Natural Rights and the New Republicanism by Michael P. Zuckert

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In Natural Rights and the New Republicanism, Michael Zuckert proposes a new view of the political philosophy that lay behind the founding of the United States. In a book that will interest political scientists, historians, and philosophers, Zuckert looks at the Whig or opposition tradition as it developed in England. He argues that there were, in fact, three opposition traditions: Protestant, Grotian, and Lockean. Before the English Civil War the opposition was inspired by the effort to find the "one true Protestant politics"—an effort that was seen to be a failure by the end of the Interregnum period. The Restoration saw the emergence of the Whigs, who sought a way to ground politics free from the sectarian theological-scriptural conflicts of the previous period.

The Whigs were particularly influenced by the Dutch natural law philosopher Hugo Grotius. However, as Zuckert shows, by the mid-eighteenth century, John Locke had replaced Grotius as the philosopher of the Whigs. Zuckert's analysis concludes with a penetrating examination of John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon, the English "Cato," who, he argues, brought together Lockean political philosophy and pre-existing Whig political science into a new and powerful synthesis. Although it has been misleadingly presented as a separate "classical republican" tradition in recent scholarly discussions, it is this "new republicanism" that served as the philosophical point of departure for the founders of the American republic.

Table of Contents

  

Part One: Protestants

Chapter One: Aristotelian Royalism and Reformation Absolutism: Divine Right Theory

    Dimensions of Divine Right

    The Similitudes of Rule

    The Reformation Attitude and the Transformation of Aristotle

    Patriarchalism and the Reformation Attitude

  

Chapter Two: Aristotelian Constitutionalism and Reformation Contractarianism: From Ancient Constitution to Original Contract

    The Ancient Constitution

    The Mixed Constitution

    Contractarianisms

    The Original Contract and the Reformation Attitude: Philip Hunton

    The Aristotelianism of the Original Contract: Henry Parker

  

Chapter Three: Contract and Christian Liberty: John Milton

    Two Revolutions, Two Contractarianism: Milton's "Tenure" and the Declaration of Independence

    Miltonic Politics and the Reformation Attitude

    Milton's Christian Republicanism

    Two Contractarianisms, Two Fundamental Attitudes

  

Part Two: Whigs

Chapter Four: Whig Contractarianisms and Rights

    The Restoration and the Emergence of the Whigs

    Exclusion and Whig Non-Contractarianism: Grotian Legalism

    Whig Contractarianism and the Glorious Revolution: Right Grotians

    Whig Contractarianism and the Glorious Revolution: Left Grotians

    Contractarianisms

  

Chapter Five: The Master of Whig Political Philosophy

    Grotius and the Reformation of Natural Law

    The Source of Political Power

    The Problem of Natural Law

    Nature and Convention in the Roman Law

    Grotiu's Break with the Natural Law Tradition

    Nature and Convention in the Grotian Natural Law

  

Chapter Six: A Neo-Harringtonian Moment? Whig Political Science and the Old Republicanism

    The Politics of Liberty: Bernard Bailyn

    The Politics of the Organic Community: Gordon Wood

    The Politics of "Zoon Politikon": J.G.A. Pocock

    Political Philosophy and Political Science

    Harrington and Neo-Harrington

    In the Neo-Harringtonian Workshop

    Whig Political Science

  

Part Three: Natural Rights and the New Republicanism

Chapter Seven: Locke and the Reformation of Natural Law: Questions Concerning the Law of Nature

    Grotius, Pufendorf, Locke

    Locke and the Immanent Natural Law

    Natural Law: Natural Sociability and Natural Morality

    Transcendent Natural Law

  

Chapter Eight: Locke and the Reformation of Natural Law: Two Treatises of Government

    The Transcendent Natural Law in "Two Treatises:

    Thomist Natural Law and the Natural Executive Power

    Grotian Natural Law and the Natural Executive Power

    Natural Right and the Natural Executive Power

    Transcendent Natural Law: Suicide

  

Chapter Nine: Locke and the Reformation of Natural Law: Of Property

    Grotius, Pufendorf, Property

    Transcendent Natural Law: Property

    Property as Natural Right

    Natural Law and Natural Rights

    Natural Right as Property

    Lockean Paradoxes

  

Chapter Ten: Locke and the Transformation of Whig Political Philosophy

    Lockean Whiggism: "An Argument for Self-Defence"

    "Cato's Letters": A Lockean Political Philosophy

    "Cato's Letters": Natural Rights and the Old Republicanism

    "Cato's Letters": Natural Rights and the New Republicanism