Many warm encomiums on the internet, including not only praise for his insight and intellectual excellence, but personal stories of individual graciousness and humanity. What has been swept under the rug but should not be easily forgotten is how badly he was treated by the 1619 mob (we all know the names) following his book on the radicalism of the American revolution.
I don’t think the fight for equality and democracy will ever end. Preserving those ideas against greed and power seeking requires constant, intense vigilance or they slip away as we pursue materialism instead.
Thank you for this article. It resonates with my own sense that patriotism is most fundamentally about grappling with how to create institutions and cultural agreements that live up to the ideals of our founding as best we can given that we are what I like to call societies composed of beautiful and imperfect children of the universe.
The Founders reserved equality for people that had an investment in the land.
That's not entirely irrational as one could look around the world today and see what people do today that have no time or money invested in anything.
Equality was by their creator which meant they were all the same in that respect. It didn't mean they had the same rights to participate in something they did not create or care about.
People today still look at each other differently depending on if they have built or contributed to something.
Interesting how the left has been losing ground politically in the past years, just as they stopped quoting the "All men are created equal" stuff. It's an incredible rhetorical card for a radical, because it's very difficult for an American traditionalist to respond to. The fact that the modern left has ideological commitments against saying anything good about the founding of the US has left them arguing with both hands tied behind their back.
The Founders did indeed discuss that natural rights extended to those enslaved and women and did extend those rights in their time.
“The Founders proclaimed an equality they could neither contain nor bring themselves to extend, and that distance between what they said and what they were willing to live by became the charge that powered everything after them.” John Adams used similar language to the Declaration in the Massachusetts state constitution, which ended slavery in the state in 1783.
In 1764, James Otis Jr. wrote, “Are not women born as free as men?” And his “rough draught” of the Declaration, Jefferson defined “MEN” as those who “should be bought & sold,” which includes, women, of course.
Similarly, it was well understood at the time that the plain text reading of the Declaration applied.
There has been a flood of Wood pieces written since his tragic death, this has been my favorite.
Many warm encomiums on the internet, including not only praise for his insight and intellectual excellence, but personal stories of individual graciousness and humanity. What has been swept under the rug but should not be easily forgotten is how badly he was treated by the 1619 mob (we all know the names) following his book on the radicalism of the American revolution.
Those who treated him and his thesis poorly betray their ignorance of both.
I don’t think the fight for equality and democracy will ever end. Preserving those ideas against greed and power seeking requires constant, intense vigilance or they slip away as we pursue materialism instead.
Thank you for the best memorial to Wood I have seen thus far.
Brilliantly written article. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it.
The most powerful ideas are those that eventually escape their creators. Once released, they begin a journey of their own through the world.
Thank you for this article. It resonates with my own sense that patriotism is most fundamentally about grappling with how to create institutions and cultural agreements that live up to the ideals of our founding as best we can given that we are what I like to call societies composed of beautiful and imperfect children of the universe.
Great piece, thank You very much.
The Founders reserved equality for people that had an investment in the land.
That's not entirely irrational as one could look around the world today and see what people do today that have no time or money invested in anything.
Equality was by their creator which meant they were all the same in that respect. It didn't mean they had the same rights to participate in something they did not create or care about.
People today still look at each other differently depending on if they have built or contributed to something.
👏🏻
Interesting how the left has been losing ground politically in the past years, just as they stopped quoting the "All men are created equal" stuff. It's an incredible rhetorical card for a radical, because it's very difficult for an American traditionalist to respond to. The fact that the modern left has ideological commitments against saying anything good about the founding of the US has left them arguing with both hands tied behind their back.
The Founders did indeed discuss that natural rights extended to those enslaved and women and did extend those rights in their time.
“The Founders proclaimed an equality they could neither contain nor bring themselves to extend, and that distance between what they said and what they were willing to live by became the charge that powered everything after them.” John Adams used similar language to the Declaration in the Massachusetts state constitution, which ended slavery in the state in 1783.
In 1764, James Otis Jr. wrote, “Are not women born as free as men?” And his “rough draught” of the Declaration, Jefferson defined “MEN” as those who “should be bought & sold,” which includes, women, of course.
Similarly, it was well understood at the time that the plain text reading of the Declaration applied.
More here: https://vsidney.substack.com/p/a-foundational-principle-understanding?r=505ysp&utm_medium=ios
Excellent. He will be greatly missed.
Another great American historian died recently. Ronald Spector. I am writing a eulogy.