These Truths

But if James’s divine right to rule was questioned by dissenters who fled his authority, it was being questioned, too, on the floor of Parliament.

Out of this same quarrel came foundational ideas about freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and freedom of the press, ideas premised on the belief, heretical to the medieval church, that there is no conflict between freedom and truth.

Under what conditions do some people have a right to rule, or to rebel, and others not? In 1640, King Charles at last summoned a meeting of Parliament in hopes of raising money to suppress a rebellion in Scotland. The newly summoned Parliament, striking back, passed a law abridging the king’s authority,

the whole body of a people, in the same boat—they signed a document in which they pledged to “covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil body politic.”25 They named their agreement after their ship. They called it the Mayflower Compact.

Can a political society really be governed by reflection and election, by reason and truth, rather than by accident and violence, by prejudice and deceit? Is there any arrangement of government—any constitution—by which it’s possible for a people to rule themselves, justly and fairly, and as equals, through the exercise of judgment and care? Or are

Nature takes one toll, malice another. History is the study of what remains, what’s left behind,

A people who do not believe land can be owned by individuals not only cannot contract to sell it, they cannot be said to have a government, because government only exists to protect property.

What had happened between the Virginia charter and the Declaration of Independence to convince so many people that all men are created equal and that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed? The answer lies in artifacts as different as a deerskin cloak and a scarlet robe

Nearly half of colonial New Englanders’ wealth would come from sugar grown by West Indian slaves.