Rethinking America: From Empire to Republic

422 Pages·2018·3.922 MB·English

by  John M. Murrin

i
Rethinking America
•
ii
iii
Rethinking
America
•
FROM EMPIRE TO REPUBLIC
John M. Murrin
with an introduction by
Andrew Shankman
1
iv
1
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers
the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education
by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University
Press in the UK and certain other countries.
Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press
198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America.
© John M. Murrin 2018
Introduction © Oxford University Press 2018
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the
prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted
by law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction
rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the
above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the
address above.
You must not circulate this work in any other form
and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer.
CIP data is on file at the Library of Congress
ISBN 978– 0– 19– 503871– 2
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Printed by Sheridan Books, Inc., United States of America
v
In fond memory of Edmund S. Morgan
vi
vii
Contents
•
Preface and Acknowledgments ix
Andrew Shankman
Introduction—The Revolutionary Republic of a Radical, Imperial,
Whig: The Historical and Historiographical Imagination
of John M. Murrin 1
Andrew Shankman
Part I. An Overview
1. The Great Inversion, or Court versus Country: A Comparison
of the Revolution Settlements in England (1688– 1721)
and America (1776– 1816) 31
Part II. Toward Revolution
2. No Awakening, No Revolution? More
Counterfactual Speculations 101
3. The French and Indian War, the American Revolution,
and the Counterfactual Hypothesis: Reflections on Lawrence
Henry Gipson and John Shy 115
vii
viii
viii Contents
4. Feudalism, Communalism, and the Yeoman Freeholder: The American
Revolution Considered as a Social Accident
(with Rowland Berthoff) 131
5. 1776: The Countercyclical Revolution 161
Part III. Defining the Republic
6. A Roof without Walls: The Dilemma of American
National Identity 187
7. Fundamental Values, the Founding Fathers, and the Constitution 205
8. The Making and Unmaking of an American Ruling Class
(with Gary J. Kornblith) 239
9. Escaping Perfidious Albion: Federalism, Fear of Aristocracy, and the
Democratization of Corruption in Postrevolutionary America 295
10. War, Revolution, and Nation- Making: The American
Revolution versus the Civil War 343
Conclusion—Self- Immolation: Schools of Historiography
and the Coming of the American Revolution 383
ix
Preface and Acknowledgments
Andrew Shankman
•
I arrived at Princeton University in the summer of 1992 for my first
semester of graduate school, equally eager and overwhelmed to study with
John Murrin. One of my undergraduate professors, Stephen Foster, had
known Murrin since their days at Yale working with Edmund Morgan.
Another, Allan Kulikoff, had been Murrin’s colleague at Princeton for
several years. A third, Simon Newman, had been Murrin’s student. And
a fourth, Alfred F. Young, doubted Murrin’s political commitments,
but confirmed what the other three said: that Murrin seemed to know
everything. Murrin was, Young told me, co- writing an essay for the vol-
ume Young was currently editing, an essay that Young assured me was
stunning.1 Murrin, it seemed, fit well the description his Ph.D. adviser
Morgan had provided for Ezra Stiles, President of Yale College from 1778
to 1795: he was “a monstrous warehouse of knowledge” exhibiting “so
much energy in the sheer joy of learning.”2
That spring I  had first sensed another equally important quality
of John Murrin’s when I read a brief note he had written to Kulikoff
and had enclosed with the final volume of the biographical dictionary
Princetonians. Princetonians ran to five volumes, published between 1976
and 1991, and covered the years 1748 to 1794. Murrin’s name appears
nowhere as an editor. Yet he devoted a great deal of time to the project
due to his deep interest in the history of the university where he worked
ix