Conclusion

The conclusion reviews the book’s claims, methods and sources, and summarizes the book’s conclusions concerning the stages and mechanisms in the evolution of the distinct American state of nature discourse. Placing the American state of nature discourse in its broader intellectual and chronological context, and comparing the state of nature to property and liberty as a fundamental and orientational concept for the colonists, the chapter asserts that without due attention to the state of nature discourse, no history of the American Revolution and early constitutional design can be written.

On Slavery and Race

This chapter reviews and extends the discussion of slavery and race that runs through previous chapters, starting with Paxton’s Case. Patriots and their critics alike pointed out the tension between colonial rights claims grounded in the state of nature, and colonial slavery. Portrayals of Native American innocence and virtue in the state of nature coexisted with accounts of their savagery, successfully repelled by the early settlers whose descendants, it was claimed, consequently held rights to property and self-government independently from Britain, which failed to finance or protect them. Optimistic, self-critical, racist, and abolitionist revolutionaries, all fearful of American degeneracy and corruption, used state of nature depictions of both abhorrent and justifiable slavery, and noble and savage Native Americans, to advocate for their vision for the new United States. This chapter reviews the whole spectrum of such uses of the state of nature, including the landmark Somersett’s Case and Mohegan Case.

The First Continental Congress

Following overviews of revolutionary, moderate, loyalist, and shifting usages, chapter 7 introduces state of nature arguments during and around the First Continental Congress in order to reconstruct the process of contestation and consolidation that led to a relatively stable, and distinctly American concept of the state of nature by 1776. In a continuation of previous accounts of the dynamic of contesting and consolidating a shared American semantic range of the state of nature, this chapter describes several key moments when moderates and loyalists objected to invoking the state of nature for fear that doing so would make reconciliation with Britain improbable or impossible. Patriots at the Congress insisted on using the term, and the package of connotations and constitutional claims accumulated since 1761, for the same reason. The long-running controversy surrounding Galloway’s Plan, and the polemic between Samuel Seabury and Alexander Hamilton, are discussed as extensions of the same state-of-nature dynamic of the First Continental Congress.

The Turn to Self-Defense

This chapter shows that as tensions escalated in the early 1770s, the colonists drew on the increasingly coherent view of the American state of nature to claim the collective right to self-defense. Moderates and loyalists vehemently contested revolutionary state of nature arguments for a natural community of American settlers separate from Britain and for their right to self-defense. New England Christians supplied a pluriform, but distinct and influential, revolutionary strand of state of nature interpretation, complete with the right to resist, the right to change government, and a collective identity, all grounded in a Christian state of nature. The chapter ends by illustrating the range of political economy theories of the state of nature that were relevant to understanding and debating the rising tension between the metropolis and the colonies, and a continuation of the previous discussion of rival loyalist and patriot interpretations of the state of nature.

The Stamp Act and the State of Nature

Chapter 4 begins with Warren’s Case to highlight public engagement with the state of nature discourse and reveal the pervasive importance of the state of nature in colonial reactions to the Stamp Act. These reactions stood in contrast to Blackstone’s conceptualization of the state of nature in his Commentaries, which is often but mistakenly seen as shaping the earliest stage of American revolutionary ideology. To elaborate the contrast, the chapter describes competing interpretations of the Glorious Revolution and of the state of nature as the standard for measuring the excellence and failure of constitutions. The chapter narrates the first instances when colonists disputed the meaning of the state of nature among themselves, with loyalists dismissing its significance, and patriots endorsing it in attempts to formulate juridically effective expressions of protest. By the time the Stamp Act was repealed, the state of nature became an unavoidable trope in constitutional debates.

Rights and Constitutions

This chapter examines Otis’s speech in Paxton’s Case to understand why John Adams regarded it as the start of the American Revolution, and describes Otis’s speech as the inflection point when European state of nature theories began to turn into a revolutionary American discourse. In Otis’s system, the state of nature was a source of substantive rights (including life, liberty, and property) that endured in the polity and remained inalienable for both white colonists and enslaved African Americans. Newly discovered archival evidence about this key speech is presented. The chapter follows further strands of state of nature interpretation before the Stamp Act, including Williams’s 1762 election sermon and polemical publications by Otis, which introduced the meaning of the state of nature as interstate relations into the revolutionary discourse. It concludes with Thomas Pownall’s view of citizens of the British Empire sharing the sociability, interdependence, and common rights that characterize the state of nature.

Introduction

The introduction summarizes the book’s thesis, spells out its original claims, and defines its organizing concepts. It surveys the broader chronological and intellectual context of the state of nature, including European uses of the term, as well as the stages in the evolution of the distinct American usage and their significance for the American Revolution and early constitutional design. Several early modern and Enlightenment meanings of the term are introduced, ranging from a mythical Golden Age through the pre-political human condition to innocence and damnation. The introduction also describes the book’s method, sources, and defines its chronological and thematic scope.

Creating and Contesting the American State of Nature

Chapter 5 describes the contestation and consolidation of this trope, and the beginning of its transformation from a vindication of protest into the foundation of an American natural community. Illustrating the close relationship between English-language state of nature texts on both sides of the Atlantic, the chapter follows the rapid expansion of the state of nature discourse to constitutional issues such as the freedom of conscience and opinion, the freedom of speech and of the press, secession, the right to meaningful representation, and the relevance or irrelevance of rights guaranteed under competing versions of a semi-mythical ancient constitutionalism. The chapter carries previous analyses of rival loyalist and patriot interpretations of the state of nature on to these topics.

The State of Nature

Chapter 2 sketches the various meanings and uses of the state of nature in relation to the American colonies until the early 1760s, including the prevalence and significance of the state of nature theme in imperial propaganda and thought and in the education of the founding generation. It surveys texts that describe uncivilized places and peoples as being in the state of nature, and the American colonies as a state of nature with vast natural, moral, and political potential. It synthesizes the common themes in these texts to reveal a pattern of usage and meaning that became the origin of the colonists’ self-understanding as inhabitants of an American state of nature. The chapter then surveys state of nature texts in prerevolutionary colonial education, especially anti-Hobbesian Scottish formulations of the state of nature as a condition of sociability, justice, and rights that survive the transition into an organized polity.