First Principles: What America's Founders Learned from the Greeks and Romans and How That Shaped Our Country

by Thomas E. Ricks

Events began to accelerate early in 1775. The principles of the Revolution, Adams wrote in February of that year, were that all men are equal, and that power is delegated to leaders by the people. These, he continued, “are the principles of Aristotle and Plato, of Livy and Cicero, of Sydney, Harrington and Lock.”33