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Radicals, Rights, and Revolution: British Nonconformity and Roots of the American Experience

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Richard L. Greaves
Affiliation:
Mr. Greaves is Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor of History, Courtesy Professor of Religion, and codirector of the Center for British and Irish Studies at Florida State University. This is his presidential address delivered at the annual meeting of the American Society of Church History, 29 December 1991.

Extract

The bicentennial of the American Bill of Rights offers an appropriate occasion to reassess its intellectual heritage. British radicals, I will argue, had a major impact on the principles enunciated in the Bill of Rights, including the rarely cited ninth amendment, so crucial for the resolution of such sociolegal issues as the rights to life and privacy and the place of religion in society. By radicals I mean those who sought fundamental changes in politics, religion, society, or the economy by striking at the root of contemporary assumptions and institutions.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1992

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