| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 93.1

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| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 93.1 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

John Witherspoon and the Founding of the American Republic. By Jeffry H. Morrison. (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2005. xviii, 220 pp. $22.50, ISBN 0-268-03485-0.)

In this book the political scientist Jeffry H. Morrison aims to place John Witherspoon in the pantheon of American founders. Not a biography, it begins with Witherspoon's immigration from Scotland to New Jersey in 1768 to assume the presidency of the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University). Morrison examines Witherspoon's political, philosophical, and religious ideas and role in politics and in the Presbyterian church, all in an effort to enhance his reputation. The author argues that Witherspoon has been overlooked: little has been written about him, and such writings are brief or part of general studies. Morrison acknowledges that a scholarly work on his subject is difficult because few personal papers remain, and the body of his published work is not large. He justifies his claims by the argument that only Witherspoon was involved in the creation of all three founding documents—the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the Constitution—and was the "sole clergyman and college president to sign the Declaration [of Independence]" (p. 2).

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