American Enterprise Institute

Democracy and the American Revolution

A New Kind of Democracy Notes

  1. “Cain to the People of Pennsylvania: Letter 8,” Northern Illinois University Digital Library, https://digital.lib.niu.edu/islandora/object/niu-amarch%3A88192. 
  2. David Ramsay, “A Dissertation on the Manner of Acquiring the Character and Privileges of a Citizen of the United States,” Evans Early American Imprint Collection, 1789, http://name.umdl.umich.edu/N17114.0001.001. 
  3. Alexander Hamilton, “Second Letter from Phocion, [April 1784],” Founders Online, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Hamilton/01-03-02-0347. 
  4. John Adams, A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America (London: C. Dilly and John Stockdale, 1787), 2:18.
  5. John Adams, “VII. To the Inhabitants of the Colony of Massachusetts-Bay,” in Papers of John Adams, ed. Robert J. Taylor, vol. 2 (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1977), https://www.masshist.org/publications/adams-papers/index.php/volume/ADMS-06-02. 
  6. John Adams, “[Notes for an Oration at Braintree, Spring 1772.],” Founders Online, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/01-02-02-0002-0002-0001. 
  7. Richard Henry Lee, letter to General Charles Lee, June 29, 1776, in The Letters of Richard Henry Lee, ed. James Curtis Ballagh (New York: MacMillan Company, 1911), 1:202, https://archive.org/details/richhenryleelet01richrich. 
  8. Benjamin Rush, “Observations upon the Present Government of Pennsylvania in Four Letters to the People of Pennsylvania,” Evans Early American Imprint Collection, 1777, http://name.umdl.umich.edu/N12353.0001.001. 
  9. James Madison, “Notes for the National Gazette Essays, [ca. 19 December 1791–3 March 1792],” Founders Online, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/01-14-02-0144. 
  10. Henry Laurens, “Extract of a Letter to the President from H. Laurens,” September 10, 1777, in Documentary History of the American Revolution, ed. R. W. Gibbes (New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1855), 90–91.
  11. Jacob Cuyler, letter to Jeremiah Wadsworth, July 20, 1778, in To Starve the Army at Pleasure: Continental Army Administration and American Political Culture, 1775–1783, ed. E. Wayne Carp (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2017), 106.
  12. Charles Thomson, “To Thomas Jefferson from Charles Thomson, 6 April 1786,” Founders Online, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-09-02-0334. 
  13. David Ramsay, “An Oration on the Advantages of American Independence: Delivered Before a Public Assembly of the Inhabitants of Charlestown, South-Carolina, on the Fourth of July, 1778, the Second Anniversary of That Glorious Aera,” Evans Early American Imprint Collection, 1778, https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/evans/N28767.0001.001. 
  14. South-Carolina and American General Gazette, November 6, 1777, quoted in Gordon S. Wood, The Creation of the American Republic, 1776–1787 (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2011), 100.
  15. Gazette of the State of South-Carolina, May 13, April 29, 1784, quoted in Gordon S. Wood, The Creation of the American Republic, 1776–1787 (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2011), 482–83.
  16. James Madison, “Observations on Jefferson’s Draft of a Constitution for Virginia, [ca. 15 October] 1788,” Founders Online, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/01-11-02-0216. 
  17. Ezra Stiles, “The United States Elevated to Glory and Honor,” Electronic Texts in American Studies, 1783, https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/etas/41. 
  18. “The Republican. No. II.,” Connecticut Courant, February 12, 1787.
  19. Max Farrand, ed., The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1911), 1:48, https://www.loc.gov/resource/llscdam.llfr001/?st=gallery. 
  20. Benjamin Thurston, “Address to the Public Containing Some Remarks on the Present Political State of the American Republicks, etc,” in American Political Writing During the Founding Era: 1760–1805, ed. Charles S. Hyneman and Donald S. Lutz (Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 1983), 1:644.
  21. William Plumer, letter to William Coleman, May 31, 1786, in Publications of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts: Transaction 1906–1907 (Boston, MA: Colonial Society of Massachusetts, 1910), 11:384, https://www.colonialsociety.org/node/187. 
  22. Henry Knox, letter to Rufus King, July 15, 1787, in The Life and Correspondence of Rufus King, ed. Charles R. King (G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1894), 228.
  23. James Madison, letter to Caleb Wallace, August 23, 1785, Founders Online, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/01-08-02-0184. 
  24. James Madison, “Vices of the Political System of the United States, April 1787,” Founders Online, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/01-09-02-0187. 
  25. John Adams, letter to Richard Cranch, July 4, 1786, in Adams Family Correspondence, ed. Margaret A. Hogan et al., vol. 7 (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2005), https://www.masshist.org/publications/adams-papers/index.php/volume/ADMS-04-07. 
  26. George Washington, letter to George Clinton, April 20, 1785, in The Writings of George Washington from the Original Manuscript Sources 1745–1799, ed. John C. Fitzpatrick (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1938), 28:134.
  27. George Washington, “From George Washington to John Jay, 18 May 1786,” Founders Online, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/04-04-02-0063. 
  28. John Adams, “V. to the Inhabitants of the Colony of Massachusetts-Bay,” in Papers of John Adams, ed. Robert J. Taylor, vol. 2 (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1977), https://www.masshist.org/publications/adams-papers/index.php/view/ADMS-06-02-02-0072-0006#sn=1. 
  29. Federalist, no. 10 (James Madison), https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed10.asp. 
  30. James Madison, “Tuesday June 26. in Convention,” in The Writings of James Madison, ed. Galliard Hunt (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1902), 3:288.
  31. William Henry Drayton, “Justum, ac propositi virum,” South-Carolina Gazette, September 21, 1769.
  32. William Henry Drayton, “An si atro dente me petiverit,” South-Carolina Gazette, October 12, 1769.
  33. Thomas Gordon and John Trenchard, Cato’s Letters, or Essays on Liberty, Civil and Religious, and Other Important Subjects, ed. Ronald Hamowy, vol. 3 (Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 1995), https://oll.libertyfund.org/title/gordon-cato-s-letters-vol-3-march-10-1722-to-december-1-1722-lf-ed. 
  34. Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, ed. R. H. Campbell, A. S. Skinner, and William B. Todd (Carmel, IN: Liberty Fund, 1982), 2:783.
  35. Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, 1:265.
  36. John Dickinson and Richard Henry Lee, Empire and Nation: Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania; Letters from the Federal Farmer, ed. Forrest McDonald (Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 1962).
  37. Richard Jackson, letter to Benjamin Franklin, June 17, 1755, Founders Online, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-06-02-0043. 
  38. George Clymer, letter to Thomas FitzSimons, May 24, 1783, in Jerry Grundfest, “George Clymer, Philadelphia Revolutionary, 1739–1813,” (PhD diss., Columbia University, 1973), 165.
  39. Robert R. Livingston, letter to John Rutledge, October 10, 1776, in The Democratic Republicans of New York: The Origins, 1763–1797, ed. Alfred E. Young (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1967), 27.
  40. H. H. Brackenridge, Modern Chivalry: Containing the Adventures of a Captain and Teague O’Regan, His Servant (Pittsburgh, PA: R. Patterson & Lambdin, 1819), 205.
  41. Gordon S. Wood, “The Origins of American Democracy, or How the People Became Judges in Their Own Causes, the Sixty-Ninth Cleveland-Marshall Fund Lecture,” Cleveland State Law Review 47, no. 3 (1999): 320, https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/clevstlrev/vol47/iss3/3. 
  42. Matthew Carey, ed., Debate and Proceedings of the General Assembly of Pennsylvania (1786; Ann Arbor, MI: Evans Early American Imprint Collection), 72, https://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=evans;idno=N15592.0001.001. 
  43. Carey, ed., Debate and Proceedings of the General Assembly of Pennsylvania.
  44. Federalist, no. 10 (Madison).
  45. James Madison, letter to George Washington, April 16, 1787, Founders Online, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/01-09-02-0208. 
  46. James Winthrop, “Agrippa XV,” Teaching American History, January 29, 1788, https://teachingamericanhistory.org/document/agrippa-xv. 
  47. James Madison, letter to Thomas Jefferson, New York, October 24, 1787, Founders Online, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-12-02-0274. 
  48. Federalist, no. 10 (Madison).
  49. “Popular Election of the First Branch of the Legislature, [31 May] 1787,” Founders Online, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/01-10-02-0008. 
  50. James Madison, “Vices of the Political System of the United States, April 1787,” Founders Online, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/01-09-02-0187. 
  51. Benjamin Workman, “Philadelphiensis IX,” Teaching American History, February 6, 1788, https://teachingamericanhistory.org/document/philadelphiensis-ix. 
  52. Melancton Smith, “New York Ratifying Convention,” Founders’ Constitution, June 20–21, 1788, http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch13s37.html. 
  53. Herbert J. Storing, ed., The Complete Anti-Federalist (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981), 2:236.
  54. Storing, ed., The Complete Anti-Federalist, 230.
  55. Richard Henry Lee, letter to Edmund Randolph, October 16, 1787, Lee Family Digital Archive, https://leefamilyarchive.org/history-papers-letters-transcripts-ballaghb368. 
  56. Samuel Chase, quoted in Philip A. Crowl, “Anti-Federalism in Maryland, 1787– 1788,” William and Mary Quarterly 4, no. 4 (October 1947): 464.
  57. Louis Otto, letter to Comte de Vergennes, October 10, 1786, in Gordon S. Wood, The Creation of the American Republic, 1776–1787 (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1969), 495.
  58. Crowl, “Anti-Federalism in Maryland,” 464.
  59. Richard Walsh, Charleston’s Sons of Liberty: A Study of the Artisans, 1763–1789 (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1959), 132.
  60. Storing, ed., The Complete Anti-Federalist, 230.
  61. Federalist, no. 35 (Alexander Hamilton), https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed35.asp. 
  62. James Wilson, Collected Work of James Wilson, ed. Kermit L. Hall and Mark David Hall, vol. 2 (Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 2007), https://oll.libertyfund.org/title/garrison-collected-works-of-james-wilson-vol-2. 
  63. Federalist, no. 58 (James Madison), https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed58.asp. 
  64. Federalist, no. 46 (James Madison), https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed46.asp. 
  65. John Bach McMaster and Frederick D. Stone, eds., Pennsylvania and the Federal Constitution, 1787–1788 (Lancaster, PA: Inquirer Printing, 1888), 223; and Jonathan Elliot, ed., The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution, as Recommended by the General Convention at Philadelphia, in 1787. Together with the Journal of the Federal Convention, Luther Martin’s Letter, Yates’s Minutes, Congressional Opinions, Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions of ’98–’99, and Other Illustrations of the Constitution (Philadelphia, PA: J. B. Lippincott, 1881), 2:424.
  66. Federalist, no. 63 (James Madison), https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed63.asp. 
  67. John Stevens, Observations on Government, Including Some Animadversions on Mr. Adams’s Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America: and on Mr. De Lolme’s Constitution of England. By a Farmer, of New-Jersey. (New York: W. Ross, 1787), 52.
  68. Alexander Hamilton, “From Alexander Hamilton to Theodore Sedgwick, 10 July 1804,” Founders Online, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Hamilton/01-26-02-0001-0264. 
  69. Elias Smith, The Loving Kindness of God Disposed in the Triumph of Republicanism in America (n.p.: 1809), quoted in Gordon S. Wood, Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789–1815 (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2009), 718.
  70. Benjamin Latrobe, letter to Philip Mazzei, December 19, 1806, in Gordon S. Wood, The Radicalism of the American Revolution (New York: Vintage Books, 1993), 294–95.
  71. Latrobe, letter to Mazzei.
  72. Merrill D. Peterson, ed., Democracy, Liberty, and Property: The State Constitutional Conventions of the 1820s (New York: Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1966), 206–14.
  73. Herman Melville, Moby Dick; or, The Whale (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1851), 128.