ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to explore the relationship between freedom and the good within the classical liberalism of the American founding. It contends that the American founders and the constitutionalism they bequeathed to us are neither indifferent toward the good nor neutral toward competing conceptions of the good. The founders conceived of political liberty, including protection for the inalienable natural right of religious liberty, as a demand of justice. They held, accordingly, that the security of natural rights “endowed by our Creator” is the foundation of the political common good properly understood.
