SOURCE: "John Winthrop: The Statesman," in The Idea of Fraternity in America, University of California Press, 1973, pp. 133-49.

Here, McWilliams discusses Winthrop's political ideas as a system of thought "guided by the fraternal imperative."

John Winthrop was a political man by vocation, a reflective man by nature and faith. None defended more strenuously the prerogatives of a specifically political wisdom distinct from that of the church. Yet Winthrop never conceived of a political understanding which did not depend on religious teaching; he relied on scriptural and religious authority rather more, and secular classical writings rather less, than did his clerical contemporaries.

His thought consists of a series of reflections on practical politics. It does no violence to Winthrop's ideas, however, to see in them an order and consistency amounting to systematic theory. In fact, Winthrop merits the supreme accolade which can be given a theorist: his diagnosis of...