The Other Founders: Anti-Federalism and the Dissenting Tradition in America, 1788-1828

340 Pages·1999·3.879 MB·English

by  Saul T. Cornell

The Other Founders
The Other
Published for the
Omohundro Institute of Early
American History and Culture,
Williamsburg, Virginia, by the
University of North Carolina Press,
Chapel Hill and London
Founders
anti-federalism
and the dissenting
tradition in america,
1788–1828
by saul cornell
The Omohundro ∫ 1999
The University of North Carolina Press
Institute of Early American All rights reserved
Set in Minion type by Keystone Typesetting, Inc.
History and Culture is Manufactured in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
sponsored jointly by the Cornell, Saul.
The other founders : Anti-Federalism and the dissenting
College of William and tradition in America, 1788–1828 / Saul Cornell.
p. cm.
Mary and the Colonial Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn 0-8078-2503-4 (alk. paper). —
Williamsburg Foundation. isbn 0-8078-4786-0 (pbk.: alk. paper)
1. United States—Politics and government—1783–1865.
On November 15, 1996, 2. Constitutional history—United States. 3. Federal
government—United States—History—18th century.
the Institute adopted the 4. Federal government—United States—History—19th
century. 5. Dissenters—United States—History—18th
present name in honor of century. 6. Dissenters—United States—History—19th
century. I. Omohundro Institute of Early American
a bequest from Malvern H. History & Culture. II. Title.
e310.c79 1999
Omohundro, Jr. 320.473%049—dc21 99-13685
cip
The paper in this book meets the guidelines for
permanence and durability of the Committee on
Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the
Council on Library Resources.
03 02 01 00 99 5 4 3 2 1
to susan, emma, and julia
for filling the house with the sweet sounds of
laughter
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acknowledgments
I can still recall the sense of excitement I felt when entering the New York
Public Library as a high school student working on a paper for an Advanced
Placement history class. The di≈culty of becoming a professional historian
has been to retain a small measure of that sense of wonder that first drew me
to history while gaining some wisdom as a historian. Scholarship is often a
solitary process. It is for precisely that reason that one becomes so dependent
on family, friends, and colleagues to help one keep things in perspective.
I owe an enormous debt to my teachers in graduate school at the Univer-
sity of Pennsylvania, Richard Dunn, Bruce Kuklick, Jan Radway, and Mike
Zuckerman. My dissertation adviser, Rick Beeman, has read many drafts of
this project both as a dissertation and as a book manuscript. On many
occasions in my professional career I have called upon Rick’s sage advice. I
have tried to take to heart Rick’s injunction that, as graduate teachers, our
responsibilities do not end after a dissertation is signed. The earliest phases
of my research were helped by grants from the American Antiquarian So-
ciety and the John Carter Brown Library. While at those two venerable
institutions I was lucky enough to benefit from the advice of John Hench,
Norman Fiering, and Gordon Wood. My thinking about this book has
profited from the lively discussions first begun while a graduate student at
the University of Pennsylvania, and I feel particularly fortunate that the
conversation has continued for more than ten years. Many graduate school
friends have listened to me talk about this project and have read various
incarnations of this study: Amy Bentley, Andy Bell, Alan Clements, Brett
Gary, John Gennari, Rick Halpern, Alan Karras, Alex Lichtenstein, Sybil
Lipschultz, Peter Thompson, Barry Shank, and Shirley Wajda.
It is typical for young scholars to turn their dissertation into their first
book. Of course, as more than one friend has observed over the years, I have
developed a knack for never doing things the easy way. Although my disser-
tation explored the varieties of Anti-Federalist thought during ratification—
a subject worthy of a book—this study considers a di√erent problem: the
role that Anti-Federalism played in the evolution of a dissenting tradition of
political and constitutional thought over the first four decades of America’s
history. Much of the material in the dissertation appeared in article form,
and individuals curious to see earlier formulations of my argument can
easily track down those essays from the citations to them in the notes to
this book.
A National Endowment for the Humanities postdoctoral fellowship at the
Institute of Early American History and Culture provided the time to both
expand and substantially alter my original project on Anti-Federalism. The
Institute continues to approach its books like fine Bordeaux wines. I hope
that the extra time that this one has spent in the cellar has mellowed the
tannins and made the final product smoother and more complex. The sta√
of the Institute was extremely helpful during my stay in Williamsburg. As a
young student at William and Mary, Thomas Je√erson became immersed in
a lively intellectual circle in this charming provincial town. I was equally
fortunate to have had the chance to share ideas with Kathy Brown, John
Brooke, Bob and Ann Gross, Charles Hobson, Nancy Isenberg, Michael
Kazin, Michael McGi√ert, Ted Pearson, J. R. Pole, David Rabban, John Selby,
and Chris Tomlins.
The appointment of Ron Ho√man as Director has brought renewed
energy to the Institute, and his support has been crucial to the evolution of
this endeavor. The detailed comments on my manuscript by Fredrika Teute,
editor of publications, are extensive enough to merit publication as a sepa-
rate volume. I feel especially fortunate to have completed this project while
Jim Horn was visiting editor of publications. Jim’s easygoing and supportive
editorial guidance helped this project finally come to completion. Any au-
thor would be fortunate to have Gil Kelly work his editorial magic on the
final text of the manuscript. I consider myself lucky to have been among
those to benefit from his talents. A number of scholars read earlier drafts of
the entire manuscript and provided detailed critiques, including Lance Ban-
ning, Michael Les Benedict, Richard Ellis, Peter Onuf, and Jack Rakove.
Thad Tate read the dissertation and was the final reader before the manu-
viii:acknowledgments
script went into production. His thoughtful suggestions and generous spirit
provide a model of scholarly exchange at its best.
The ideas in this work have been refined in dozens of talks and conference
presentations. Several of those occasions produced especially valuable in-
sights. An invitation from Steve Conrad to talk at the Indiana University law
school produced a lively discussion. On that occasion and on a subsequent
visit to Bloomington, political theorist Russell Hanson helped me think
about the relevance of the thought of Jürgen Habermas to my project. In the
course of revising this manuscript I published several essays exploring the
problems and potential of postmodern theory for historical analysis. Ul-
timately, the ideals of postmodernism proved less useful to this project than
did the ideas of postmodernism’s most trenchant critic, Habermas. Part of
the advantage of publishing article-length think pieces is that they provide
an important forum to test out ideas. Bill Nelson’s legal history seminar at
the New York University law school was another such venue. Over the course
of two weeks, Nelson and his seminar read the entire manuscript and pro-
vided innumerable useful suggestions. Richard Bernstein, a participant in
that seminar, went above and beyond the call of duty to provide a detailed
critique of the manuscript. I presented some of the main themes of the book
at two conferences at the University of Pennsylvania. On those di√erent
occasions I profited from the thoughtful remarks from John Murrin and
Jack Greene. The participants in the Philadelphia Early American Seminar
and the Columbia Early American Seminar also provided further guidance
on how this project might be improved.
The grant of a Thomas Je√erson Chair in American Studies by the Ful-
bright Commission provided time to think about this project in the cafes of
Leyden and Amsterdam. Sadly, I also spent eleven days thinking about the
project when I was hospitalized for pneumonia at the end of that stay.
The chairman of the Dutch Fulbright commission, Marcel Oomen, was
extremely helpful during this unexpected crisis. My hosts at Leyden, Eduard
van de Bilt and Joke Kardux, helped raise my spirits during this time and
wandered the halls of the hospital with me, patiently listening to me ramble
on about how to revise the manuscript.
The College of Humanities at the Ohio State University has provided
funding to help complete this project. My colleagues at OSU have listened
patiently while I worked through many of the final touches on this manu-
script. My chairman, Mike Hogan, o√ered avuncular advice and helped me
navigate through the maze of tenure. Other colleagues in the department
of history have helped me on occasions too numerous to count, including
acknowledgments :ix