People often ask what books they should read to better understand the principles of the Constitution and liberty in general. Here is my top 5. Watch the video to see why and learn more about these great and important books.
Discourses on Government https://amzn.to/3A1TcwE
Cato’s Letters https://amzn.to/3Soe1Zk
Revolutionary Writings of John Adams https://amzn.to/3YjQbBI
Federalist Papers https://amzn.to/4c0p8i4
Founders Recipe https://amzn.to/3YfUYnT
Whenever I do a presentation or people just give me a call or shoot me a message, one of the most common questions that I get is,
“What are some other books that can help me understand the things that you’re talking about better?”
They want to know, what’s the background on some of these things? And so what I’m going to do is do a series of videos on a top five books on a certain subject,
whether it be liberty, natural law, the Constitution, conspiracy, things that are relevant to defending liberty today.
So today’s top five, is books that the Founding Fathers read that guided them towards creating a government that would maintain freedom if adhered to.
So let’s start with this series of books in no particular order. Book number one.
1. Discourses on Government
Discourses on Government by Algernon Sidney. This book, this particular edition is published by the Liberty Fund. The thing I like a lot about discourses on government is,
first of all, this book, even before it was published, I did a video on this, even before it was published and made public, Algernon and Sydney was killed for the contents of this book.
It’s got to be juicy stuff. It’s got to be good stuff. And this book lays out principles of natural law, how government was instituted of God, what that means, what its role is,
what its limits are, and how do you keep it within those limits? What do you have to do to keep government within those limits? And so it doesn’t become tyrannical, it doesn’t become too strong,
but also doesn’t become so weak that it can’t provide its role of preserving life, liberty, and property.
This edition has a fabulous hardcover, a neat cloth bookmark inside. This edition also has a fantastic index help you find any topic that you’re looking for.
You can order your copy here.
2. Cato’s Letters
Cato’s letters by Trenchard and Gordon. These are the books that were read by the early founders of America. This is what guided them. This is what directed them. If you don’t know Cato’s letters,
you don’t know the Constitution. If you don’t know Cato’s letters, you don’t know the founding fathers. You don’t know American independence. These books guided them so much.
If you read the commonplace books of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, they reference these quite a bit. These are very much important works. And these two volumes are also published by the Liberty Fund.
You can see the similar Liberty Fund quality that they put into all of their books. Volume 2 contains the index for both volumes so that you can just start looking up what you’d like to study.
You can order your copy here.
3. The Revolutionary Writings of John Adams.
The Revolutionary Writings of John Adams from the Library of America hardcover, is just wonderful.
Just like what we have with discourses on government and Cato’s letter, this one brings us a little bit more forward where, of course, we have the founding generation. What was it that they were writing?
What were the arguments that they were making for independence? What were the issues that they were seeing with what the government was doing? And why it was necessary for them to defend themselves to the death if necessary for this?
This is a very important work and this is a fantastic edition. Books like these, it’s worth the investment to be able to get something that is going to last you for years to come.
This edition actually comes with a dust jacket as well as a built -in cloth bookmark.
You can order your copy here.
4. Federalist Papers
The Federalist Papers were written after we’ve won our independence and the Articles of Confederation were looking to be strengthened and they had written the Constitution but it had not been adopted yet and not been ratified by the necessary nine states to make it nine independent states to make it binding upon those that chose to go along with it. And what this is just a series of letters, some of them written in code names and published in newspapers, I’ll open down the colonies to encourage the people to support the new constitution.
- What did the constitution mean?
- What was the definition?
- What was the original meaning behind “general welfare”?
All of these questions and more are answered and clarified in The Federalist Papers.
You can order your copy here.
5. The Founders Recipe by Dr. Joe Wolverton
The Founders Recipe by Dr. Wolverton , this is solutions. The Founder’s Recipe goes through and it gets the ingredients neccessary for a free society. This book pulls all these things that I mentioned in the books above, plus a ton of other books all together into an easy bite size volume to be able to really start to get a good grasp and the essentials of liberty.
If we’re not reading all those other books, we should at least start here to get you a foundation of understanding of what the Founders understood and were trying to build.
Not only is a great book for adults, but it’s also designed to be a home-school book.
Founders Recipe has a section at the end of each chapter for you to write down notes about what you’ve read, it has full color pages, a brief overview of who each of the authors are,
and then selections from that authors writings
It is a great book for using for homeschooling because it goes through and it explains how to use the book as a school book as well as for personal study.
You can order your copy here.
I believe that these are the top five, starting with the Founder’s Recipe to really get you on the path to understanding and then applying the principles of liberty so that we can restore what it was that God intended us to have, the liberty that he gave us, and that no one else has the authority or the right to take away from us. And we just need to know these key principles that not only the key principles of liberty, but those key fundamentals of how to preserve and how to restore lost liberty.
