Early Life and Education
William Vans Murray was born in Cambridge, Maryland, where he lived much of his life. In 1784, as a law student in London, Murray wrote in defense of state government in the United States of America. This eventually ran to a series of six essays, which were published in Philadelphia during the Constitutional Convention. Murray rejected the notion, advanced by Montesquieu among others, that virtue was the root of democracy. He addressed his essays to John Adams, then assigned to London as the United States ambassador, and of whom Murray was a "political disciple."
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