Texas Law Review, May 1st, 2000
I. Introduction Did late eighteenth-century Americans ever consider themselves liberal? To many historians, this will seem a strange question. The concept of liberalism is widely held to be a nineteenth-century innovation, and therefore to inquire whether Americans in the previous century thought of themselves as liberal seems anachronistic. Yet precisely because so many scholars take for granted the late evolution of liberal ideas, it may be all the more valuable to reexamine this assumption. Is there really no evidence that eighteenth-century Americans considered themselves liberal? Althou...
HighBeam Research, Free Preview: 'Liberality'... Full Membership required for unlimited access. Free 7-day trial.
Subscribers: HighBeam content is only available to HighBeam subscribers. Click the link above for more information.