The Heart of the Declaration: The Founders' Case for an Activist Government

by Steve Pincus

An eye-opening, meticulously researched new perspective on the influences that shaped the Founders as well as the nation's founding document

From one election cycle to the next, a defining question continues to divide the country’s political parties: Should the government play a major or a minor role in the lives of American citizens? The Declaration of Independence has long been invoked as a philosophical treatise in favor of limited government. Yet the bulk of the document is a discussion of policy, in which the Founders outlined the failures of the British imperial government. Above all, they declared, the British state since 1760 had done too little to promote the prosperity of its American subjects. Looking beyond the Declaration’s frequently cited opening paragraphs, Steve Pincus reveals how the document is actually a blueprint for a government with extensive powers to promote and protect the people’s welfare. By examining the Declaration in the context of British imperial debates, Pincus offers a nuanced portrait of the Founders’ intentions with profound political implications for today.

Genres: History, American History

224 pages, Paperback

Published March 20, 2018

Reviews

[Kate Weingartner · Rating 3 out of 5]

This novel offered a unique perspective on the minds behind the Declaration of Independence. However, the argument fell flat because it was not well organized. I would have preferred to read this as either a short essay with less tangential information or as a more developed novel. As it stands now, far too many topics were covered in too little depth, making it difficult to register the key points. I was disappointed that the declaration itself was treated as an afterthought when I envisioned this would be an analysis of the text itself.

[Walt Kowalczyk · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the first things that struck me when I began reading this book is that when we talk of the early patriots, we are speaking of something entirely different then when the Founding Generation uses the term. When we use the term, we are speaking of them, but when they write of patriots and patriot principles, they are referring to the English Patriot Movement that existed on both sides of the Atlantic for almost a half century before the events of the 1770s. The English Patriot Movement was focused on a return to the principles of the English “Glorious Revolution” of 1688 and among its luminaries was Admiral Edward Vernon, whom George Washington’s brother Lawrence named their family estate after. The intent of these patriots, on both sides of the Atlantic, was not to separate from the English government but in their minds to restore it. Among the views held by these patriots was that the government should not only be encouraging immigration to their North American colonies, it should be subsidizing it. Because to do so would grow an ever-increasing consumer class in the colonies that would need to purchase goods from the mother country, thereby feeding and growing the overall English economy on both sides of the Atlantic. When George III became king in 1760 and appointed George Grenville as First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer, it became a turning point for these patriots, when taxation policy became one purely of extraction without the support those patriots believed to be an essential role of government. Most of the points of contention detailed in the Declaration of Independence were spurred by the events that followed George III’s coronation and Grenville’s appointment. I’ve read quite a bit of history, but this gave me a very different view of the founding of the U.S. and a new view of those early patriots and the original focus of their own patriotism.

[Eric · Rating 4 out of 5]

Highly readable, mercifully brief (if a bit repetitive) and thought-jogging. Pincus makes a strong argument that the Founders, via the Declaration, and the Articles of Confederation for that matter, intended to create an "energetic government," not a limited one. This government would promote consumption over production, encourage immigration and ultimately end slavery. In following this "Patriot" approach embraced (at least by some, on both sides of the Atlantic at the time), the Founders rejected regressive taxation, urged public support for industry and infrastructure and, criticially, promoted the general welfare -- the broadest possible sharing of economic wealth -- which Pincus insists was the contemporary meaning of Jefferson's "pusuit of happiness" phrase. Per usual in any discussions of the Founders' intent/actions, these ideas continue to resonate centuries later.

[Adam Gutschenritter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Started this for class and it really does a great job of placing the American Revolution into the context of the Patriot political movement of England and further expanding the ideas on government that many in the colonies would have had.

[Sophia · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm not sure I buy the arguments in this book.

[Daniel · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was really more of a thesis than a book. I was convinced after the first page and then I felt compelled to read the other 150.