A#n excellent and informative picture of what the USA should be. Iremember you in my livingroom at 82 High St, visiting my daughter Sissy when you were at Exeter. It is a good feeling to be able to say,I knew him when.

Let us not forget to remember Livingston and his family were Calvinist, Evangelical Christian fundamentalists:

"BUT in what sense my lord, did those adventurers abandon their native religion? If your lordship means by their native religion, the doctrines of christianity as contained in the thirty-nine articles of your church;. they were so far from abandoning it, that it were to be wished it to be inviolably preserved by those they left behind. These were the very doctrines which they, in their time, universally believed, constantly taught, and warmly inculcated. These are the doctrines which their posterity, to this day, believe, teach, and inculcate. Nay, they believe, teach and inculcate them, in the same scriptural and unadulterated sense, in which they were believed, taught, and inculcated at the time of the reformation. They believe, teach, and inculcate them, without those sophisticating glories, by which they have since, in the mother-country, been wrested to favor the heresy of Arminius."
--A Letter to the Right Reverend Father in God, John, Lord Bishop of Landaff; occasioned by some passages in His Lordship's sermon, on the 20th of February, 1767, in which the American colonies are loaded with great and undeserved reproach. / By William Livingston. New-York: Printed for the author; and to be sold by Garrat Noel, near the coffee-house, MDCCLXVIII. 1768

This is a marvelous article of a view not often encountered in current media. Great! Reflective of the old weekly Carlsbad Journal of the 1930’s

Interesting--I appreciated this. One sees some relevance to current disputes over Academic Freedom; the frequent recourse made to Summary Judgment motions to prevent civil liberties lawsuits from getting before a jury,; and the risks of inciting "Occupy Wallstreet" type Levellers.

What a fascinating piece of work. Thanks and praise to Mr. Magnet.

Excellent article, both as a history and philosophy lesson in human nature and of course the corresponding nature & propose of government.

This is perhaps something that should be assigned to student desiring to learn of the philosophical and practical nature of our liberty. Where we stand in the world in the grand scheme of things.

Add to the comments that of the Foreign Secretary who was fearful that a successful revolution would deprive England of the most lucrative slave trade.

Excellent accound of the role of William Livingston.

Just another celebration of America's Founding Slave Drivers yelping for liberty.

I tend to think Chris Mahoney has it right in his comment. If there had been a British Dominion of North America would slavery have been outlawed throughout the British Empire when it was? Would there have been no Southern insurrection? Would there possibly never have been a WW I and a Bolshevik revolution? It may well have been unnecessary, but to know whether it was tragic as well, we'd have to know an alternative history we can never know...

The American Revolution was a big misunderstanding caused by the pig-headedness of the Colonial governors and their distracted masters in London, compounded by the absence of rapid communication. It should never have happened in the way that it did, but rather in the way that Canada, NZ and Australia gained independence. It was the fault of British rudeness and arrogance, but it was tragic and unnecessary. Today's conservative would have been a Tory in 1776, if he could have kept his temper in check.