Sign in  |  Register

The New Criterion

The New Criterion is probably more consistently worth reading than any other magazine in English.
- The Times Literary Supplement

Features

June 2006

The forgotten founder: John Witherspoon

by Roger Kimball

On the most unfairly neglected framer.

He is as high a Son of Liberty, as any man in America.
—John Adams on John Witherspoon, 1774

Who is the most unfairly neglected American Founding Father? You might think that none can be unfairly neglected, so many books about that distinguished coterie have been published lately. John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, George Washington—whom have I left out? It has been a literary festival of Founders these last few years, and a good thing, too. But there is one figure, I believe, who has yet to get his due, and that is John Witherspoon (1723–1794). This Scotch Presbyterian divine came to America to preside over a distressed college in Princeton, New Jersey, and wound up transmitting to the colonies critical principles of the Scottish Enlightenment and helped to preside over the birth and consolidation of American independence.

This article is available to subscribers and for individual purchase

Subscribe to TNC (Print and Online editions)

Subscribe to TNC (Online only)

Purchase article credit and clip this article

If you already have an account login first

Roger Kimball is co-Editor and Publisher of The New Criterion and President and Publisher of Encounter Books. His latest book is The Rape of the Masters: How Political Correctness Sabotages Art (Encounter Books).


more from this author

This article originally appeared in The New Criterion, Volume 24 June 2006, on page 4

Copyright © 2010 The New Criterion | www.newcriterion.com

http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/The-forgotten-founder--John-Witherspoon-2437
rate this article for your user profile

E-mail to friend


The New Criterion

By the author

Introduction: democratic despotism comes of age

by Roger Kimball

An Introduction to “The New Statism and the Assault on Individual Liberty,” a symposium organized jointly by The New Criterion and London’s Social Affairs Unit.

Exhibition note

by Roger Kimball

On "The Sacred Made Real: Spanish Painting & Sculpture 1600–1700" at The National Gallery, London.

Tyranny set in stone

by Roger Kimball

Why we must not forget the lessons of the Berlin.

You might also enjoy

Ayn Rand: engineer of souls

by Anthony Daniels

A critical account of the "Chernyshevsky of individualism."

Remembering Irving Kristol

by James Piereson

On the godfather of modern conservatism & his intellectual legacy.

Carlyle the wise

by Barton Swaim

On the political thought of Thomas Carlyle.

Most popular

view more >

download
first delivery

The New Criterion is now optimized for Mobile Devices

Webcasts

Elucidations & Corrections: Arts Criticism
The Goldring Arts Journalism Program S. I. New House School of Public Communications at Syracuse University honors "The New Criterion."


Swallow Anthology Reading at The Grolier


New Criterion-Social Affairs Unit Conference: Part 4
"The Criminalization of Making Money" by Lionel Shriver, Recorded 9/25/09