OPINION:
Wesley Pruden’s column on Scotland’s vote for independence nicely described America’s Scottish heritage, especially with respect to our Founding Fathers’ generation (“Scotland the brave, on the brink,” Web, Sept. 15). As Mr. Pruden notes, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison were all of Scottish descent.
But Mr. Pruden neglects to mention the profound effect that many members of the “Scottish Enlightenment” had on the political, economic and philosophical thinking of the Founders. That list would include David Hume, Adam Smith, Frances Hutchison, and arguably the most influential Scot of them all, John Witherspoon, a Scottish Presbyterian minister who came to America in 1768 to assume the presidency of the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University).
By itself, his personal supervision of and influence over the college education of “the Father of the Constitution” and “chief architect of the Bill of Rights” James Madison would put Witherspoon in the pantheon of great Scottish-Americans. But over his lifetime, Witherspoon also shaped the thinking of nine future presidential Cabinet members, three justices of the U.S. Supreme Court, 21 U.S. senators, 39 members of the U.S. House of Representatives and 12 state governors.
John Witherspoon was a “Great Scot.”
BRUCE G. KAUFFMANN
Alexandria
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