Benjamin Rush’s Common Sense

Benjamin Rush grappled more extensively than almost any other figure in the early republic with the question of the proper relationship of common sense to republican governance. He also changed his mind between the 1770s and the start of the new century about the answer. Exploring this intellectual trajectory reveals an enduring tension in American culture as a whole: between a populist view of democracy that promotes the practical, experiential wisdom of the people as the foundation for sound decision making, on the one hand, and a more technocratic conception of the political that insists on the importance of the exceptional judgment of leading individuals and experts, on the other. Rush can be said to be an originator of both.