Published in response to the hated Townshend Acts of 1767, Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania were more popular in the colonies than any other publication until Thomas Paine’s Common Sense in 1776. They asserted the colonial cause against imperial British overreach and helped to lay the groundwork for the U.S. Constitution drafted two decades later. The letters also presented important ideas about resisting usurpation.

Path to Liberty: February 2, 2021