How Chinese philosophy influenced US founding fathers

“Founding Father, Benjamin Franklin, published the sayings of Confucius in his colonial newspaper and today’s sculpture recognising that ancient Chinese age is carved into the face of the United States Supreme Court very proudly,” said US President Donald Trump in Beijing last month. It took two-and-a-half centuries for an American president to explicitly acknowledge the profound Chinese impact on the US founding fathers. Trump’s recent declaration could be a historical first. Unless archival evidence surfaces to suggest otherwise, he is the first US president to formally recognise this intellectual gap on the world stage. This admission stands in stark contrast to our current geopolitical discourse. Today, Western political commentary frequently depicts China as the ultimate cultural and ideological antithesis to the West. Yet, a deeper dive into history reveals that ancient Chinese philosophy did not just sit on the periphery of Western thought; it actively inspired both the European Enlightenment and the American founders. To see this connection hidden in plain sight, one need only look at the architecture of American democracy itself. Sitting atop the East Pediment of the US Supreme Court building is a monumental trio of ancient lawgivers: Moses, Solon and Confucius. Sculpted by Hermon MacNeil in the 1930s under the direction of architect Cass Gilbert, these figures were chosen to represent the core foundational pillars of American jurisprudence. MacNeil wanted to trace the lineage of American law. He included Confucius because he believed that true justice must prioritise collective civic virtue and social harmony over mere individual rights. Today, this statue of Confucius sits directly above the window of the chief justice’s office suite, serving as a silent, historic guardian watching over the highest judicial seat in America. The Supreme Court pediment, however, is merely the physical manifestation of a deep intellectual current. While it would be a stretch to suggest that Thomas Jefferson sat down with The Analects to draft the Declaration of Independence, the structural parallels between ancient Chinese thought and American revolutionary ideals are unmistakable. Both Jefferson and Franklin were avid consumers of literature detailing Chinese governance. The declaration’s foundational premise that “all men are created equal” was a radical departure from the rigid British aristocratic class system. Historian Martin Powers, professor emeritus at the University of Michigan, argues convincingly that the American founders did not construct their democratic and egalitarian frameworks in an intellectual vacuum. His research shows that both Jefferson and Franklin drew immense inspiration from Chinese political structures, particularly the concept of a merit-based state apparatus. Jefferson championed what he termed a “natural aristocracy”, an elite class defined strictly by virtue, education and talent, rather than an “artificial aristocracy” anchored to birthright and inherited wealth. Franklin took this critique of inherited status a step further by directly citing Chinese tradition. Defending his opposition to hereditary honours, he wrote: “Thus among the Chinese, the most ancient, and from long Experience the wisest of Nations, honour does not descend, but ascends.” In the Chinese model, honours were granted to parents based on the achievements of their children, a concept that completely inverted European feudal logic. Even the iconic American phrase “the pursuit of happiness”, traditionally credited to John Locke or the Greek philosopher Epicurus, heavily mirrors the Confucian and Mencian doctrine of the Mandate of Heaven. Mencius argued that the ultimate legitimacy of any government rests on a singular metric: its capacity to secure the tangible well-being and contentment of its populace. This philosophy remains the bedrock of Chinese governance today. Furthermore, Mencius asserted that if a ruler fails this test and oppresses his people, he loses the Mandate of Heaven, giving the populace a legitimate right and moral duty to overthrow him. The rhetorical echo in the Declaration of Independence is striking. Jefferson writes that when a government becomes destructive to the people’s safety and happiness, “it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government”. These ideological alignments are no historical accident. The American founders were children of the European Enlightenment – a movement that was deeply, unabashedly infatuated with China. During the 17th and 18th centuries, a massive wave of “Sinophilia” swept across Europe. Philosophers desperately seeking to reform societies fractured by religious warfare, monarchical corruption and clerical dogma looked to the East. As detailed accounts from Jesuit missionaries flooded the continent, Enlightenment thinkers weaponised Chinese philosophy as a blueprint for a rational, secular civilisation. Voltaire was so captivated by these ideas that his writing desk, still preserved in the Paris Museum, was ornately decorated with Chinese landscapes. He viewed Confucianism as the purest expression of Deism – a belief in a rational creator grounded in human ethics and reason rather than divine revelation or the threat of eternal damnation. Similarly, Francois Quesnay, the leader of the French Physiocrats and a foundational mentor to Adam Smith, was so famously obsessed with Chinese governance that he was nicknamed the “Confucius of Europe”. Quesnay looked directly to the Daoist concept of Wuwei (action through inaction) as he formulated the economic doctrine of laissez-faire capitalism. However, by the late 18th century, Europe’s intellectual romance with China began to curdle. The onset of the Industrial Revolution granted Western powers unprecedented military and technological dominance. A new generation of thinkers, typified by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, began rewriting global history. China was abruptly reframed – no longer an enlightened utopia of merit and reason, but a stagnant, frozen pool of “Oriental despotism”. From that pivotal moment onwards, the West adopted the posture of a stern schoolmaster, attempting to reform China through trade, diplomacy or gunboat warfare. China’s foundational contributions to the Enlightenment were systematically minimised, forgotten and buried under a narrative of Western exceptionalism. Admittedly, the early views held by Voltaire, Quesnay and Franklin were somewhat romanticised – but no more so than contemporary idealisations of the Magna Carta or Athenian democracy. By the time of the First Opium War in 1839, internal decay and centuries of self-imposed isolation had indeed left China vulnerable and corrupt. The myth of absolute Western cultural superiority became so pervasive that generations of Chinese intellectuals accepted it wholesale, leading to radical 20th-century movements aimed at completely eradicating traditional Chinese heritage. Today, however, the pendulum is swinging back. Scholars and citizens are beginning to recognise the folly of completely dismissing a centuries-old civilisation. As the US approaches its historic 250th anniversary, there is a timely opportunity for thinkers on both sides of the Pacific to unearth these forgotten intellectual roots. By looking past modern political theatre and recognising the shared philosophical DNA that built the modern world, the oldest surviving and newest superpowers might finally foster a relationship rooted in genuine mutual respect.

How Chinese philosophy influenced US founding fathers

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}From the Mandate of Heaven to the ‘pursuit of happiness’, the US and China share a rich intellectual tradition of ethical governance

From the Mandate of Heaven to the ‘pursuit of happiness’, the US and China share a rich intellectual tradition of ethical governance