“Remarks on Liberty” Study Guide

Recall our final examine question (see syllabus) speak to matters of freedom, liberty, and equality, all of which Winthrop address in his 1645 “Remarks” on the “great questions that have trouble the country . . . about the authority of magistrates and the liberty of the people”

What is the occasion for his remarks? Who is he addressing: the people? God? Himself?

Scholars have made a distinct ion between societies preoccupied with guilt and those preoccupied with shame? Which concerns Winthrop? What does that say about the Mass. Bay settlement.

What is the relationship of Winthrop, as magistrate, with the people? With God?

Who is responsible if a magistrates fails?

What does Winthrop mean by Natural liberty?

What does Winthrop mean by civil or federal liberty? (True clue: it is different than the modern notion of civil liberty.)

Is liberty to do what is “good, just, and honest” liberty?

Winthrop explicates his favored notion of liberty through the metaphor of the family, specifically the relationship between husband and wife. Why?