Were the US Founding Fathers Libertarians? (2010)

It seems that, regardless of one's political position, folks always want to try to map the motivations and views of the so-called "founding fathers" of the US to their own. This is likely because they play an important role in the American mythos, and are generally held in high regard by people across the political spectrum.

In reality, the politics of that day don't map onto the modern world. The backdrop of that era was colonialism, and competing for who would profit from the spoils of the new world. It was one where Lockean liberalism was compatible with the genocide of natives and enslavement of black people. The world is unimaginably different from that of the founding of the US; politically, economically, socially, and ethically.