http://www.csustan.edu/english/reuben/pal/chap2/freneau.html
I. Freneau as Leader of 18th Century Naturalism
1. Fresh interest in nature.
2. The belief that nature is a revelation of God.
3. Humanitarian sympathy for the humble and oppressed.
4. The faith that people are naturally good.
5. That they lived idyllic and benevolent lives in a primitive past before the advent of civilization.
6. The radical doctrine that the golden age will dawn again when social institutions are modified, since they are responsible for existing evil.
>> I. Freneau as Leader of 18th Century Naturalism
Philip Freneau was the Editor of the National Gazette, a newspaper owned by Jefferson and Madison. He was a true, anti-big-government conservative.