In this seminal volume, M. E. Bradford defines the Old Whig political tradition in American thought, showing that the inheritance of the preillegalscriptive anti-federalists still lives. For Bradford, important elements in our heritage from the American Revolution have been systematically hidden from our view by anachronistic and partisan scholarship. He believes that other, more ideological components have been emphasized at the expense of the rest. Here he attempts to return us to our heritage.
I: ; A Teaching for Republicans: Roman History and the Nation´s First Identity; The Heresy of Equality: A Reply to Harry Jaffa; Word From the Forks of the Creek: the Revolution and the Populist Heritage; II: ; A Better Guide than Reason: The Politics of John Dickinson; According to their Genius: Politics and The Example of Patrick Henry; No Master but the Law: The Legacy of William Henry Drayton; III: ; Franklin and Jefferson: The Making and Binding of Self; All to do Over: The Revolutionary Precedent and the Secession of 1861; First Fathers: The Colonial Origins of the Southern Tradition; Lincoln, the Declaration, and Secular Puritanism: A Rhetoric for Continuing Revolution; IV: ; A Proper Patrimony: Russell Kirk and America´s Moral Genealogy