Vindicating the Founders: Race, Sex, Class, and Justice in the Origins of America
by Thomas G. West
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It is commonly, but incorrectly, asserted that because Washington and Jefferson owned slaves, because women, even after the American Revolution, enjoyed virtually no rights, and because the poor and those without property were denied the basic tenets of democratic participation, the Founders were frauds who never really believed that "all men were created equal." West demonstrates why such politically correct interpretations are not only dead wrong, but dangerous. Because our understanding show more of the Founders so profoundly influences our opinion of contemporary America, this book explains why their views, and particularly the constitutional order they created, are still worthy of our highest respect. West proves that the Founders were indeed sincere in their belief of universal human rights and in their commitment to democracy. By contrasting the Founders' ideas of liberty and equality with today's, West persuasively concludes that contemporary notions bear almost no resemblance to the concepts originally articulated by the Founders. show lessTags
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Member Reviews
Where to start? This book ends up being less about the Founding Fathers and more about the author's political viewpoints. All of the topics the author lays out are problematic, although I was found the pieces on women and the family to be the worst (correlation is not causation, let's just leave it at that). Throughout this book, I kept thinking of people who deny being racist/sexist/anti-poor etc. while also advocating for policies which specifically hurt those groups. Moreover, the Founders, flawed human beings that they were, deserve better than this.
To be succinct: the author accomplished his purpose.
The book is slim, but the arguments are fully-formed and well-evidenced.
The procedure is to cite the major arguments against the integrity and motives of the primary founders (fairly done, in view of my own historical reading), and then refute them point by point.
The book is slim, but the arguments are fully-formed and well-evidenced.
The procedure is to cite the major arguments against the integrity and motives of the primary founders (fairly done, in view of my own historical reading), and then refute them point by point.
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- Languages
- English
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- Paper, Ebook
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