gookin, Doings and Sufferings of the Christian Indians (1677)
- Mary Rowlandson, The Sovereignty and Goodness of God (1682)
- Nathaniel Bacon, “Declaration” (1676)
- Edmund Randolph, Report to King Charles II (1676)
- Richard Coote, Earl of Belloment, “Proclamation” (1699)
- Zurvia Mitchell, from the Boston Globe (1921)
- Afterword
- 4: John Dickinson (1732–1808) Jane E. Calvert
- Friends and Countrymen (1765)
- An Address to the Committee of Correspondence of Barbados (1766)
- “Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania, Letter I” (1767)
- “Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania, Letter III” (1767)
- “Letters from a Framer in Pennsylvania, Letter XII” (1768)
- Stanza from “A Song to the Tune Heart of Oak” (1768)
- To the Public (1768)
- “A Letter to the Inhabitants of the Province of Quebec” (1774)
- Declaration on the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms (1775)
- Draft Religious Liberty Clause in the Articles of Confederation (1776)
- Letter to John Jay (1779)
- Notes on Slavery from the Federal Convention (1787)
- “Observations on the Constitution proposed by the Federal Convention, No. 1” (1788)
- Afterword
- 5: Thomas Paine (1737–1809) Jack Fruchtman
- Common Sense (1776)
- Rights of Man, Part One (1791)
- Rights of Man, Part Two (1792)
- Afterword
- 6: Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) Annette Gordon-Reed
- Declaration of Independence (1776)
- Letter to James Madison (1789)
- First Inaugural Address (1801)
- Letter to Roger Weightman (1826)
- Afterword
- 7: John Adams (1735–1826) Luke Mayville
- A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America, Volume I (1787)
- Afterword
- 8: Alexander Hamilton (1757–1804) Kate Elizabeth Brown
- Federalist no. 32 (1788)
- Federalist no. 82 (1788)
- A Letter from Phocion to the Considerate Citizens of New York (1784)
- Second Letter from Phocion (1784)
- “Report on the Petition of Christopher Saddler” (1790)
- Afterword
- 9: James Madison (1751–1836) Jeremy D. Bailey
- Federalist no. 10 (1787)
- Federalist no. 37 (1788)
- “Charters” (1792)
- “Universal Peace” (1792)
- Afterword
- 10: The Federalists Alan Gibson
- James Madison, “Vices of the Political System of the United States” (c. 1787)
- James Wilson, “Speech at a Public Meeting in Philadelphia” or “State House Yard Speech” (1787)
- John Jay, Federalist no. 2 (1787)
- James Madison, The Federalist Papers (1788)
- James Wilson, speeches on the presidency at the Constitutional Convention (1787)
- Alexander Hamilton, Federalist no. 69 (1788)
- Afterword
- 11: The Anti-Federalists David J. Siemers
- George Mason, Objections to the Constitution of Government formed by the Convention (1787)
- The Address and Reasons of Dissent of the Minority of the Convention of the State of Pennsylvania to their Constituents (1787)
- Letters from the Federal Farmer to the Republican (1787–1788)
- Brutus (1788)
- A Columbian Patriot’s Observations on the Constitution (1788)
- Republicus (1788)
- Governor John Collins of Rhode Island to the President of Congress (1788)
- Letter from Aedanus Burke to John Lamb (1788)
- Afterword
- 12: William Apess (1798–1839) Burke A. Hendrix
- Eulogy on King Philip (1836)
- “An Indian’s Looking-Glass for the White Man” (1833)
- Afterword
- 13: Andrew Jackson (1767–1845) David Brown
- First Inaugural Address (1829)
- Annual Message to Congress (1830)
- Bank Veto Message (1832)
- Proclamation Regarding Nullification (1832)
- Afterword
- 14: Cherokee Resistance Julie L. Reed and Rose Stremlau
- Cherokee Women’s Petition (1817)
- Cherokee Women’s Petition (1818)
- Cherokee Women’s Petition (1831)
- John Huss, sermon (1828)
- The Glass, Letter from Arkansas (1828)
- The Glass’s Letter (1829)
- John Ridge to Stand Watie, from Cherokee Cavaliers (1832)
- Cherokee Nation Petition to Congress (1836)
- John Ross, Letter to Congress (1836)
- Afterword
- 15: John C. Calhoun (1782–1850) James H. Read
- “The Fort Hill Address: On the Relations of the States and Federal Government” (1831)
- Speech on the Force Bill (1833)
- Speech on the Reception of Abolition Petitions (1837)
- Further Remarks in Debate on His Fifth Resolution (1838)
- Speech on the Oregon Bill (1848)
- Speech on the General State of the Union (1850)
- A Disquisition on Government (1851)
- Discourse on the Constitution and Government of the United States (1851)
- Afterword
- 16: Lydia Maria Child (1802–1880) Carolyn L. Karcher
- Chapter IV, An Appeal in Favor of That Class of Americans Called Africans (1833)
- “Talk about Political Party” (1842)
- “Women and the Freedmen” (1869)
- “An Appeal for the Indians” (1868)
- Afterword
- 17: Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) Shannon Mariotti
- “Walking” (1862)
- “Resistance to Civil Government” (1849)
- Afterword
- 18: Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) Alex Zakaras
- “Self-Reliance” (1841)
- Afterword
- 19: Walt Whitman (1819–1892) Jack Turner
- Preface to Leaves of Grass (1855)
- “Song of Myself” from Leaves of Grass (1855)
- Democratic Vistas (1871)
- Afterword
- 20: Martin Robison Delany (1812–1885) Tunde Adeleke
- The Condition, Elevation, Emigration and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States (1852)
- “Political Destiny of the Colored Race on the American Continent” (1854)
- “A Political Review” (1871)
- Letter to Justice Jonathan J. Wright (1874)
- Afterword
- 21: Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) Nicholas Buccola
- “Gradual Initiation to the Mysteries of Slavery,” Chapter V of My Bondage and My Freedom (1855)
- “The Last Flogging,” Chapter XVII of My Bondage and My Freedom (1855)
- “Letter to My Old Master [Thomas Auld]” (1848)
- “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?” (1852)
- “The Prospect in the Future” (1860)
- “Address to the Annual Meeting of the New England Woman Suffrage Association” (1886)
- “Self-Made Men” (1893)
- Afterword
- 22: Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) Michael Zuckert
- “On the Perpetuation of our Political Institutions” (1838)
- Fragments on slavery (c. 1854)
- Speech on the Dred Scott Decision (1857)
- The Gettysburg Address (1863)
- Second Inaugural Address (1865)
- Afterword
- 23: Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902) Sue Davis
- Declaration of Sentiments (1848)
- “Solitude of Self” (1892)
- The Woman’s Bible (1895 and 1898)
- Afterword
- 24: Populism Michael Kazin
- National People’s Party Platform (1892)
- Thomas E. Watson, The People’s Party Campaign Book (1892)
- Mary Lease, speech to the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (1890)
- William Jennings Bryan, speech at Democratic National Convention (1896)
- Afterword
- 25: Booker T. Washington (1856–1915) Desmond Jagmohan
- Atlanta Exposition Address (1895)
- “Open Letter to the Louisiana Constitutional Convention,” New Orleans Picayune (1898)
- “Open Letter on Lynchings in the South,” Birmingham Age-Herald (1899)
- Address at the National Peace Jubilee, Chicago (1898)
- Speech to the Women’s New England, Boston (1890)
- Afterword
- 26: Mark Twain (1835–1910) Susan McWilliams Barndt
- “Corn-Pone Opinions” (1901)
- “Disgraceful Persecution of a Boy” (1870)
- “A True Story, Repeated Word for Word As I Heard It” (1874)
- “Plymouth Rock and the Pilgrims” (1881)
- “The War Prayer” (c. 1904/1905)
- Afterword
- 27: W.E.B. Du Bois (1868–1963) Robert Gooding-Williams
- Darkwater (1920)
- Afterword
- 28: Anna Julia Cooper (1858–1964) Carol Wayne White
- “Woman Versus the Indian” (1892)
- “Discussion of the Same Subject by Mrs. A. J. Cooper of Washington, D.C.” (1893)
- “Equality of Races and The Democratic Movement” (1945)
- Afterword
- 29: William Graham Sumner (1840–1910) Simon J. Gilhooley
- “Republican Government” (1877)
- “The Forgotten Man” (1883)
- Afterword
- 30: Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918) Natalie Fuehrer Taylor
- The Education of Henry Adams, Chapter I, “Quincy” (1918)
- The Education of Henry Adams, Chapter XVII, “President Grant” (1918)
- The Education of Henry Adams, Chapter XVIII, “Free Fight” (1918)
- The Education of Henry Adams, Chapter XXXV, “Nunc Age” (1918)
- Afterword
- 31: Emma Goldman (1869–1940) Kathy E. Ferguson
- “Anarchism: What It Really Stands For” (1910)
- “The Social Aspects of Birth Control” (1916)
- Goldman’s report to the Anarchist Congress of 1907 (1931)
- Afterword
- 32: Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) Sidney Milkis and Haley Stiles
- “The Strenuous Life” (1899)
- “The Man with the Muck Rack” (1906)
- “My Confession of Faith” (1912)
- Afterword
- 33: Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) Trygve Throntveit
- Congressional Government: A Study in American Politics (1885)
- The State: Elements of Historical and Practical Politics (1889)
- “Democracy and Efficiency” (1901)
- “New Freedom” Campaign (1912)
- “Peace without Victory” Address (1917)
- War Address to Congress (1917)
- “Fourteen Points” Address (1918)
- Afterword
- 34: Jane Addams (1860–1935) Marilyn Fischer
- “The Subjective Necessity for Social Settlements” (1893)
- Democracy and Social Ethics (1902)
- “Problems of Municipal Administration” (1905)
- “Why Women Should Vote” (1910)
- “Recent Immigration: A Field Neglected by the Scholar” (1905)
- “The Public School and the Immigrant Child” (1908)
- “Recreation as a Public Function in Urban Communities” (1911)
- “Has the Emancipation Act Been Nullified by National Indifference” (1913)
- “Democracy or Militarism” (1899)
- “Patriotism and Pacifists in War Time” (1917)
- “The World’s Food Supply and Woman’s Obligation” (1918)
- Afterword
- 35: Randolph Bourne (1886–1918) Nikhil Pal Singh
- “Twilight of Idols” (1917)
- “Trans-national America” (1916)
- “Youth” (1912)
- “The Handicapped—By One of Them” (1911)
- “The State” (1919)
- Afterword
- 36: John Dewey (1859–1952) James T. Kloppenberg
- “The Ethics of Democracy” (1888)
- The Public and Its Problems (1927)
- “Creative Democracy: The Task Before Us” (1939)
- Afterword
- 37: Asa Philip Randolph (1889–1979) Eric Arnesen
- “The Negro and Economic Radicalism” (1926)
- “The Negro Is a Worker” (1935)
- “Let the Negro Masses Speak” (1941)
- “Freedom on Two Fronts: March on Washington Leader Sees Danger of Race Losing the Peace” (1942)
- “Communists and Democratic Organizations” (1947)
- “Revolt Against Jim Crow” (1948)
- “The Negro in the Next 50 Years” (1950)
- “Crisis of Struggle for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties” (1954)
- “Salute to Montgomery” (1956)
- “A. Philip Randolph Looks at Labor—Upsurge of Warfare by Negroes in Africa Against Color and Caste System” (1960)
- “Leader of March on Capital Links Freedom and Jobs” (1963)
- Introduction, A “Freedom Budget” For All Americans: Budgeting Our Resources, 1966–1975 to Achieve “Freedom from Want” (1966)
- Afterword
- 38: Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882–1945) Harvey J. Kaye
- “The ‘Self-Supporting’ Man or Woman Has Become . . . Extinct” (1929)
- “A New Deal for the American People” (1932)
- “An Economic Declaration of Rights” (1932)
- “The Only Thing We Have to Fear is Fear Itself” (1933)
- Message to Congress on the Objectives and Accomplishments of the Administration (1934)
- “Relief . . . Recovery . . . Reform and Reconstruction” (1934)
- “We Are Moving to Greater Freedom, to Greater Security for the Average Man” (1934)
- “We Have Undertaken a New Order of Things” (1935)
- “Our revenue laws have operated . . . to the unfair advantage of the few” (1935)
- “This Generation Has a Rendezvous with Destiny” (1936)
- Second Inaugural Address (1937)
- “Democracy . . . Must Become a Positive Force in the Daily Lives of Its People” (1938)
- “Is the Book of Democracy Now to Be Closed . . . ?” (1940)
- “We Look Forward to a World Founded Upon Four Essential Human Freedoms” (1941)
- “We Have Accepted, so to speak, a Second Bill of Rights . . . (an) Economic Bill of Rights” (1944)
- Afterword
- 39: The Conservatives Joshua Tait
- Russell Kirk, The Conservative Mind (1953)
- Friedrich A. Hayek, “Why I Am Not a Conservative,” The Constitution of Liberty (1960)
- Frank Meyer, “Freedom, Tradition, Conservatism,” What Is Conservatism? ([1960] 1964)
- Barry Goldwater, The Conscience of a Conservative (1960)
- Willmoore Kendall, The Conservative Affirmation (1963)
- James Burnham, Suicide of the West (1964)
- Afterword
- 40: Reinhold Niebuhr (1892–1971) Joshua L. Cherniss
- The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness (1944)
- The Irony of American History (1949–1952)
- Afterword
- 41: Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–1968) Jared A. Loggins
- “A Time to Break Silence: Beyond Vietnam” (1967)
- Afterword
- 42: Malcolm X (El Hajj Malik al Shabazz) (1925–1965) Michael E. Sawyer
- “Message to the Grass Roots” (1963)
- “The Ballot or the Bullet” (1964)
- “The Black Revolution” (1964)
- Afterword
- 43: Betty Friedan (1921–2006) Rebecca Jo Plant
- “UE Fights for Women Workers” (1952)
- “The Problem That Has No Name,” Chapter 1 of The Feminine Mystique (1963)
- NOW Statement of Purpose (1966)
- “End of the Beginning,” Chapter 1 of The Second Stage (1981)
- Afterword
- 44: The New Left Van Gosse
- C. Wright Mills, “Letter to the New Left” (1960)
- Tom Hayden and others, “The Port Huron Statement of the Students for a Democratic Society” (1962)
- John Lewis, “Speech at the March on Washington” (1963)
- Mario Savio, “Sproul Hall Sit-In Address” (1964)
- Casey Hayden and Mary King, “Sex and Caste: A Kind of Memo” (1965)
- The Resistance, “We Refuse” (1967)
- Third World Women’s Alliance, “Equal to What?” (1969)
- Afterword
- 45: James Baldwin (1924–1987) Soyica Diggs Colbert
- “Notes of a Native Son” (1955)
- “My Dungeon Shook: Letter to My Nephew on the One Hundredth Anniversary of the Emancipation” (1962)
- “A Report from Occupied Territory” (1966)
- Afterword
- 46: Harvey Milk (1930–1978) Charles E. Morris III and Jason Edward Black
- “You’ve Got to Have Hope” (1977)
- Afterword
- 47: Cesar Estrada Chavez (1927–1993) José-Antonio Orosco
- El Plan De Delano (1966)
- Exposition Park Speech (1971)
- “Sharing the Wealth” (1970)
- “What Is Democracy” (1982)
- Afterword
- 48: Ronald Reagan and the New Right Samuel Goldman
- Ronald Reagan, “Evil Empire” speech (1983)
- Samuel Francis, “Message from MARs: The Social Politics of the New Right” (1982)
- Irving Kristol, “America’s ‘Exceptional’ Conservatism” (1995)
- Afterword
- 49: Audre Lorde (1934–1992) Deva Woodly
- “A Litany for Survival” (1978)
- Zami: A New Spelling of My Name (1982)
- “Poetry Is Not a Luxury” (1985)
- “Age, Race, Class and Sex: Women Redefining Difference” (1980)
- “Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power” (1978)
- “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House” (1979)
- Afterword
- 50: Wendell Berry and Green Political Thought Bob Pepperman Taylor
- “It All Turns on Affection” (2012)
- Afterword
- Suggestions for Further Reading
- Curator Biographies
- Index