Review

Vindicating the Founders

The Founding Fathers are attacked by many historians and intellectuals today. They are accused of subjugating women, oppressing the poor and hypocritically preaching liberty while owning slaves. This illuminating, carefully researched book defends the Founders against all these charges. It shows not only that they were consistent fighters for freedom, but that their ideas were what made possible all the freedoms Americans were to enjoy: "After the Civil War, when the decision was finally made to accept blacks as full citizens, the Founders' principles provided the theoretical foundation."

The Founders had forged a nation based on the principle of the individual's right to life, liberty, property and the pursuit of happiness. Contrary to the modern historians' claim, nowhere on Earth could citizens exercise their rights more than in America. Nowhere was it easier to rise out of poverty: And nowhere was the percentage of a country's population that could vote as large as that of America.

America’s founders believed, not in a welfare state, but in the individual's freedom to achieve his own success. West writes: "Far from being compassionate, compelling workers to support shirkers makes some men masters and other men slaves: workers are enslaved to nonworkers. This violates a fundamental principle of the Declaration of Independence."

While West does falsely imply that an effective free society requires women to return to their "traditional" role as house- wives and as subordinates to their husbands, this error does not diminish the essence of his defense of the Founders' achievements.

West soundly debunks the views of today's intellectuals and shows that the Founding Fathers were principled advocates of individual rights – the kind of men who staked their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor on their ideas and who, consequently, established the only truly free nation on Earth.

(219 pages)

This review is courtesy of and copyright © by the Ayn Rand Bookstore.

Books

• Vindicating the Founders by Thomas G. West. Proves that the founding fathers laid the intellectual and practical basis for American freedom.