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| the elusive republic: The Elusive Republic Drew R. McCoy, 2012-12-01 By investigating eighteenth-century social and economic thought — an intellectual world with its own vocabulary, concepts, and assumptions — Drew McCoy smoothly integrates the history of ideas and the history of public policy in the Jeffersonian era. The book was originally published by UNC Press in 1980. |
| the elusive republic: The Republic Reborn Steven Watts, 1989-08 Serving as a vehicle for change and offering an outlet for the anxieties of a changing socity, Watts writes, the War of 1812 ultimately intensified and sanctioned the imperatives of a developing world-view. |
| the elusive republic: The Virtues of Liberalism Kloppenberg, 2000 This spirited analysis--and defense--of American liberalism demonstrates the complex and rich traditions of political, economic, and social discourse that have informed American democratic culture from the seventeenth century to the present. The Virtues of Liberalism provides a convincing response to critics both right and left. Against conservatives outside the academy who oppose liberalism because they equate it with license, James T. Kloppenberg uncovers ample evidence of American republicans' and liberal democrats' commitments to ethical and religious ideals and their awareness of the difficult choices involved in promoting virtue in a culturally diverse nation. Against radical academic critics who reject liberalism because they equate it with Enlightenment reason and individual property holding, Kloppenberg shows the historical roots of American liberals' dual commitments to diversity, manifested in institutions designed to facilitate deliberative democracy, and to government regulations of property and market exchange in accordance with the public good. In contrast to prevailing tendencies to simplify and distort American liberalism, Kloppenberg shows how the multifaceted virtues of liberalism have inspired theorists and reformers from Thomas Jefferson and James Madison through Jane Addams and John Dewey to Martin Luther King, Jr., and then explains how these virtues persist in the work of some liberal democrats today. Endorsing the efforts of such neo-progressive and communitarian theorists and journalists as Michael Walzer, Jane Mansbridge, Michael Sandel, and E. J. Dionne, Kloppenberg also offers a more acute analysis of the historical development of American liberalism and of the complex reasons why it has been transformed and made more vulnerable in recent decades. An intelligent, coherent, and persuasive canvas that stretches from the Enlightenment to the American Revolution, from Tocqueville's observations to the New Deal's social programs, and from the right to worship freely to the idea of ethical responsibility, this book is a valuable contribution to historical scholarship and to contemporary political and cultural debates. |
| the elusive republic: Fidelity & Constraint Lawrence Lessig, 2019-04-03 The fundamental fact about our Constitution is that it is old -- the oldest written constitution in the world. The fundamental challenge for interpreters of the Constitution is how to read that old document over time. In Fidelity & Constraint, legal scholar Lawrence Lessig explains that one of the most basic approaches to interpreting the constitution is the process of translation. Indeed, some of the most significant shifts in constitutional doctrine are products of the evolution of the translation process over time. In every new era, judges understand their translations as instances of interpretive fidelity, framed within each new temporal context. Yet, as Lessig also argues, there is a repeatedly occurring countermove that upends the process of translation. Throughout American history, there has been a second fidelity in addition to interpretive fidelity: what Lessig calls fidelity to role. In each of the cycles of translation that he describes, the role of the judge -- the ultimate translator -- has evolved too. Old ways of interpreting the text now become illegitimate because they do not match up with the judge's perceived role. And when that conflict occurs, the practice of judges within our tradition has been to follow the guidance of a fidelity to role. Ultimately, Lessig not only shows us how important the concept of translation is to constitutional interpretation, but also exposes the institutional limits on this practice. The first work of both constitutional and foundational theory by one of America's leading legal minds, Fidelity & Constraint maps strategies that both help judges understand the fundamental conflict at the heart of interpretation whenever it arises and work around the limits it inevitably creates. |
| the elusive republic: Elusive Equality Melissa Feinberg, 2006-04-30 When Czechoslovakia became independent in 1918, Czechs embraced democracy, which they saw as particularly suited to their national interests. Politicians enthusiastically supported a constitution that proclaimed all citizens, women as well as men, legally equal. But they soon found themselves split over how to implement this pledge. Some believed democracy required extensive egalitarian legislation. Others contended that any commitment to equality had to bow before other social interests, such as preserving the traditional family. On the eve of World War II, Czech leaders jettisoned the young republic for an authoritarian democracy that firmly placed their nation, and not the individual citizen, at the center of politics. In 1948, they turned to a Communist-led people's democracy, which also devalued individual rights. By examining specific policy issues, including marriage and family law, civil service regulations, citizenship law, and abortion statutes, Elusive Equality demonstrates the relationship between Czechs' ideas about gender roles and their attitudes toward democracy. Gradually, many Czechs became convinced that protecting a traditionally gendered family ideal was more important to their national survival than adhering to constitutionally prescribed standards of equal citizenship. Through extensive original research, Melissa Feinberg assembles a compelling account of how early Czech progress in women's rights, tied to democratic reforms, eventually lost momentum in the face of political transformations and the separation of state and domestic issues. Moreover, Feinberg presents a prism through which our understanding of twentieth-century democracy is deepened, and a cautionary tale for all those who want to make democratic governments work. |
| the elusive republic: In Search of the Republic Richard Vetterli, Gary C. Bryner, 1996 When In Search of the Republic was originally published in 1987, scholarly interpretations of the concept of virtue in the American founding were considered peripheral to mainstream political theory. Since then, the authors' arguments that public virtue, civic responsibility, and private morality were at the heart of the Founding Fathers' political thought is now accepted by a growing number of contemporary political theorists. This revised edition includes a new preface that places In Search of the Republic within the context of contemporary debates over the role of virtue and religion in early American political discourse. This is a superb introduction for students and scholars interested in learning about the moral, political, and constitutional theories of the Founding Fathers. |
| the elusive republic: Vindicating the Commercial Republic Anthony A. Peacock, 2018-04-24 Contrary to most academic commentary on The Federalist, this book contends that the most significant teachings of the work did not have to do with the institutions of government so much as with the non-institutional features of American constitutionalism, specifically its advocacy for greater union, the development of an unparalleled culture of enterprise, and provision for war. Key to understanding why these features were so critical to The Federalist is the work’s rejection of classical liberalism’s orthodoxy that commercial republics were moderate or pacific in nature rather than spirited, enterprising, and warlike. Using the ancient historian Thucydides account of the daring, innovation, and restlessness of ancient commercial Athens as an interpretive guide for the commercial republican theory that The Federalist embraces, this book provides a sweeping reinterpretation of American constitutionalism. At the heart of The Federalist’s teaching, Peacock contends, is the intention to create an innovative and spirited culture of enterprise that will not only inform America’s civil character post-1787 but its military character as well. No scholarship has considered the significance of Thucydides to the The Federalist. This book does in a comprehensive reconstruction of the work that concludes that The Federalist anticipates as well as any text on American constitutionalism what many consider to be the most definitive features of American character today: its spirit of enterprise and its qualified willingness to engage in war for both reasons of national interest and republican principle. |
| the elusive republic: Accommodating the Republic Kirsten E. Wood, 2023-11-08 People have gathered in public drinking places to drink, relax, socialize, and do business for hundreds of years. For just as long, critics have described taverns and similar drinking establishments as sources of individual ruin and public disorder. Examining these dynamics as Americans surged westward in the early nineteenth century, Kirsten E. Wood argues that entrepreneurial, improvement-minded men integrated many village and town taverns into the nation’s rapidly developing transportation network and used tavern spaces and networks to raise capital, promote innovative businesses, practice genteel sociability, and rally support for favored causes—often while drinking the staggering amounts of alcohol for which the period is justly famous. White men’s unrivaled freedom to use taverns for their own pursuits of happiness gave everyday significance to citizenship in the early republic. Yet white men did not have taverns to themselves. Sharing tavern spaces with other Americans intensified white men’s struggles to define what, and for whom, taverns should be. At the same time, temperance and other reform movements increasingly divided white men along lines of party, conscience, and class. In both conflicts, some improvement-minded white men found common cause with middle-class white women and Black activists, who had their own stake in rethinking taverns and citizenship. |
| the elusive republic: The A to Z of the Early American Republic Richard Buel, 2009 Covering the first four decades of America, contains alphabetical entries on people, places, organizations, events, movements, laws, works of literature, and other significant social, economic, political, and cultural topics. |
| the elusive republic: Democracy’s Discontent Michael J. Sandel, 1998-02-06 In a searching account of current controversies over morality in politics, Michael Sandel discovers that we suffer from an impoverished vision of citizenship and community. Democracy's Discontent provides a new interpretation of the American political and constitutional tradition that offers hope of rejuvenating our civic life. |
| the elusive republic: The Republican Vision of John Tyler R. Daniel Monroe, 2003-02-05 Historians have generally ranked John Tyler as one of the least successful chief executives, despite achievements such as the WebsterAshburton treaty, which heralded improved relations with Great Britain, and the annexation of Texas. Why did Tyler pursue what appears to have been a politically selfdestructive course with regard to both his first party, the Democrats, and his later political alliance, the Whigs? Monroe has set out to explain the beliefs that led to Tyler=s resigning his Senate seat and exercising politically suicidal presidential vetoes as well as examines the crises Tyler faced during his term in the House: the Panic of 1819, the financially tottering national bank, and the Missouri debate. |
| the elusive republic: The Public City Philip J. Ethington, 2001-07-06 Philip J. Ethington challenges the assumptions of several decades of urban history that treat American urban politics as the expression of social-group community experience. Instead, he maintains in The Public City, social-group identities of race, class, ethnicity, and gender were politically constructed in the public sphere in the process of political mobilization and journalistic discourse. |
| the elusive republic: National Identity and the Agrarian Republic Manuela Albertone, 2016-04-22 With a few exceptions, historiography has paid little attention to the impact of French economic thought during the American Revolution, focusing instead on the Revolution’s links with Britain. This book outlines how, from the mid-eighteenth to the early-nineteenth century, the political and social dimension of French economic thought, and particularly of Physiocracy, spurred American Republicans to a radical shaping of American agrarian ideology. Such a perspective allows for a reconsideration of several questions that lie at the heart of contemporary historiographic debate: the connection between politics and economics; the meaning of republicanism; the foundations of representation; the role of Europe in the Atlantic world; and the interaction between national histories and global context. In particular, the research methodology adopted here makes it possible to reconstruct how American national identity, conceived as an expression of society in economic terms, emerged through a cosmopolitan way of thinking focused on the uniqueness of the new state. |
| the elusive republic: Devising Liberty David Thomas Konig, 1995 This book focus on the various constitutional problems surrounding the need to provide both enough union and public authority to guarantee defense and order, and a sufficient degree of individual liberty to satisfy the demands and expectations of private citizens who were wary of the arbitrary powers of government. |
| the elusive republic: The American Republic Can Save American Democracy Gary Hart, 2022-09-06 “Senator Hart's voice can heal the country and chart a real course toward equality, freedom, and hope for all.” -Hugh Jackman In 1776, America's Founders proclaimed the new nation a republic with a democratic form of government. Although American democracy has survived for almost 250 years, the rise of populist nationalism in the United States and abroad creates a potent threat that highlights democracy's vulnerability. In this important and timely work, Gary Hart argues that only by restoring the qualities of the republic in America, namely popular sovereignty, a sense of the common good, resistance to corruption, and civic virtue, can American democracy be saved. |
| the elusive republic: Family, Slavery, and Love in the Early American Republic Jan Ellen Lewis, 2021-10-26 One of the finest historians of her generation, Jan Ellen Lewis (1949-2018) transformed our understanding of the early U.S. Republic. Her groundbreaking essays defined the emerging fields of gender and emotions history and reframed traditional understandings of the founding fathers and the U.S. Constitution. As significant as her work was within each of these subfields, her most remarkable insights came from the connections she drew among them. Gender and race, slavery and freedom, feelings and politics ran together in the hearts, minds, and lives of the men and women she studied. Lewis’s brilliant research revealed these long-buried connections and illuminated their importance for America’s past and present. Family, Slavery, and Love in the Early American Republic collects thirteen of Lewis’s most important essays. Distinguished scholars shed light on the historical and historiographical contexts in which Lewis and her peers researched, wrote, and argued. But the real star of this volume is Lewis herself: confident, unconventional, erudite, and deeply imaginative. |
| the elusive republic: Understanding the Founding Alan Ray Gibson, 2007 Over the course of the last century, scholars have furiously debated four questions concerning the Founders and their act of creation. Were the Framers motivated by their economic interests? How democratic was the Framers' Constitution? Should we interpret the Founding using philosophical or strictly historical approaches? What traditions of political thought were most important to the Framers? In Understanding the Founding: The Crucial Questions, Alan Gibson examines the preconceptions that scholars bring to these questions, explores the deepest sources of scholars' disagreements over them, and suggests new and thoughtful lines of interpretation and inquiry. Building on his previous work, Interpreting the Founding, which offers a synoptic overview of the competing perspectives that have informed modern scholarship on the Founders... |
| the elusive republic: The Public and Its Possibilities John D. Fairfield, 2010-03-26 In his compelling reinterpretation of American history, The Public and Its Possibilities, John Fairfieldargues that our unrealized civic aspirations provide the essential counterpoint to an excessive focus on private interests. Inspired by the revolutionary generation, nineteenth-century Americans struggled to build an economy and a culture to complement their republican institutions. But over the course of the twentieth century, a corporate economy and consumer culture undercut civic values, conflating consumer and citizen. Fairfield places the city at the center of American experience, describing how a resilient demand for an urban participatory democracy has bumped up against the fog of war, the allure of the marketplace, and persistent prejudices of race, class, and gender. In chronicling and synthesizing centuries of U.S. history—including the struggles of the antislavery, labor, women’s rights movements—Fairfield explores the ebb and flow of civic participation, activism, and democracy. He revisits what the public has done for civic activism, and the possibility of taking a greater role. In this age where there has been a move towards greater participation in America's public life from its citizens, Fairfield’s book—written in an accessible, jargon-free style and addressed to general readers—is especially topical. |
| the elusive republic: Revolutions & Watersheds , 2022-02-28 The years between 1775 and 1815 constitute a crucial episode in the evolutionary history of Europe and America. Between the start of the American Revolution, with the first armed clashes between British regulars and American militiamen at Concord and Lexington, and the closing act of the French Revolution, with the eclipse of Napoleon's dreams of pan-European glory on the battlefield of Waterloo, America and Europe witnessed the rise and fall of radicalism, which left virtually no aspect of public and private life untouched. While the American colonies managed to wrench themselves away from their colonial parent, and while France careered down the stormy rapids of its own Revolution, Great Britain went through the turbulent process of redefining itself vis-à-vis both these emerging nations, and the world at large. But the period 1775 to 1815 offers more than the two ideological Revolutions that determined the face of modern America and Europe: feeding into and emanating from these Revolutions there were major watersheds in virtually all areas of cultural, intellectual and political life - varying from the rise of Romanticism to the birth of abolitionism, and from the beginnings of modern feminism to the creation of modern nationhood and its enduring cultural stereotypes. In this collection of interdisciplinary essays, historians and literary critics from both sides of the Atlantic analyze a broad spectrum of the watersheds and faultlines that arose in this formative era of Euro-American relations. Individually, the essays trace one or more of the transatlantic patterns of intellectual, cultural or scientific cross-pollination between the Old and the New World, between pre- and post-Revolutionary modes and mores. Collectively, the essays argue that the many revolutions that produced the national ideologies, identities and ideas of state of present-day America and Europe did not merely play a role in national debates, but that they very much belonged to an intricate network of transnational and, more particularly, transatlantic dialogues. |
| the elusive republic: Slavery, Capitalism, and Politics in the Antebellum Republic: Volume 1, Commerce and Compromise, 1820-1850 John Ashworth, 1995 The Civil War should be seen as America's 'bourgeois revolution'. So argues Dr John Ashworth in this novel reinterpretation, from a Marxist perspective, of American political and economic development in the forty years before the Civil War. This book, the first of a two-volume treatment of slavery, capitalism and politics, locates the political struggles of the antebellum period in the international context of the dismantling of unfree labor systems. With its sequel, the volume will demonstrate that the conflict resulted from differences between capitalist and slave modes of production. With a careful synthesis of existing scholarship on the economics of slavery, the origins of abolitionism, the proslavery argument and the second party system, Ashworth maintains that the origins of the American Civil War are best understood in terms derived from Marxism. |
| the elusive republic: Liberty Men and Great Proprietors Alan Taylor, 2014-01-01 This detailed exploration of the settlement of Maine beginning in the late eighteenth century illuminates the violent, widespread contests along the American frontier that served to define and complete the American Revolution. Taylor shows how Maine's militant settlers organized secret companies to defend their populist understanding of the Revolution. |
| the elusive republic: Untimely Ruins Nick Yablon, 2010-06-15 American ruins have become increasingly prominent, whether in discussions of “urban blight” and home foreclosures, in commemorations of 9/11, or in postapocalyptic movies. In this highly original book, Nick Yablon argues that the association between American cities and ruins dates back to a much earlier period in the nation’s history. Recovering numerous scenes of urban desolation—from failed banks, abandoned towns, and dilapidated tenements to the crumbling skyscrapers and bridges envisioned in science fiction and cartoons—Untimely Ruins challenges the myth that ruins were absent or insignificant objects in nineteenth-century America. The first book to document an American cult of the ruin, Untimely Ruins traces its deviations as well as derivations from European conventions. Unlike classical and Gothic ruins, which decayed gracefully over centuries and inspired philosophical meditations about the fate of civilizations, America’s ruins were often “untimely,” appearing unpredictably and disappearing before they could accrue an aura of age. As modern ruins of steel and iron, they stimulated critical reflections about contemporary cities, and the unfamiliar kinds of experience they enabled. Unearthing evocative sources everywhere from the archives of amateur photographers to the contents of time-capsules, Untimely Ruins exposes crucial debates about the economic, technological, and cultural transformations known as urban modernity. The result is a fascinating cultural history that uncovers fresh perspectives on the American city. |
| the elusive republic: Power Versus Liberty James H. Read, 2000 Does every increase in the power of government entail a loss of liberty for the people? James H. Read examines how four key Founders--James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, James Wilson, and Thomas Jefferson--wrestled with this question during the first two decades of the American Republic. Power versus Liberty reconstructs a four-way conversation--sometimes respectful, sometimes shrill--that touched on the most important issues facing the new nation: the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, federal authority versus states' rights, freedom of the press, the controversial Bank of the United States, the relation between nationalism and democracy, and the elusive meaning of the consent of the governed. Each of the men whose thought Read considers differed on these key questions. Jefferson believed that every increase in the power of government came at the expense of liberty: energetic governments, he insisted, are always oppressive. Madison believed that this view was too simple, that liberty can be threatened either by too much or too little governmental power. Hamilton and Wilson likewise rejected the Jeffersonian view of power and liberty but disagreed with Madison and with each other. The question of how to reconcile energetic government with the liberty of citizens is as timely today as it was in the first decades of the Republic. It pervades our political discourse and colors our readings of events from the confrontation at Waco to the Oklahoma City bombing to Congressional debate over how to spend the government surplus. While the rhetoric of both major political parties seems to posit a direct relationship between the size of our government and the scope of our political freedoms, the debates of Madison, Hamilton, Wilson, and Jefferson confound such simple dichotomies. As Read concludes, the relation between power and liberty is inherently complex. |
| the elusive republic: Thomas Jefferson Francis D. Cogliano, 2008 An exceptionally well-researched and persuasively written book [that] asks who Jefferson was in new and exciting ways. This is a book that needed to be written, and, happily, is one that was undertaken by an exceedingly thorough, judicious, open-minded, and creative historian.—Andrew Burstein, University of Tulsa, author of Jefferson’s Secrets: Death and Desire at Monticello Francis D. Cogliano’s splendid book demonstrates that history is indeed an argument between past and present about the future. Offering formidable research deployed with grace and skill in the service of a powerful and well-crafted argument, this study will be essential reading. It illuminates in myriad ways the history that Jefferson made and historians’ ongoing struggles to figure out what to make of Jefferson. Further, it enriches our understanding of the interactions between history and memory in American culture. It deserves a wide and enthusiastic readership, not just for the moment but for years to come.—R. B. Bernstein, New York Law School, author of Thomas Jefferson Thomas Jefferson continues to enthrall, excite, and enrage academics, students, and members of the American public. This book provides a useful study of Jefferson’s construction of his own historical image, and the reconstructions of that image that have occurred over the past half-century.—Simon Newman, University of Glasgow In Thomas Jefferson: Reputation and Legacy Francis D. Cogliano looks at both the impact Jefferson had on his historical moment and the considerable lengths to which he went to secure his legacy. Beginning by locating Jefferson’s ideas about history within the context of eighteenth-century historical thought, Cogliano then considers the efforts Jefferson made to shape the way the history of his life and times—which he thought crucial to the success of the republican experiment—would be written. The second half of the book reflects on the mixed results, from his time to the present, of Jefferson’s efforts to shape historical writing, through his careful preservation of most of his personal and public papers, and through the institutions he left behind: his home, Monticello, and the University of Virginia. Engaging with recent scholarship’s attention toward Jefferson’s views on race, class, and gender, Thomas Jefferson: Reputation and Legacy is a must-read for anyone interested in Jefferson in his own time or the legacy he worked so hard to create. Francis D. Cogliano is a Reader in History at the University of Edinburgh. He is author of Revolutionary America, 1763–1815: A Political History. Jeffersonian America |
| the elusive republic: The End of the American Era Charles Kupchan, 2007-12-18 Refuting the conventional wisdom that the end of the Cold War cleared the way for an era of peace and prosperity led solely by the United States, Charles A. Kupchan contends that the next challenge to America’s might is fast emerging. It comes not from the Islamic world or an ascendant China, but from an integrating Europe that is rising as a counterweight to the United States. Decades of strategic partnership across the Atlantic are giving way to renewed geopolitical competition. The waning of U.S. primacy will be expedited by America’s own ambivalence about remaining the globe’s guardian and by the impact of the digital age on the country’s politics and its role in the world. By deftly mining the lessons of history to cast light on the present and future, Kupchan explains how America and the world should prepare for the more complex, more unstable road ahead. |
| the elusive republic: Secular Morality and International Security Maria Fanis, 2011-06-14 The impact of national moral standards on international diplomacy |
| the elusive republic: American Political Cultures Richard J. Ellis, 1993-07-29 This work challenges the thesis first formulated by de Tocqueville and later systematically developed by Louis Hartz, that American political culture is characterized by a consensus on liberal capitalist values. Ranging over three hundred years of history and drawing upon the seminal work anthropologist Mary Douglas, Richard Ellis demonstrates that American history is best understood as a contest between five rival political cultures: egalitarian community, competitive individualism, hierarchical collectivism, atomized fatalism, and autonomous hermitude. |
| the elusive republic: Sight Unseen Andrew Menard, 2018-09-01 John C. Frémont was the most celebrated explorer of his era. In 1842, on the first of five expeditions he would lead to the Far West, Frémont and a small party of men journeyed up the Kansas and Platte Rivers to the Wind River Range in Wyoming. At the time, virtually this entire region was known as the Great Desert, and many Americans viewed it and the Rocky Mountains beyond as natural barriers to the United States. After Congress published Frémont's official report of the expedition, however, few doubted the nation should expand to the Pacific. The first in-depth study of this remarkable report, Sight Unseen argues that Frémont used both a radical form of art and an imaginary map to create an aesthetic desire for expansion. He not only redefined the Great Desert as a novel and complex environment, but on a summit of the Wind River Range, he envisioned the Continental Divide as a feature that would unify rather than impede a larger nation. In addition to provoking the great migration to Oregon and providing an aesthetic justification for the National Park system, Frémont's report profoundly altered American views of geography, progress, and the need for a transcontinental railroad. By helping to shape the very notion of Manifest Destiny, the report became one of the most important documents in the history of American landscape. |
| the elusive republic: James Madison and the Spirit of Republican Self-Government Colleen A. Sheehan, 2009-01-12 In a study that combines an in-depth examination of Madison's National Gazette essays of 1791–2 with a study of The Federalist, Colleen Sheehan traces the evolution of Madison's conception of the politics of communication and public opinion throughout the Founding period, demonstrating how 'the sovereign public' would form and rule in America. Contrary to those scholars who claim that Madison dispensed with the need to form an active and virtuous citizenry, Sheehan argues that Madison's vision for the new nation was informed by the idea of republican self-government, whose manifestation he sought to bring about in the spirit and way of life of the American people. Madison's story is 'the story of an idea' - the idea of America. |
| the elusive republic: The Conundrum of Class Martin J. Burke, 1995-09 Martin Burke traces the surprisingly complicated history of the idea of class in America from the forming of a new nation to the heart of the Gilded Age. Surveying American political, social, and intellectual life from the late 17th to the end of the 19th century, Burke examines in detail the contested discourse about equality—the way Americans thought and wrote about class, class relations, and their meaning in society. Burke explores a remarkable range of thought to establish the boundaries of class and the language used to describe it in the works of leading political figures, social reformers, and moral philosophers. He traces a shift from class as a legal category of ranks and orders to socio-economic divisions based on occupations and income. Throughout the century, he finds no permanent consensus about the meaning of class in America and instead describes a culture of conflicting ideas and opinions. |
| the elusive republic: Feverish Bodies, Enlightened Minds Thomas Apel, 2016-03-30 From 1793 to 1805, yellow fever devastated U.S. port cities in a series of terrifying epidemics. The search for the cause and prevention of the disease involved many prominent American intellectuals, including Noah Webster and Benjamin Rush. This investigation produced one of the most substantial and innovative outpourings of scientific thought in early American history. But it also led to a heated and divisive debate—both political and theological—around the place of science in American society. Feverish Bodies, Enlightened Minds opens an important window onto the conduct of scientific inquiry in the early American republic. The debate between contagionists, who thought the disease was imported, and localists, who thought it came from domestic sources, reflected contemporary beliefs about God and creation, the capacities of the human mind, and even the appropriate direction of the new nation. Through this thoughtful investigation of the yellow fever epidemic and engaging examination of natural science in early America, Thomas Apel demonstrates that the scientific imaginations of early republicans were far broader than historians have realized: in order to understand their science, we must understand their ideas about God. |
| the elusive republic: The Imperial Republic James G. Wilson, 2018-02-06 This title was first published in 2002. The Imperial Republic addresses the enduring relationship that the American constitution has with the concept of empire . Early activists frequently used the word to describe the nation they wished to create through revolution and later reform. The book examines what the Framers of the Constitution meant when they used the term empire and what such self-conscious empire building tells Americans about the underlying goals of their constitutional system. Utilizing the author’s extensive research from colonial times to the turn of the twentieth century, the book concludes that imperial ambition has profoundly influenced American constitutional law, theory and politics. It uses several analytical techniques to ascertain the multiple meanings of such fundamental words as empire and republic and demonstrates that such concepts have at least four levels of meaning. Relying on numerous examples, it further concludes that American leaders frequently (even proudly) used the word with some of its most domineering implications. |
| the elusive republic: Founding Visions Lance Banning, 2014-12-26 “Banning’s skill as an essayist shines” in this collection of writing on the foundation of the American republic (San Francisco Book Review). Lance Banning was assembling this collection of his best and most representative writings on the Founding era when his untimely death stalled the project just short of its completion. Now, thanks to the efforts of editor Todd Estes, this illuminating resource is finally available. Founding Visions showcases the work of a historian who shaped the intellectual debates of his time. Featuring a foreword by Gordon S. Wood, the volume presents Banning’s most seminal and insightful essays to a new generation of students, scholars, and general readers. “Lance Banning’s balanced but penetrating view of historical materials makes him a vital mediator in scholarly disputes, one who knows how to bring light rather than heat to controversies better understood as joint contributions. . . . Every historian, whether beginning or advanced, will benefit from reading this book.” —Robert A. Ferguson, Columbia University, author of Reading the Early Republic “Banning’s impeccable scholarship has shaped the way we think about early American history, and the essays in this volume show him at the peak of his very considerable powers.” —Peter S. Onuf, Robert H. Smith International Center for Jefferson Studies, author of The Origins of the Federal Republic: Jurisdictional Controversies in the United States, 1775-1787 “Exemplary.” —Journal of Southern History “The work represents an impressive collection that is an essential companion to any serious student of the intellectual issues of the early Republic.” —Southern Historian |
| the elusive republic: The United States Constitution Richard C. Simmons, 1989 Proceedings of the Sixth Fulbright Colloquium held at the University of Birmingham, Department of American History sponsored by the American Bar Association and the University of Virginia. |
| the elusive republic: Algernon Sidney and the Republican Heritage in England and America Alan Craig Houston, 2014-07-14 Alan Houston introduces a new level of rigor into contemporary debates over republicanism by providing the first complete account of the range, structure, and influence of the political writings of Algernon Sidney (1623-1683). Though not well known today, Sidney's Discourses Concerning Government influenced radicals in England and America throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. To many, it was a textbook of revolution. Houston begins with a masterful intellectual biography tracing the development of Sidney's ideas in the political and intellectual context of Stuart England, and he concludes with a detailed study of the impact of Sidney's writings and heroic martyrdom on revolutionary America. Documenting the interdependence of what have previously been regarded as distinctly liberal and republican theories, the author provides a new perspective on Anglo-American political thought. Many scholars have assumed that the republican language of virtue is distinct from and in tension with the liberal logic of rights and interests. By focusing on the contemporary meaning of concepts like freedom and slavery or virtue and corruption, Houston demonstrates that Sidney's republicanism and Locke's liberalism were not rivals but frequently complemented each other. Originally published in 1991. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905. |
| the elusive republic: Law, Labor, and Ideology in the Early American Republic Christopher L. Tomlins, 1993-04-30 This book presents a fundamental reinterpretation of law and politics in America between 1790 and 1850, the crucial period of the Republic's early growth and its movement toward industrialism. It is the most detailed study yet available of the intellectual and institutional processes that created the foundation categories framing all the basic legal relationships involving working people. |
| the elusive republic: Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and the British Challenge to Republican America, 1783–95 Michael Schwarz, 2017-05-30 In the aftermath of the American Revolution, the friendship between Virginians Thomas Jefferson and James Madison became one of the most important political collaborations in American history. This study examines the origins and evolution of their partnership, placing it within the context of US–British relations following the Revolution and analyzing how their relationship affected early republican politics. |
| the elusive republic: From Allies to Enemies Simei Qing, 2007-02-28 Simei Qing offers a new perspective on relations between the U.S. and China after World War II. Based on American, Russian, and newly declassified Chinese sources, this book reveals rarely examined assumptions entrenched in mainstream policy debates on both sides, and sheds light on the origins and development of U.S.–China confrontations. |
| the elusive republic: Irons in the Fire Laura Croghan Kamoie, 2007 This business-family saga contributes a pivotal perspective to contemporary debates about the economic modernity of the South. |
| the elusive republic: Republican Empire Karl-Friedrich Walling, 1999 The republics of Greece and Rome proved incapable of waging war effectively and remaining free at the same time. The record of modern republics is not much more encouraging. How, then, did the United States manage to emerge victorious from the world wars of this century, including the Cold War, and still retain its fundamental liberties? For Karl-Friedrich Walling, this unprecedented accomplishment was the work of many hands and many generations, but of Alexander Hamilton especially. No Founder thought more about the theory and practice of modern war and free government. None supplied advice of more enduring relevance to statesmen faced with the responsibility of providing for the common defense while securing the blessings of liberty to their posterity. Hamilton's strategic sobriety led many of his contemporaries to view him as an American Caesar, but this revisionist account calls the conventional militarist interpretation of Hamilton into question. Hamilton sought to unite the strength necessary for war with the restraint required by the rule of law, popular consent, and individual rights. In the process, he helped found something new, the world's most durable republican empire. Walling constructs a conversation about war and freedom between Hamilton and the Loyalists, the Anti-Federalists, the Jeffersonians, and other Federalists. Instead of pitting Hamilton's virtues against his opponents' vices (or vice versa), Walling pits Hamilton's virtue of responsibility against the revolutionary virtue of vigilance, a quarrel he believes is inherent to American party government. By reexamining that quarrel in light of the necessities of war and the requirements of liberty, Walling has written the most balanced and moving account of Hamilton so far. |
ELUSIVE Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster
The meaning of ELUSIVE is tending to elude. How to use elusive in a sentence.
ELUSIVE Definition & Meaning | Dictionary.com
Elusive definition: eluding or failing to allow for or accommodate a clear perception or complete mental grasp; hard to express or define.. See examples of ELUSIVE used in a sentence.
ELUSIVE | English meaning - Cambridge Dictionary
ELUSIVE definition: 1. difficult to describe, find, achieve, or remember: 2. difficult to describe, find, achieve, or…. Learn more.
ELUSIVE | definition in the Cambridge English Dictionary
ELUSIVE meaning: 1. difficult to describe, find, achieve, or remember: 2. difficult to describe, find, achieve, or…. Learn more.
elusive adjective - Definition, pictures, pronunciation and usage …
Definition of elusive adjective in Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary. Meaning, pronunciation, picture, example sentences, grammar, usage notes, synonyms and more.
Elusive Definition & Meaning | Britannica Dictionary
ELUSIVE meaning: 1 : hard to find or capture; 2 : hard to understand, define, or remember
ELUSIVE definition and meaning | Collins English Dictionary
Something or someone that is elusive is difficult to find, describe, remember, or achieve. In the city late-night taxis are elusive and far from cheap. 3 meanings: 1. difficult to catch 2. …
ELUSIVE definition in American English | Collins English Dictionary
Something or someone that is elusive is difficult to find, describe, remember, or achieve. In the city late-night taxis are elusive and far from cheap. 3 senses: 1. difficult to catch 2. preferring …
Elusive - definition of elusive by The Free Dictionary
elusive - difficult to detect or grasp by the mind or analyze; "his whole attitude had undergone a subtle change"; "a subtle difference"; "that elusive thing the soul"
elusive - Wiktionary, the free dictionary
Jan 2, 2025 · elusive (comparative more elusive, superlative most elusive) Evading capture, comprehension or remembrance.
ELUSIVE Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster
The meaning of ELUSIVE is tending to elude. How to use elusive in a sentence.
ELUSIVE Definition & Meaning | Dictionary.com
Elusive definition: eluding or failing to allow for or accommodate a clear perception or complete mental grasp; hard to express or define.. See examples of ELUSIVE used in a sentence.
ELUSIVE | English meaning - Cambridge Dictionary
ELUSIVE definition: 1. difficult to describe, find, achieve, or remember: 2. difficult to describe, find, achieve, or…. Learn more.
ELUSIVE | definition in the Cambridge English Dictionary
ELUSIVE meaning: 1. difficult to describe, find, achieve, or remember: 2. difficult to describe, find, achieve, or…. Learn more.
elusive adjective - Definition, pictures, pronunciation and usage …
Definition of elusive adjective in Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary. Meaning, pronunciation, picture, example sentences, grammar, usage notes, synonyms and more.
Elusive Definition & Meaning | Britannica Dictionary
ELUSIVE meaning: 1 : hard to find or capture; 2 : hard to understand, define, or remember
ELUSIVE definition and meaning | Collins English Dictionary
Something or someone that is elusive is difficult to find, describe, remember, or achieve. In the city late-night taxis are elusive and far from cheap. 3 meanings: 1. difficult to catch 2. preferring …
ELUSIVE definition in American English | Collins English Dictionary
Something or someone that is elusive is difficult to find, describe, remember, or achieve. In the city late-night taxis are elusive and far from cheap. 3 senses: 1. difficult to catch 2. preferring or …
Elusive - definition of elusive by The Free Dictionary
elusive - difficult to detect or grasp by the mind or analyze; "his whole attitude had undergone a subtle change"; "a subtle difference"; "that elusive thing the soul"
elusive - Wiktionary, the free dictionary
Jan 2, 2025 · elusive (comparative more elusive, superlative most elusive) Evading capture, comprehension or remembrance.
