Anne Hutchinson

(baptized July 20, 1591– August 20, 1643)
Along with Roger Williams founder of Rhode Island, Anne Hutchinson was one of the most important voices of a theology that formed a counter veiling force to the theocratic rule of the Puritans. Ultimately the power of their message would lead to the Great Awakening.

Hutchinson's expression of a set of beliefs that diminished the authority of the clergy led to her banishment from the Massachusetts colony. Her voice, however, would not be stilled. Eventually her view of the relationship between God and humanity (including women) would become the prevailing doctrine throughout the colonies, setting the stage for the Great Awakening and ultimately the Revolution.

Wikipedia Biography
US History Biography

John C. Calhoun

Considered one of the giants of the United States Senate Calhoun was the voice of the South during the lead up to the Civil War.

Biography

Sojourner Truth

Sojourner Truth (c. 1797 – November 26, 1883) was the self-given name, from 1843, of Isabella Baumfree, an African-American abolitionist and women's rights activist. Truth was born into slavery in Swartekill, New York. Her best-known speech, Ain't I a Woman?, was delivered in 1851 at the Ohio Women's Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio.


Wikipedia Biography

William Lloyd Garrison

William Lloyd Garrison 1805 - 1879 From WGBH Boston Public Radio

In the very first issue of his anti-slavery newspaper, the Liberator, William Lloyd Garrison stated, "I do not wish to think, or speak, or write, with moderation. . . . I am in earnest -- I will not equivocate -- I will not excuse -- I will not retreat a single inch -- AND I WILL BE HEARD." And Garrison was heard. For more than three decades, from the first issue of his weekly paper in 1831, until after the end of the Civil War in 1865 when the last issue was published, Garrison spoke out eloquently and passionately against slavery and for the rights of America's black inhabitants. The son of a merchant sailing master, William Lloyd Garrison was born in Newburyport, Massachusetts, in 1805. Due in large measure to the Embargo Act, which Congress had passed in 1807, the Garrison family fell on hard times while William was still young. In 1808 William's father deserted the family, forcing them to scrounge for food from more prosperous families and forcing William to work, selling homemade molasses candy and delivering wood. More

Jonathan Edwards

From Wikipedia

Jonathan Edwards (October 5, 1703 – March 22, 1758) was a preacher, theologian, and missionary to Native Americans. Edwards "is widely acknowledged to be America's most important and original philosophical theologian," and one of America's greatest intellectuals. Edwards's theological work is very broad in scope, but he is often associated with his defense of Reformed theology, the metaphysics of theological determinism, and the Puritan heritage. Recent studies have emphasized how thoroughly Edwards grounded his life's work on conceptions of beauty, harmony, and ethical fittingness, and how central The Enlightenment was to his mindset.

Edwards played a critical role in shaping the First Great Awakening, and oversaw some of the first fires of revival in 1733-1735 at his church in Northampton, Massachusetts. Edwards's sermon "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," is considered a classic of early American literature, which he delivered during another wave of revival in 1741, following George Whitefield's tour of the Thirteen Colonies.

Edwards is widely known for his many books: The End For Which God Created the World; The Life of David Brainerd, which served to inspire thousands of missionaries throughout the nineteenth century; and Religious Affections, which many Reformed Evangelicals read even today.

Edwards died from a smallpox inoculation shortly after beginning the presidency at the College of New Jersey (later to be named Princeton University), and was the grandfather of Aaron Burr.

William Penn

For more than 75 years until the founding of the new Republic, William Penn's colony of Pennsylvania lived in peace with the Indian people of the area.

Penn, a Quaker, was the original socially responsible businessman who recognized that making a profit by paying attention to what is now called the "triple bottom line" was the surest way to both profitability and sustainability of those profits.

Penn's philosophy made Pennsylvania not only the safest place to live in the colonies but also the most prosperous place to live as well.

Wikipedia Biography

University of Virginia Bio

No Cross, No Crown
Written from Jail by William Penn at the age of 24 while he was in prison in the Tower for the “blasphemy” of a pamphlet, The Sandy Foundation Shaken, in which he had assailed what were regarded as the strongholds of the Christian faith. His purpose in writing No Cross No Crown he describes as “to show the nature and discipline of the holy Cross of Christ; and that the denial of self … is the alone way to the Rest and Kingdom of God.”
Written in the old English style and very difficult to read in its original form.
Google Books

Some Fruits of Solitude
William Penn
Bartlebys.com

The Holy Experiment - The Founding of Pennsylvania
Conceived in Liberty Volume 1: Murray Rothbard
Chapter 55


The Pink Cloud



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Washington's Farewell Address to the Nation

One of George Washington's great heroes was the Roman leader Cincinatus who governed for a period of time and then returned to his humble roots. Washington saw this as a mark of a great leader - in fact he believed the example so powerful that he and other colonial leaders and founders of the time, including Henry Knox, actually established a social club called the "Society of Cincinati"

Washington's quiet strength was a character trait that created great political capital for him among founders who could agree on little else in the course of the nation's founding period. For this reasons there are actually very few speeches by Washington that are enshrined in the annals of political rhetoric. However his farewell address probably ranks at the top of these.

Washington's Farewell Address to the Nation.