Catharine Macaulay on the Will

Catharine Macaulay's discussion of freedom of the will in her Treatise on the Immutability of Moral Truth has received little attention, and what discussion there is attributes a number of different, incompatible views to her. In this paper the account of the nature of freedom of the will that she develops is related to her political aspirations, and the metaphysical position that she adopts is compared to those of John Locke, Samuel Clarke, Joseph Priestley, William Godwin, and others. It is argued that although Macaulay's position is ultimately ambiguous, she is most plausibly interpreted as following Locke's discussion of free will in his Essay Concerning Human Understanding and of inheriting, from him, the ambiguity that we find in her account.     

Protestantism and liberty: Catharine Macaulay’s politics of religion as a response to David Hume

ABSTRACT

Catharine Macaulay’s History of England from the Accession of James I (1763–1783) was intended by its author and received by its audience as, in part, a response to David Hume’s History of England. Macaulay’s writing has been read as a Whig counter to Hume’s Tory interpretation of England’s seventeenth-century history; more recent work has explored whether Macaulay or Hume has a better claim to be considered an “enlightenment historian”. This article will suggest that Macaulay’s views on the role of England’s Protestant belief and practice in the development and maintenance of the nation’s liberties contained, in the earlier volumes of her History, some of her substantive and important refutations of Hume’s arguments, and, further, that Macaulay’s well-argued claim that Protestantism was instrumental in the formation of England’s national character and potential enjoyment of political liberties was received by her readers as a particularly valuable part of her historical argument. Her accounts of Roman Catholic violence against Protestant victims at the Siege of La Rochelle and in the Irish Massacre of 1641 became some of the most quoted parts of her historical writing.     

宗教与美国革命

长期以来,国内史学界在研究和探讨美国革命时,大多从政治、宪法、经济、贸易、黑奴和民族等视角阐述美国革命的渊源和意义,鲜有宗教因素方面的考量。北美殖民地与英国宗主国在两大宗教问题上存在着冲突,宗教在推动殖民地走上美国革命之路方面发挥了重要作用。法印战争结束后,随着英国在宗教和政治上加大对北美殖民地的干预和控制,宗教自由和政治自由成为一枚硬币的两面,两者不可须臾缺一。正是在这个意义上,殖民地争取宗教自由的斗争促进和推动了美国革命的爆发和发展。     

浅论美国革命时期效忠派

效忠派(即托利党人)是美国革命时期一个人数众多、复杂的群体,他们的基本立场是对殖民地的热爱和对殖民地权利的维护.他们既反对1763年后英国的新殖民政策,又反对殖民地从帝国中分裂出去.效忠派的构成复杂多样,几乎分布于每一个殖民地、每一种行业和每一个阶层.许多效忠派采取了积极的行动:参加英军或民兵组织,出版、传播亲英的小册子等.但从整体而言,大多数效忠派在革命期间保持了沉默.许多效忠派自愿或被迫流亡,但绝大多数人得以留下,得到了新国家的宽容与接纳.若以成败论英雄的话,效忠派是失败者,但他们在历史上的角色是不应该被漠视的.     

意识形态与美国革命的历史叙事

世界近现代史上的革命往往也是一种意识形态事件,而革命史写作与意识形态之间有着复杂的关联。美国史学界关于美国革命的历史叙事,经历了从辉格主义范式向新美国革命史学的转变,这场革命也从建国之父领导的政治革命,被改写成了一场由普通民众和边缘群体扮演主角的全面变革。在这一转变中,平民主义、多元文化主义和女性主义等思潮与革命史写作之间发生了微妙的互动。这种经过重构的美国革命史带有浓厚的意识形态色彩,已经从学术的边缘走向了中心,并为当前美国社会各种激进的意识形态提供了新的能量。但它仍只是美国革命史的众多相互竞争的版本中的一个。