Outline of the April 2nd Lecture / L. Mazzari

An Enlightenment Experiment: The American Revolution—

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1. The Political Philosophy of the Enlightenment: The Glorious
Revolution, John Locke, and the theory of balanced government

2. Rational Claims for Self-Rule: The Declaration of Independence

3. The Machinery of American Democracy: A rational system of
checks and balances

The abortive Articles of Confederation

The U.S. Constitution: A balance no longer between estates,
but between types and sources of power
Vertical: Federal, state, county, and municipal
Horizontal: Executive, legislative, and judicial

Bill of Rights: Balance between government and individual;
Freedom “from” and the freedom “to”

4. Classical Foundations of Republican Virtue

“L’enfant’s District of Columbia
Revolutionary heroes as Roman senators

5. Republicanism to Liberalism: Tocqueville in Jacksonian America

Nature and capitalism in the new American West

6. Testing the Limits of Independence: The War for the Union and the
Definition of American Democracy