Top 6 Classic Books to Read for America 250

“The Heritage Guide to Historic Sites” pinpoints and evaluates notable places like battlefields, presidential homes, and museums scattered throughout America. These places tell their own unique stories and combine to tell the American story. They give us insight into the American mind.

That insight is further enriched by reading primary source documents, classical texts the Founders themselves relied upon, and accounts of the American character. Here are six book recommendations from evaluators of the Heritage Guide to Historic Sites: “On Duties” by Cicero, “The Life of George Washington” by John Marshall, “Notes of Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787” by James Madison, “The Federalist Papers” by Publius, “Democracy in America” by Alexis de Tocqueville, and “The Wealth of Nations” by Adam Smith.

Stay tuned for four more books to read for America 250!

Recommendation: “On Duties” by Cicero

Evaluator: Matthew Mehan

The American Founders relied on the Roman statesman and philosopher Cicero’s “On Duties” more than any other single work of public right. At the time of our Founding, Cicero’s most famous, most read, most memorized, and most taught work was ubiquitous in the education of the citizenry.

Today, we may find their familiarity with “On Duties” surprising, given the work’s current and regrettable—though hopefully only temporary—obscurity. Yet, it was the second book off the Gutenberg printing press after the Holy Bible. Like the Bible, it was considered a representative of the entire civilization, a pillar of the ethical life and of republican self-government.

Phrasing from “On Duties” can be found in the concept of “sacred honor” that closes the declaration; the work’s teaching and formulae for taking an oath are used directly in the Constitution’s oath of office; and the preambles of both documents bear the marks of deep familiarity with Cicero’s account of justice in “On Duties.”

More importantly, the entire understanding of republican self-government, private property used by free people for both personal and public virtue, liberty, the necessity of a vibrant culture of free speech unto legislation—all these profound and elaborated teachings from “On Duties” can be seen in the writings of the Founders and in their handiwork, namely our great original and organic laws, among which we cherish most highly the declaration and the Constitution.

Cicero was one of the many great heroes of the Roman republic that the Founding generation revered. Towns and children were named for him. Founders spoke of him fondly by his nickname, calling Marcus Tullius Cicero simply “Tully.” He both saved his republic once, and when it fell, he twice sacrificed himself to see that it fell in the least harmful way by undertaking a massive endeavor: in a few short and disastrous years, he wrote a flurry of the greatest works in the Western Canon in order to gift the habits, the principles, and the testament of republican Rome to future generations and future peoples who might open his works and start anew.

“On Duties” was Cicero’s last work, after which he was hunted down and murdered by the lawless triumvirate, but not before he prudently sent copies of the work to the four corners of the failing republic, much to our eventual benefit. That Cicero did all this was well known to the Founding Fathers, as it is now known to you.

The study of Cicero’s “On Duties” is an excellent first step for any American seeking to understand the Founders, the Founding, and the requirements of duty in a self-governing republic.

Recommendation: “The Life of George Washington” by John Marshall 

Evaluator: Adam Carrington

We have many books written by great men. We have many books written about great men. However, rarely do we find a work in which one great man writes about another.

Chief Justice John Marshall’s biography of George Washington is one such work. With special access to Washington’s private papers, Marshall published this five-volume biography between 1804 and 1807.

The chief justice did more than tell Washington’s life story. Marshall recounted that life as the exemplar of republican virtue. Washington combined the classical characteristics of courage, justice, temperance, and prudence in a rare harmony. He exercised these virtues, not for monarchical glory or aristocratic privilege, but in the cause of founding and establishing the American republic. Moreover, Marshall wrote his biography of Washington to give a Federalist articulation of that republic and of its constitution.

By his telling, Marshall’s vision of the United States—strongly nationalistic, committed to popular self-government and to ordered individual liberty—is the magnificent legacy of our most indispensable Founding Father. 

Recommendation: “Notes of Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787” by James Madison

Evaluator: Brenda Hafera

James Madison’s “Notes,” rivaling the Bible in thickness, is the most detailed record of the Constitutional Convention and well worth a perusal. Reliance on primary sources distinguishes faithful accounts of history from distorted ones, and being familiar with primary sources inculcates discernment. The “Notes” convey what the debates at the Convention were really about, what the delegates argued, and their reasons for their positions.

Reading Madison’s “Notes” gives American citizens an appreciation for what was at stake at the Constitutional Convention. There was no guarantee that America would come to exist at all, as it was quite possible the states would splinter off into separate confederacies. Northern and southern states, large and small states, had varying interests and opinions. Against the backdrop of history, it was unlikely that America would succeed as a republic, which was historically confined so that the people’s will could be heard.

Still, somehow, after almost four months of being enclosed in a room in the hot Pennsylvania summer, Americans issued to the world the miracle of Philadelphia. And James Madison, the Father of the Constitution, was there to chronicle the account for posterity.

Recommendation: The Federalist Papers by Publius

Evaluator: Lucas Morel

Thomas Jefferson once described the Federalist Papers as “the best commentary on the principles of government, which ever was written.” This was high praise by the chief draftsman of the Declaration of Independence and eventual opponent of Federalists like Alexander Hamilton, who, along with James Madison, wrote most of the 85 essays published in 1787-1788 in defense of the ratification of the Constitution.

Addressed to the citizens of New York under the pseudonym “Publius,” the immediate aim of the Federalist Papers was to persuade New Yorkers (and eventually citizens of other American states) to send pro-ratification delegates to their state convention in hopes of replacing the weak Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union. But its appeals to philosophical authorities like Montesquieu, examples of flawed ancient republics, and the experience of state governments ill-suited to restrain the excesses of majoritarian self-interest suggested its authors sought to make a lasting contribution to political thought.

The Federalist, whose essays were soon published in two volumes, offered a theory of self-government informed by a “science of politics,” as Hamilton put it in the 9th essay,  that “has received great improvement” over the political reasonings and forms of antiquity.

Both principle and prudence are displayed as James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay defend a stronger federal system, which they argued would “first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.”

In a year dedicated to celebrating an American republic 250 years in the making, readers of the Federalist will find plenty that reflects the principles of the Declaration of Independence as Publius tried to help Americans “form a more perfect union.”

Recommendation: “Democracy in America” by Alexis de Tocqueville

Evaluator: Daniel J. Mahoney

Every serious student of the United States or of modern democracy must at some point come to terms with Alexis de Tocqueville’s “Democracy in America,” originally published in two volumes in 1835 and 1840, respectively. Much more than a travelogue, Tocqueville’s classic reflection on both America and democracy rises to the level of political philosophy—but it is political philosophy of a most graceful and accessible kind.

Tocqueville admired the American Founders for their wisdom and sobriety (he recommended that all European statesmen study the Federalist) even as he warned about the dangers posed by majority tyranny, and perhaps more ominously, an “individualism” where apathy wins out over civic engagement.

At the same time, he lauded the way Americans perfected “the art of association” and recommended its efforts to do justice to both “the spirit of freedom” and the “spirit of religion.” He was particularly sensitive to the role that manners and morals (moeurs in French) play in informing and elevating the exercise of liberty. 

He defended the truth of human equality and detested slavery, even as he warned against doctrinaire egalitarianism or an indiscriminate “passion for equality.” His warnings against “tutelary despotism” (what we today call a “nanny state”) remain as relevant as ever.

As the essayist and cultural critic Joseph Epstein has written, today, it is impossible to think “about America, about democracy, about liberty, about bureaucracy, about equality, about almost any aspect of politics, or for that matter about large stretches of human nature,” without reference to Tocqueville.

I recommend the fine translations by Harvey C. Mansfield and Delba Winthrop (available in paperback from the University of Chicago Press) and the hardcover edition translated by Arthur Goldhammer (available from Library of America).

Recommendation: “The Wealth of Nations” by Adam Smith

Evaluator: Amity Shlaes

Adam Smith’s insights into the importance of commerce informed the thinking of the framers in their formative years. Especially informative was his “Theory of Moral Sentiments” (1759), which explains the culture that gives rise to what we later called “spontaneous order’—the associations of men that foster commerce and provide its basis. Smith’s blockbuster, the “Wealth of Nations,” appeared in 1776, the same year as the declaration, and became the corollary founding document for American economics.

In 1790, Thomas Jefferson called it “the best book extant.” Critically, these theses of “The Wealth of Nations” guided young America towards ordered markets, and away from excessive government.

Smith’s theses set parameters we still regard as the right ones today: “Commerce and manufactures can seldom flourish long in any state which does not enjoy a regular administration of justice, in which the people do not feel themselves secure in the possession of their property, in which the faith of contracts is not supported by law, and in which the authority of the state is not supposed to be regularly employed in enforcing the payment of debts from all those who are able to pay.”