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"Today we assume that Britain, or perhaps Rome, was the most important influence on the American Founding. To claim that any other nation’s influence predominated is to meet with incredulity.
Yet back in the 1890s, many Americans rated the Dutch influence on our Framers as strong. Perhaps even as strong as Britain’s. ...
Our Dutch Revolution
The American Founders were hardly the first in history to insist that people have the right to choose their own leaders.
What precedent could the Founders cite?
The Dutch experience, for one.
President Coolidge made this point in a 1926 speech marking the anniversary of America’s Founding.
The right of the people to choose their own rulers, Coolidge said, “was set out with a good deal of detail by the Dutch when, as early as July 26, 1581, they declared their independence of Philip of Spain.” ...
the federal republic the American Founders created had “a structure closer to the Dutch Republic than to the British King-in-Parliament.”
... examines the Dutch leader William of Orange and “the astonishing and unlikely events known as the Glorious Revolution of 1688–89.” ...
The Line from Glasgow to Philadelphia
... The thinkers of the Scottish Enlightenment. ... father of the Scottish Enlightenment, Francis Hutcheson.
Three of Hutcheson’s most important arguments ... became integral to America’s case for independence. ...
Hutcheson outlined the right of rebellion, the right of colonies to seek independence from their mother country, and the concept of unalienable rights. ..."
The forgotten figures who influenced America’s Founders
