1776 and All That: On the Causes of the Wealth and Liberty of Nations: Reflections on Adam Smith and Thomas Jefferson some 250 years on.

The following are the notes I wrote for my talk for the Centre of Independent Studies lunchtime presentation on two significant events of 1776 – the publication of Smith’s Wealth of Nations and the signing of the American Declaration of Independence the draft of which was written by Thomas Jefferson – held in Sydney on 24 Sept. 2026.

Some prefatory remarks

Before I begin I want to mention some parameters concerning “The Enlightenment”

I think it should be plural – “Enlightenments”

• there were two schools of thought within the Enlightenment:
  • a “liberal” enlightenment, e.g. A. Smith and TJ
  • and a socialist or interventionist / authoritarian enlightenment, e.g. JJ Rousseau and Robespierre
  • a good example of this important difference was the use of “reason” to solve social and economic problems
    • “socialist or interventionist / authoritarian enlightenment” thinkers believed “reason” could and should be used to “run” society as the rational planners thought best, and that if left free ordinary people would make mistakes and errors
    • “liberal enlightenment” thinkers like Smith argued that the use of “reason” by authoritarian central planners was immoral and self-defeating and that reason showed that peace, freedom, and propserity was best achieved by leaving people free to literarlly go about their own business (whatever they conceived that to be)
• there were two “modes” within the E
  • a radical mode where principles were applied consistently and without exception to all races, genders, religious beliefs, types of property owners (land owners, labour owners), amount of wealth owned : the “radical enlightenment” was “democratic”in the sense that the ideas applied to all people
  • a moderate or conservative mode where this was not the case : the moderate / conservative enlightenment made several major exceptions for women, “coloured” people (“blacks”), atheists, the “propertyless” ; this version of E was “elitist” in the sense that only property-owners and educated elites were capable of excercing their freedom “responsibly / properly”
• most of the major European languages had their own version of the E, but with considerable overlapping and borrowing as many were multilingual; two most important were Anglio-Scottish English language E, and the French language E (France, Switzerland); good example of the linguistic cross-over were AS and TJ
• there were two “means / approaches” :
  • the “theoretical means” where the principles of E thinking were applied to broad theory such as political thought, economics, law, history, literature, etc. (e.g. Rousseau, Smith)
  • the “practical means” where E ideas were put into practice by way of gradual reform or revolution (TJ, Robespierre)

Thus the two thinkers I want to discuss today exemplify these different streams within the broader Enlightement” in the following ways:

• AS was part of the liberal enlightement; he was interested in the theoretical means in order to understand moral philosophy, law, and poltical economy; he was a moderate (even conservative on some issues); he wrote in English (Scottish??) but was well-read in French
• TF was also part of the liberal enlightenment; he was interested in the political means in order to implement liberal and enlightenment reforms; he was a radical liberal in that he believed revolution and violence was necessary to stop the repressive activity of the Brithsh Empire; he was fluent in French, translating the DoI into French and serving as American embassador to Paris, and organising (perhaps even doing) the transation of some key French works into English (JBS, Destutt de Tracy)

My Talk: 1776 and All That: On the Causes of the Wealth and Liberty of Nations: Reflections on Adam Smith and Thomas Jefferson some 250 years on.

AS’s WoN and Thomas Jefferson’s DoI were both products of what is broadly called “The Englightenment”. The former was one of the leading thinkers of the Enlightenment, a government bureuacrat and advisor; the other was a revolutionary, one of the founders of the American Republic, and one of its early presidents.

They both brought together several streams of thought concerning the nature of individual liberty and the power of government which were circulating in the period leading up to their publication.

1. one product was a great work of economic theory (or rather political economy in all its many aspects)
2. the other product was one of the greatest attempts to put this theory into practice, i.e. to build a system of strict limitations on the power of the state to interfere with the rights of individuals

In the pithy words of Commager: Europe “imagined” the Enlightenment and America “realised” it, i.e. put it into practice.

The “imagining” of what a freer, more just, and more productive future society might look like occupied thinkers across Europe and North America, who wrote hundreds of books and articles in English, French, Italian, and Spanish. These ideas about freedom, justice, and prosperity included:

• natural law and natural rights (especially property rights) which existed prior to and above the state
• free markets are necessary for human flourishing, prosperity, and individual fulfillment (“pursuit of happiness”)
• the corrupting influence of power and political privilege
• the consent of the governed
• the right to resist “tyranny”
• limited government: by means of a written constitution and Bill of Rights, periodic elections, impeachment of corrupt politicians

A complication in this story is that the “Enlightenment” itself produced three different streams of thought:

1. a “liberal stream” which was divided into a “moderate” liberal (like AS) and a “radical” liberal faction (like George Mason, TJ) – see the work of Jonanthan Israel, Bernard Bailyn, and Gordon Wood on the radical enlightenment
2. and an “intreventionist” unliberal stream (Rousseau)

Thus it is wrong to talk about “the enlightenment” did this, or “the enlightenment” did that – you have to be specific about “which enlightenment” you are talking about.

This is important when it comes to talking about “the” American revolution or “the” French revolution because they were both influenced by these different streams of thought within the broader “enlightenment”, and both went through more or less liberal phases as they unfolded..

In the case of the American revolution it began being more under the influence of radical liberal enlightened figures like Thomas Paine, George Mason, and TJ but later came more under the influence of less liberal more centralist interventionist figures like James Madison and Alexander Hamilton which TJ did not approve of, and then later the influence of protectionists.

The influence of the radical enlightened liberal faction in France was eliminated (literally) very early on (Condorcet) and it increasingly came under the influence of the non-liberal interventionist enlightened figures like Robespierre (Rousseau) who wanted to rationally “purify” and plan all aspects of French society. This of course failed and the end result was the rule of the military dictator Napoleon who didn’t have a liberal bone in his body or a liberal thought in his head.

We know what thinkers influenced the American “founders” by looking at the books they owned and had in their libraries. (This would have been the same set of book owned and read by people like David Hume and AS in Scotland). Several historians have done this, especailly for Th. Jefferson whose library was the foundation of the American Library of Congress. Those you who have been to the LoC proabably have seen the section set aside with TJ’s own books. This was a very moving experience for me as I had spent 20 years putting most of these books online for the LF’s OLL.

The same thinkers influenced the ideas of TJ in America and AS as he was giving his lectures at the University of Glasgow and writing his books (TMS and WoN).

political thinkers:

• John Locke
• Montesquieu
• Trenchard Gordon, “Cato” (the Cato Institute in Washington, DC was named after them)

classical authors:

• Plutarch
• Tacitus
• Cicero
• Thucydides

legal and natural law texts:

• Blackstone
• Vattel
• Sidney

What we have forgotten today (or have rejected outright as no longer valid or false) but which TJ and his generation were strong advocates:

1. the power of the state was the major source of the violation of individual liberty (personal liberties and free markets)
2. since the state had a tendancy to expand its powers over time it had to be strictly checked or restrained by a written constitution and a bill of rights
3. this required the existence of a vigilant population who were willing
   1. firstly, to create such a limited state (by violence if necessary), and then
   2. secondly to take the steps necessary to keep this state limited (by periodic elections, impeachment of corrupt or tyrannical politicians, or another revolution if required (TJ thought every generation or so) )
      1. hence the need for a “militia” to protect liberty from both internal and external threats
   3. thirdly, to keep the idea of liberty alive in the minds of men and women

Unfortunately for us living today (in the US and in Australia) most people have come to believe:

1. that the state is not the enemy of freedom but the means by which “liberty” can be achieved,
2. that it wants to and is able to make us free and prosperous by means of its actions and its regulation of and intervention in all aspects of our lives,
3. and therefore that it is not necessary to strictly limit its activities but rather to expand these activities
4. and that it must take steps to regulate, control, exclude/ignore, or ban the thoughts, speech, and actions of those who do wish to reduce its size, power, and scope

To date the opponents of both the theory and the practice of liberty have been enormously successful. The thoughts of AS and JT are not held in high regard by the intellectual and political classes, and they are not at all part of the thinking of ordinary people and voters.

If they are thought of at all it is not for their often very radical liberal ideas but for their failures, weaknesses, and omissions.

The problem we face in this year of anniversary is

• how do we rectify this problem,
• how do we reverse course,
• how do we make the ideas which lie behind the WoN and the DoI attractive once again to the general public (especially the younger generation)
• how do we put these ideas into practice (without resorting to violence as TJ did or by making too many compromises)

Some versions of the Declaration of Independence

Let us not forget what immediately preceded the signing of the Declaration of Independence on 4 July 776, namely George Mason’s (and others), "The Virginia Declaration of Rights" (May and 12 June, 1776). We have online Mason’s draft and the final official version. [enhanced HTML and facs. PDF and facs. PDF]

Concerning Thomas Jefferson’s (and others), "The Declaration of Independence" (4 July, 1776), we have online the following versions of this important document (see below for the opening sentence of each version …):

1. Jefferson’s draft and the final official version. [enhanced HTML and facs. PDF and facs. PDF]
2. a German translation which was published in Philadelphia the next day. [enhanced HTML and JPG]
3. the standard French translation done by La Rochefoucauld in 1783 in [enhanced HTML]
4. a French version we have done in the style of Jefferson in [enhanced HTML]
5. a Latin version we have done in the style of Cicero in [enhanced HTML]
6. a Latin version done by an unnamed member of Harvard University in the 1820s in [enhanced HTML]
7. a version "translated" into the American vernacular (1921) by H.L. Mencken in [enhanced HTML]
8. a version we have "translated" into modern Australian English in [enhanced HTML]
9. another version we have "translated" into more colloquial Australian English – the "backyard BBQ" version – in [enhanced HTML]
10. my own updated version of a Bill of Rights written in time for this coming "Australia Day" (26 January, 2026) – "Libertas utrimque maris" (Liberty on both sides of the sea) in [enhanced HTML]

It seems only fair to allow King George III, whose government was so harshly criticised by Thomas Jefferson and his colleagues, the "right of reply". So we have constructed a rebuttal which he might have made, concerning both the principles which lay behind the Declaration as well as the specific charges made against him. [HTML]

It is also worth noting that in 1975 (the 199th anniversary of the American Declaration) the Australian libertarian "Workers Paty" published its Party Platform which included a Bill of Rights which we have here.

• see the sections "The Fundamental Principle", "I.1. Individual Rights", and "I.2. Rights, Justice and the Law" and the proposed Amendment of the Constitution concerning a "Bill of Rights" [enhanced HTML]

And to celebrate the 200th anniversary, since we don’t have one of our own, I have written my own "Declaration of Independence" and a "Bill of Rights" in time for "Australia Day" (26 January, 2026).

1. "A Declaration of Independence from the State" (26 January, 2026) [enhanced HTML and PDF]
2. "A New Bill of Rights and the Enumerated Powers of a Limited Government" (26 January, 2026) [enhanced HTML]

We should add these to the larger collection of 28 Declarations of Rights and Liberties which I put together in 2024:

• On Limiting the Power of the State: A Collection of Petitions, Charters, Decrees, and Declarations of Rights and Liberties (1215-1848) (The Pittwater Free Press, 2024). In [enhanced HTML].

The opening sentence of the Declaration of Independence in various languages:

• When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for a people to advance from that subordination in which they have hitherto remained, & to assume among the powers of the earth the equal & independant station to which the laws of nature & of nature’s god entitle them …
• When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them …
• Wenn es im Lauf menschlicher Gegebenheiten für ein Volk nöthig wird die Politische Bande, wodurch es mit einem andern verknüpft gewesen, zu trennen, und unter den Mächten der Erden eine abgesonderte und gleiche Stelle einzunehmen, wozu selbiges die Gesetze der Natur und des Gottes der Natur berechtigen …
• Lorsque, dans le cours des événements humains, il devient nécessaire à un peuple de dissoudre les liens politiques qui l’unissaient à un autre, et de prendre, parmi les puissances de la terre, le rang séparé et égal auquel les lois de la nature et du Dieu de la nature lui donnent droit …
• Lorsque, dans le cours des événements humains, il devient nécessaire à un peuple de dissoudre les liens politiques qui l’unissaient à un autre, et d’assumer, parmi les puissances de la terre, le rang séparé et égal auquel les Lois de la Nature et du Dieu de la Nature lui donnent droit …
• Cum in humanarum rerum cursu fiat interdum, ut populus alter ab altero dissolvat vincula, quibus inter se coniuncti sunt, atque inter nationes terrarum potestates sibi pares et separatas obtineat, ad quas Leges Naturae et Dei Naturae eum ius habere concedunt …
• Quum in rerum humanarum cursu contingat, ut populus aliquis necessitate coactus vincula politica, quibus cum alio coniunctus fuit, dissolvat, atque inter terrarum potestates locum separatam et aequalem, ad quem eum naturae leges et naturae Deus vocant …
• When things get so balled up that the people of a country have to cut loose from some other country, and go it on their own hook, without asking no permission from nobody, excepting maybe God Almighty, …
• and in the cause of "Libertas utrimque maris" (Liberty on both sides of the sea), a couple of Australian versions for your edification and amusement:
  • When it becomes necessary for one people to break away from another, to cut the political ties that bind them, and to take up an equal and independent place in the world—as the laws of nature and the Creator entitle them to do …
  • Look, sometimes in life you’ve just gotta cut the cord. One lot of people decides they’ve had enough of being bossed around by another, so they break free and stand on their own two feet. When you do that, you’ve gotta give the world a heads-up why. …
  • WHEN, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for every person to reclaim that sovereignty which nature vested in them from their first breath, and which no compact, no parchment, no vote of the many, nor decree of the few can justly alienate, …

Bibliography

Bernard Bailyn, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution (Harvard University Press, 1967).

Bernard Bailyn, “The Central Themes of the American Revolution: An Interpretation,” in S. Kurtz and J. Hutson, eds., Essays on the American Revolution (Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, 1973), pp. 26-27.

Henry Steele Commager, The Empire of Reason: How Europe imagined and America realized the Enlightenment (Anchor Press, 1977).

David M. Hart, “The Founding Father’s Library: The ‘Top 40′”, Online Library of Liberty https://oll.libertyfund.org/pages/founding-father-s-library.

Forrest McDonald, “A Founding Father’s Library”, Literature of Liberty: A Review of Contemporary Liberal Thought , vol. 1, no. 1 January/March 1978) https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/907

Jonathan Israel, A Revolution of the Mind: Radical Enlightenemtn and the Intellectual Origins of Modern Democracy (Princeton University Press, 2010).

Jonathan Israel, Revolutionary Ideas: An Intellectuakl History of the French Revolution from ‘The Rights of Man’ to Robespierre (Princeton University Press, 2014).

Jonathan Israel, The Expanding Blaze: How the American Revolution ignited the World, 1775-1848 (Princeton University Press, 2017).

Robert A. Nisbet, The Social Impact of the Revolution (Washington, D.C.: American Enterprise institute, 1974),

Murray N. Rothbard, “The Libertarian Heritage: The American Revolution and Classical Liberalism”, in For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto. Revised Edition (San Francisco: Fox and Wilkes, 1978), pp. 1-.

Murray N. Rothbard, Conceived in Liberty. Five Volumes (New Rochelle, NY: Arlington House Publishers, 1975-)

Gordon S. Wood, The Radicalism of the American Revolution (Alfred A. Knopf, 1991).

Gordon S. Wood, The Idea of America: Reflections on the Birth of the United States (The Penguin Press, 2011).