Author: Andrew R. Murphy Publisher: Cambridge University Press ISBN: 1108752292 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 404
Book Description
William Penn (1644-1718) – Quaker activist, theorist of liberty of conscience, and colonial founder and proprietor – played a central role in the movement for religious liberty on both sides of the Atlantic for more than four decades. This volume presents, for the first time, a fully annotated scholarly edition of Penn's political writings over the course of his long public career, tracing his thinking from his early theorisation of religious toleration and liberty of conscience in England, as a leading member of the Society of Friends during the 1670s, to his colonial undertaking in Pennsylvania a decade later, his controversial role in the years leading up to the 1688 Revolution, and the ongoing consequences of that Revolution to his future prospects. Penn's political writings provide an illuminating window into the increasingly sophisticated and influential movement for liberty of conscience in the early modern world.
Author: Andrew R. Murphy Publisher: Oxford University Press ISBN: 0190271205 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 321
Book Description
In a seventeenth-century English landscape populated with towering political and philosophical figures like Hobbes, Harrington, Cromwell, Milton, and Locke, William Penn remains in many ways a man apart. Yet despite being widely neglected by scholars, he was a sophisticated political thinker who contributed mightily to the theory and practice of religious liberty in the early modern Atlantic world. In this long-awaited intellectual biography of William Penn, Andrew R. Murphy presents a nuanced portrait of this remarkable entrepreneur, philosopher, Quaker, and politician. Liberty, Conscience, and Toleration focuses on the major political episodes that attracted William Penn's sustained attention as a political thinker and actor: the controversy over the Second Conventicle Act, the Popish Plot and Exclusion Crisis, the founding and settlement of Pennsylvania, and the contentious reign of James II. Through a careful examination of writings published in the midst of the religious and political conflicts of Restoration and Revolutionary England, Murphy contextualizes the development of Penn's thought in England and America, illuminating the mutual interconnections between Penn's political thought and his colonizing venture in America. An early advocate of representative institutions and religious freedom, William Penn remains a singular figure in the history of liberty of conscience. His political theorizing provides a window into the increasingly vocal, organized, and philosophically sophisticated tolerationist movement that gained strength over the second half of the seventeenth century. Not only did Penn attempt to articulate principles of religious liberty as a Quaker in England, but he actually governed an American polity and experienced firsthand the complex relationship between political theory and political practice. Murphy's insightful analysis shows Penn's ongoing significance to the broader study of Anglo-American political theory and practice, ultimately pointing scholars toward a new way of understanding the enterprise of political theory itself.
Author: William Penn Publisher: ISBN: Category : Law Languages : en Pages : 480
Book Description
William Penn played a crucial role in the articulation of religious liberty as a philosophical and political value during the second half of the seventeenth century and as a core element of the classical liberal tradition in general. This volume illuminates the origins and development of Penn's thought by presenting, for the first time, complete and annotated texts of all his important political works. His thought has relevance not only for scholars of English political and religious history, but also for those who are interested in the foundations of American religious liberty, political development, and colonial history. His social status, indefatigable energy for publication, and command of biblical and historical sources give Penn's political writings a twofold significance: as a window on toleration and liberty of conscience, perhaps the most vexing issue of Restoration politics; and as part of a broader current of thought that would influence political thought and practice in the colonies as well as in the mother country.
Author: Andrew R. Murphy Publisher: ISBN: 0190234245 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 489
Book Description
It may surprise many that William Penn, who founded one of the thirteen original American colonies, spent just four years on American soil. Even more surprising, though, is Penn's remarkable impact on the fundamental principles of religious freedom on both sides of the Atlantic, especially given his tumultuous life: from his youthful radicalism as leader of the Quaker movement to his role as governor and proprietor of a major American colony; from royal courtier to alleged traitor to the Crown. In the first major biography of this important transatlantic figure in more than forty years, Andrew R. Murphy takes readers through the defiant and complex life of a religious dissenter, political theorist, and social activist.
Author: John Moretta Publisher: Longman Publishing Group ISBN: Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 292
Book Description
"This book features: the integration of English history with Penn's personal struggles and accomplishments (and shows how specific events affected Penn and the Quakers); thorough coverage of the Quaker faith provides insight into Penn's motivations and actions; chapter-ending summaries provide a synopsis of important events in Penn's life and chart Penn's evolution from peaceful Quaker to profit-making colonizer; and study and discussion questions at the end of the book help students check their reading and comprehension. These questions may also be used to facilitate discussions in the classroom or student study groups."--BOOK JACKET.
Author: Michael I. Meyerson Publisher: Yale University Press ISBN: 0300183496 Category : Law Languages : en Pages : 477
Book Description
The debate over the framers' concept of freedom of religion has become heated and divisive. This scrupulously researched book sets aside the half-truths, omissions, and partisan arguments, and instead focuses on the actual writings and actions of Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, and others. Legal scholar Michael I. Meyerson investigates how the framers of the Constitution envisioned religious freedom and how they intended it to operate in the new republic. Endowed by Our Creator shows that the framers understood that the American government should not acknowledge religion in a way that favors any particular creed or denomination. Nevertheless, the framers believed that religion could instill virtue and help to unify a diverse nation. They created a spiritual public vocabulary, one that could communicate to all—including agnostics and atheists—that they were valued members of the political community. Through their writings and their decisions, the framers affirmed that respect for religious differences is a fundamental American value, Meyerson concludes. Now it is for us to determine whether religion will be used to alienate and divide or to inspire and unify our religiously diverse nation.
Author: Evan Haefeli Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press ISBN: 0812208951 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 372
Book Description
The settlers of New Netherland were obligated to uphold religious toleration as a legal right by the Dutch Republic's founding document, the 1579 Union of Utrecht, which stated that "everyone shall remain free in religion and that no one may be persecuted or investigated because of religion." For early American historians this statement, unique in the world at its time, lies at the root of American pluralism. New Netherland and the Dutch Origins of American Religious Liberty offers a new reading of the way tolerance operated in colonial America. Using sources in several languages and looking at laws and ideas as well as their enforcement and resistance, Evan Haefeli shows that, although tolerance as a general principle was respected in the colony, there was a pronounced struggle against it in practice. Crucial to the fate of New Netherland were the changing religious and political dynamics within the English empire. In the end, Haefeli argues, the most crucial factor in laying the groundwork for religious tolerance in colonial America was less what the Dutch did than their loss of the region to the English at a moment when the English were unusually open to religious tolerance. This legacy, often overlooked, turns out to be critical to the history of American religious diversity. By setting Dutch America within its broader imperial context, New Netherland and the Dutch Origins of American Religious Liberty offers a comprehensive and nuanced history of a conflict integral to the histories of the Dutch republic, early America, and religious tolerance.
Author: Michael D. Breidenbach Publisher: Harvard University Press ISBN: 067424723X Category : History Languages : en Pages : 369
Book Description
How early American Catholics justified secularism and overcame suspicions of disloyalty, transforming ideas of religious liberty in the process. In colonial America, Catholics were presumed dangerous until proven loyal. Yet Catholics went on to sign the Declaration of Independence and helped to finalize the First Amendment to the Constitution. What explains this remarkable transformation? Michael Breidenbach shows how Catholic leaders emphasized their churchÕs own traditionsÑrather than Enlightenment liberalismÑto secure the religious liberty that enabled their incorporation in American life. Catholics responded to charges of disloyalty by denying papal infallibility and the popeÕs authority to intervene in civil affairs. Rome staunchly rejected such dissent, but reform-minded Catholics justified their stance by looking to conciliarism, an intellectual tradition rooted in medieval Catholic thought yet compatible with a republican view of temporal independence and church-state separation. Drawing on new archival material, Breidenbach finds that early American Catholic leaders, including Maryland founder Cecil Calvert and members of the prominent Carroll family, relied on the conciliarist tradition to help institute religious toleration, including the Maryland Toleration Act of 1649. The critical role of Catholics in establishing American churchÐstate separation enjoins us to revise not only our sense of who the American founders were, but also our understanding of the sources of secularism. ChurchÐstate separation in America, generally understood as the product of a Protestant-driven Enlightenment, was in key respects derived from Catholic thinking. Our Dear-Bought Liberty therefore offers a dramatic departure from received wisdom, suggesting that religious liberty in America was not bestowed by liberal consensus but partly defined through the ingenuity of a persecuted minority.
Author: Andrew R. Murphy
Author: Andrew R. Murphy
Author: William Penn
Author: Andrew R. Murphy
Author: William Penn
Author: John Moretta
Author: Michael I. Meyerson
Author: Evan Haefeli
Author: William Penn
Author: Michael D. Breidenbach