American Values

Stephen E. Sachs | 5.28.2024 11:50 AM

Over the course of my own lifetime, there's been a massive cultural change in how Americans talk about the American Founding. For the last decade or so, it's fair to say that the Founders have come in for a good deal more moral scrutiny. How much of this is deserved, and how should we think about the Founding today?

I'm pleased to announce that my attempt to answer these questions—"Good and Evil in the American Founding," the 2023 Vaughan Lecture on America's Founding Principles, delivered to Princeton's James Madison Program—is now available on SSRN and forthcoming in the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy.

From the abstract:

The past few decades have seen a broad moral reevaluation of the American Founding. Both on the left and on the right, many now regard the Founders' ideals as less valuable and their failings as more salient. These reckonings are necessary, but they also risk missing something important: a richer and more human understanding of the past, together with a recognition of the great good that the American Founding achieved, here and elsewhere. This Essay discusses how we ought to understand the Founders' historical legacy—and why we might respect and indeed honor their contributions with open eyes.

The essay is an extended meditation on George Washington's 1790 letter to the Hebrew Congregation in Newport, R.I. (also known as the Touro Synagogue), addressing challenges from both left and right to the principles that Washington expressed. It's somewhat less strictly legal than most things I publish; it may be among the most hot-button; certainly it's the most personal and heartfelt. (And it's short—only 23 pages!)

I'd be honored if you read it. From the introduction:

I'm honored this afternoon to deliver the Vaughan Lecture on America's Founding Principles. I'd like to begin with a short illustration of those principles, as expressed in the famous letter from George Washington to the Hebrew Congregation in Newport, Rhode Island.

In 1790, Rhode Island finally agreed to the Constitution. And in August of that year, President Washington paid Newport an official visit. Among the clergy who welcomed him to the city was Moses Seixas, the warden of Congregation Yeshuat Israel, a small community of Sephardic Jews. In response to the congregation's letter of congratulations, Washington wrote the following, which I hope you'll indulge my reading:

Gentlemen.

While I receive, with much satisfaction, your Address replete with expressions of affection and esteem; I rejoice in the opportunity of assuring you, that I shall always retain a grateful remembrance of the cordial welcome I experienced in my visit........

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