What the Founders Missed About Whist (Preface)

Abstract

In the 18th century, conventional decks of playing cards consisted (as they do today) of four suits of 13 cards, each with cards for 2 through 10, three royals (a king, a queen, and a knave that is now a jack), and an ace. Players on both sides of the Atlantic played with cards with the same designs and often from the same manufacturers. But why, having recently fought a long and bloody war of independence to free themselves from monarchy, would the leaders (or, for that matter, the foot soldiers) of that revolution carry on playing their favorite game with cards portraying monarchy? Imagine yourself as George Washington or John Adams or James Madison, playing whist with some of your Founding Friends in late-18th-century Boston or Philadelphia or Richmond. Most of the most powerful cards in your hand would have been kings and queens. Wouldn’t it have occurred to you that a more suitable deck would instead feature the rulers of your own new world?

Keywords: Hoyle, parlor games, constitution, revolution, article i, article ii, article iii, we the people