Forming a New Nation: Provocations, Concepts, and Accomplishments of Liberty During the Founding

Per Scriptum E. Wesley - Mackinac Center Intern

Now this was a real honor. The above video is a lecture I gave for the Mackinac Center’s Intern University program under the direction of Fiscal Policy Analyst James Hohman. I attempt to delve into the ideas, traditions, and hopes of the generation that founded the United States of America. The story is a battle between tyranny and liberty, with all the arts of betrayal and power on one side, and the fervent prayers of a new world on the other.

Here is sung the sighing of dreams,
Whether a song of death or of life,
Who could say ere freedom’s flag streams,
The sacred standard will follow strife.


P.S. As one minor point of correction, the First Great Awakening was from about the 1730s-1740s instead of the 1740s-1750s.