The Enlightened Scot Who Inspired America’s Founders

Real Clear History ^ | 09/25/2025 | Samuel Gregg

[Kid Shelleen]

Great read; besides Smith's arguments which provided the "commercial rationale for becoming independent states", the article also comments on "SCOTTISH ENLIGHTENMENT", "THE RIGHT OF REBELLION", and "UNALIENABLE RIGHTS".

[Sirius Lee]

Ah, but evangelizing for the adoption of haggis as a mainstay of the American diet never did catch on.

[Kid Shelleen]

But what a hit Scotch whisky became...

[Apple Pan Dowdy]

Thank you for posting this excellent article. Living in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina I understand the impact the Scottish and Irish settlers had on not only this region, but on early America. Ancestors on both mine and my husband’s families were Scottish.

[Daveinyork]

Thank you for posting this.

[P8riot]

"Enjoy Your Freedom? Thank a Presbyterian.

[Apple Pan Dowdy]

”Ah, but evangelizing for the adoption of haggis as a mainstay of the American diet never did catch on.”

And thank goodness for that. It is the most vile food I have ever tasted. Though I did enjoy the Burns Supper I once had the pleasure of attending, a celebration of Robert Burns, where the haggis is ceremoniously paraded into the room on a platter by a piper and the chef and the Burn’s poem is read.

[Kid Shelleen]

I am glad you enjoyed it. One of the issues that infuriates me most is the false moral equivalence of illegal immigrants who exploit our generosity verses settlers like your forefathers that actually carved out a new nation and created wealth and freedom.

[PghBaldy]

Great Scot!

[JBW1949]

Being from the East Tennessee mountains, my ancestors were Scots/Irish and Ani-Yun-Wiya (Cherokee)

[PGalt]

Thanks for posting. Thinkers from the past BUMP!

[sauropod]

Bkmk

[mairdie]

https://www.henrylivingston.com/writing/poetry/scots.htm

Scots Wha Hae Wie Wallace Bled. —Old Song.

In arts and arms Escotia stands
Foremost of European lands
Dear soil! from whence my fathers came
I bless and hail thy worth and fame.

Thy sturdy sons in martial pride
With their good broad-swords by their side
In tartain plaid and bonnets blue
A band of Heroes in review.

Scotland excels in peaceful arts:
-Her pulpits warm the coldest hearts;
In poetry her Thompson shines
And thrills us with his glowing lines.

Ramsay and Burns each in their day
Attune their lyres in sweetest lay,
While Scot ascends Parnassus heights
And all the listening world delights.

-But - useless grown my broken shell
I bid the land of cares farewell
Oppressed with the lapse of time
I faintly dream of Auld Lang-Syne.

H.L.
78 [Henry’s age in 1827, from his daughter’s poetry manuscript book]

Henry’s family revered their Scottish ancestors, like Rev John Livingstone, who was one of 3 men sent to interview Charles II before he was allowed to land in Scotland.

https://henrylivingston.com/bios/revjohnlivingston.htm

“For refusing to honor the anniversary of the restoration of King Charles II as a “holiday of the Lord” he was ordered to appear before the Privy Council on December 9, 1662, but being forewarned, left Ancrum before the messenger arrived with the summons and went to Edinburgh, where he remained “close for some days” while his friends were ascertaining what the government proposed to do. He appeared before the Council and was ultimately sentenced to banishment within two months and ordered to leave Edinburgh within forty-eight hours for the north side of Tay and there to remain “till he depart forth out of the country.”

“He remained at Leith until April 9th, when he boarded “old John Allan’s ship” for Rotterdam. Here he spent the last few years of his life. Much of his time was occupied in compiling a polyglot Bible and preparing a new Latin translation of the Old Testament.”

https://henrylivingston.com/bios/jl/jl-discourse-examofjohnlivingstone-p212-213.htm

[quilterdebbie]

Thank you for posting this! I forwarded it to my older son who not too long ago was reading Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations.

[SunkenCiv]

[Albion Wilde]

These two excellent books illuminate the Scots-Irish settler migration along the east coast, the Appalachians and central South. Hardy, intelligent, hard working, independent and inventive people.

[JBW1949]

Many thanks for this information..........

[Albion Wilde]

You’re very welcome!

[Daveinyork]

Thank you for posting. My wife.and I were in Scotland in 2007. It seemed that the Scots were losing their taste for individual freedom. I bought a cigar, and a new law prohibited smoking in a business, even in a tobacco shop where I bought the stogie.

[Albion Wilde]

Yes, Scotland went very woke over the past couple of decades. All of UK has been subjected to the globalist brainwashing from the EU and the WEF. Might as well throw China and Russia in there, too. It's a world war being fought over economies, natural resources, and alliances, all in rejection of the One God of Abraham, the triune Source of all truth.

Scotland, like England, has indulged itself in electing secular materialists, as well as increasing numbers of muslim officials who have no qualms about betraying their ostensible religion to push the woke pansexualism onto children and vulnerable youths, as long as they can play the odds—that appearing to ally with the objectives of the European globalists will advance their climb to ultimate world domination.

One of the ways that the Soviet Revolution of the last century succeeded in taking over the Eastern European satellite nations was by injecting secularism along with the emotionally addictive and lurid “sex eduction” into the schools, corrupting children from the start. They've been actively targeting prosperous economies through these methods worldwide—and certainly here—for a century, injecting propaganda and “social justice activism”, according to defectors such as former Russian spy Yuri Bezmenov.

World domination is what all these anti-God players want: the Putin regime, the CCP, Islamic jihad, the WEF cabal, even the South American drug cartels. All of them want to take people by force, drugs, psyops or mutilation, but won't stop if torture and mass killings again become “necessary” to their goals.

The only world power who wants all the people of the world to bend the knee to Him of their own free will is Jesus.