Title: The Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787

Author: Gordon Wood

Year of Publication: 1969

Thesis:

Radical shift in thinking between the Declaration of Independence and the creation of the U.S. Constitution from classical to modern republicanism (viii). (return later to fill this out)

Time: 1776-1787

Geography:

Organization:

Preface

- Thought creates reality, essentially (from Barlow, vii)

Chapter 1 - The Whig Science of Politics

- British Americans claimed they were arguing to keep rights they already had, though they were not rooted in British constitution & chose their foundational writing selectively (13-14)

- House of Commons strengthening/therefore ideas about "people's" power strengthening (26)

- Am. Whigs believe Crown is corrupting the legislative process in England - therefore anxieties about U.S. (33)

- Therefore, this is about preserving existing principles

Chapter II - Republicanism

Chapter III - Moral Reformation

PART TWO - THE CONSTITUTION OF THE STATES

Chapter IV - The Restructuring of Power

Chapter V - The Nature of Representation

Chapter VI - Mixed Government and Bicameralism

PART THREE - TEH PEOPLE AGAINST THE LEGISLATURE

Chapter VII - Law and Contracts

Chapter VIII - Conventions of the People

Chapter IX - The Sovereignty of the People

Chapter X - Vices of the System

Chapter XI - Republican Remedies

PART FIVE - THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION

Chapter XII - The Worthy Against the licentious

Chapter XIII - The Federalist Persuasion

PART SIX - THE REVOLUTIONARY ACHIEVEMENT

- Chapter XIV - The Relevance and Irrelevance of John Adams

Chapter XV - The American Science of Politics

A Note on Sources

Select List of Full Titles

Index

Type:

Methods:

Sources:

Pamphlets printed during the Revolutionary era, sermons, letters, legislative debate records, newspapers, state papers, magazines (619-622)

Historiography:

Keywords:

Liberty

"Public liberty was thus the combining of each man’s individual liberty into a collective governmental authority, the institutionali zation of the people’s personal liberty, making public or political liberty equivalent to democracy or government by the people themselves."

Themes:

Critiques:

"Slavery," in the sense that it is a part of the metaphorical discussion by folks who felt oppressed by the British enters here, but chattel slavery is all but ignored.

Questions:

Quotes:

"The Americans of the Revolutionary generation had con structed not simply new forms of government, but an entirely new conception or politics, a conception that took them out of an essentially classical and medieval world of political discussion into one that was recognizably modern." (viii)

Liberty, defined as the power held by the people, was thus the victim and very antithesis of despotism. Yet the people, like the rulers, could abuse their power; such a perversion of liberty was called licentiousness or anarchy. It was not so much a collective as an individual perversion, each man doing what was right in his own eyes, running amuck and ultimately dissolving all social bonds. “Liberty,” good Whigs continually emphasized, “does not consist in living without all restraint.” For it seemed certain “ that nothing next to slavery is more to be dreaded, than the anarchy and confusion that will ensue, if proper regard is not paid to the good and wholesome laws of government." (23)

Notes:

12/3/20 - need to return to this book & look at https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/tneq_a_00821