Two of the dominant schools of thought of America’s Founding Era were “classical liberalism” and “civic republicanism.” They both had a strong influence on the thinking of the American Founders and the type of government that they ultimately created.
Classical liberalism is different than what we now think of as “liberalism” in the 21st century. Classical liberalism was the idea that political power ultimately comes from the people (rather than other traditional authorities such as kings, emperors, gods, etc.). Early liberal philosophers argued that governments derived their legitimacy from a “social contract” between the people, who mutually agreed to give up some of their freedom to a (limited, not absolute) government that had power only to create laws to protect the people’s natural rights (e.g. life, liberty, property, etc.).
For classical liberals, the priority was to carve out a space of freedom from other traditional authorities (institutional religious authority, aristocratic privilege) and hold the government accountable to those it governed. This, theoretically, could be accomplished by designing institutions like a separation of powers and “checks and balances” between different branches of government and period elections to keep the government accountable to the people. People were understood to have the freedom to pursue their own interests as they defined it for themselves and advocate for those interests in the public arena.
Civic republicanism, on the other hand, focused on the importance of civic “virtue” and political participation while guarding against “corruption” on the part of the government or its leaders. Virtue, to civic republicans, meant putting the public good above your own interests. Good leaders, therefore, sacrificed their own interests on behalf of the people (“republic” deriving from the Latin words “res publica” or “affairs of the people”/”on behalf of the people”). Corrupt leaders, then, were those who pursued their own interests at the expense of the people at large. Civic republicans understood freedom to mean free from arbitrary (=self-interested, corrupt) domination from the government and its leaders. This could be accomplished through good laws, institutions, and a “virtuous” citizenry who understood that the good of the whole was as important as the good of one self. (This, by the way, is what the Founders meant when they said a system was a “republic.”)
The Western “classics” (from which the civic republican tradition arises) were the reference point for much of education and cultural references in the Founding Era. Our political words today, even, derive from the republican tradition of Greece and Rome (“democrat,” “republican,” “senate,” “capitol,” etc.). Many of our political buildings were built to resemble ancient Greek and Roman buildings in homage to this tradition. A key point of historical memory for the Founding Era was the fall of the Roman Republic to the Roman Empire under Julius Caesar, and much of the Founders’ thinking focused on how to prevent a new American Republic from falling to the same fate under a new American Caesar.
Both understandings of freedom, society, and the purpose of government were common during the Founding Era. They sometimes worked together (for example, by agreeing on the need for personal freedom) while sometimes creating tension (for example, what is the purpose of personal free?).
References and further reading:
https://www.britannica.com/topic/liberalism/Classical-liberalism
https://www.britannica.com/topic/civic-republicanism
https://www.amazon.com/First-Principles-Americas-Founders-Learned/dp/0062997459
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