Читать книгу American Political Thought - Ken Kersch - Страница 27

1 Were the Puritans a force for progress or reaction? Was Puritan thought “liberal” or “illiberal”?

2 Is the American Revolution best understood as conservative or radical? Was it really revolutionary at all? In what sense?

3 How much of a distinction is there, ultimately, between the categories of “constitutional design” and “constitutional interpretation”?

4 How do the oppositions between Federalists and Antifederalists, and Hamiltonians and Jeffersonians, map onto the politics of subsequent American history, including the present day?

5 Does it make sense to speak of the American founding as instituting a “democracy”?

6 Does it make sense to speak of any coherent group under the label of “the founders”?

7 Does the existence and acceptance of chattel slavery by the new nation vitiate any moral or political value that the American founding might otherwise have?