The Federalist Papers - Alexander Hamilton [343]
p. 325. On the accession ofWilliam III…: William of Orange (1650–1702), the Stadtholder (from 1672) of the United Provinces, became king of Great Britain in 1689. The son of Mary, the eldest daughter of Charles I of England, he married (1677) his cousin, Mary, the daughter of James II. In what later became known as the Glorious Revolution of 1688, he was invited to England to replace James II. Although the change in regime was initially bloodless, support from the French under Louis XIV enabled James to mount a challenge the following year. At the battle of the Boyne (1690), however, William gained a decisive victory. William died without male heirs, and the crown passed to Mary’s sister Anne.
p. 325. whena revolution took place in the government…: The reference is to the Glorious Revolution of 1688 in which James II was replaced by William of Orange and James’s Protestant daughter, Mary. The event marks the final triumph of English parliamentarians over royal absolutism. James’s Catholicism and the birth, in 1685, of a Catholic male heir, catalyzed competing Whigs and Tories into united opposition. Parliamentary leaders offered the crown to William under the conditions that he and his successors acknowledge the rights of their subjects, the supremacy of Parliament, and the Protestant succession. The conditions were accepted—later embodied in the English Bill of Rights—and William and Mary were crowned as joint rulers in 1689.
p. 325. The Parliament which commenced withGeorge II…: George II (1683–1760) was king of Great Britain and Ireland (from 1727) and Elector of Hanover. Although born in Germany, he was more engaged in British affairs than his father, George I, had been. During his reign, supporters of Prince Charles, the Stuart pretender to the throne (Jacobites), were finally crushed at the battle of Culloden (1746), the foundation of empire was laid in India, and Britain entered the Seven Years’ War (called by Americans the French and Indian War) against France.
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p. 340. Had every Athenian citizen been aSocrates…: Socrates (c. 470–399 BC) was a Greek philosopher. The founder of political philosophy, Socrates’ fearlessness in questioning conventional opinion eventually led to his indictment on charges of impiety and corruption of the youth. Refusing to modify his habit of impartial and unremitting inquiry, he was convicted and sentenced to death. Socrates left no written work, and he is known to history solely through the writings of such students and contemporaries as Plato and Xenophon.
p. 340. everyAthenian assemblywould still have been a mob: The assembly was a general conclave in which any Athenian male citizen over the age of twenty had the right to speak and vote. The people met forty times during the year, and meetings were usually attended by the 6,000 citizens required to make up a quorum. Sessions of the assembly, typically lasting no more than a few hours, consisted of speeches by politically active citizens, whose proposals were then put to a vote. All votes were registered by show of hands without exact counting. Although the Assembly was not empowered to pass laws, it could issue decrees concerning foreign and certain domestic policies. The Assembly also elected military and financial magistrates and initiated both legislation and political trials (by appointing legislators and jurors). All matters to be put before the Assembly were prepared by a smaller executive body, the Council of Five Hundred.
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p. 346. Therepresentatives of these eight millionsin the House of Commons…: This estimation of the representative character of the British Parliament is based on the work of James Burgh (1714–1775), a Scottish moral and political writer who was the author of The Dignity of Human Nature and Political Disquisitions.