Posted on 09/30/2025 3:18:48 AM PDT by Kid Shelleen
The year 1776 was a momentous one, and not just because of what Americans commemorate every July 4. On March 9 of that year, a book was published that changed the world forever: Adam Smith’s Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. ---SNIP--- Colonial American educational institutions from New Hampshire to the Carolinas were dominated by Scottish ministers of religion. Such men were personified by the Reverend John Witherspoon, graduate of the University of Edinburgh, minister of the Church of Scotland, sixth president of the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University), and signer of the Declaration of Independence
(Excerpt) Read more at coolidgereview.com ...
Ah, but evangelizing for the adoption of haggis as a mainstay of the American diet never did catch on.
But what a hit Scotch whisky became...
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.
Thank you for posting this.
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.
Great Scot!
Being from the East Tennessee mountains, my ancestors were Scots/Irish and Ani-Yun-Wiya (Cherokee)
Thanks for posting. Thinkers from the past BUMP!
Bkmk
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
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.
Many thanks for this information..........
You’re very welcome!
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.
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