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The article examines U.S. nationalism in relation to the concept of nationalism advocated by the Swiss Calvinist Emer de Vattel. Topics discussed include how Vattel balanced national sovereignty and international law, the difference between Vattel's concepts of the necessary law of nations and the voluntary law of nations, and how Vattel's "The Law of Nations" influenced many statesmen of the young U.S. republic.

The article discusses the literature of the American Revolution and the origins of the book "The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution" by Bernard Bailyn. It states that the book has shaped the subsequent study of American literature in the revolutionary period and a legacy of Bailyn's confrontation with social scientists and humanists. It also mentions that Bailyn was forced to engaged with the work of literary scholars who had resisted the New Criticism like Alan D. McKillop.

The article discusses aspects of the book "The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution" by Bernard Bailyn. Topics include the American historiography, the deformation of English historiography due to the division between domestic history and the history of England's colonies and empire, and the commonwealth or real whig ideology which Bailyn identified as the main source of fears that underpinned the colonists's shift to revolutionary principles.

An essay is presented on the book "The Ordeal of Thomas Hutchinson" by Bernard Bailyn as a model for historical writing and an intellectual companion to Bailyn's "The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution" and his idea of constitution in the latter book. It offers the author's thoughts on when the constitution become the constitution. It also explores the major themes of the second book.

The article discusses aspects of the book "The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution" by Bernard Bailyn. It discusses the book as a history of early American political thought, and as a republican reading of patriot political theory. It also compares anti-whig political principles of Bailyn and Charles Howard McIlwain, author of the book "The American Revolution: A Constitutional Interpretation."

The article offers the author's opinion on the book "The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution" by Bernard Bailyn, suggesting to see the book as an opportunity for a new sort of economic history of the American Revolution. The author says that Bailyn accounts power as the enduring obsession of the Americans. He also says that the idea of sovereignty was unsecular in the years with which the book is concerned.

The article reassesses the book "The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution" by Bernard Bailyn. It states that the traditional intellectual interpretation of the origins of the Revolution had been transformed and refines into the formal discourse of natural and constitutional rights. It also mentions that as these interpretations were refined, they faced a challenge from the emergency of new theories of human behavior.

The article offers the author's confessional thoughts on re-reading of his book "The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution." The author says that the large part of what he had written proved to be a selection of statements by contributors. He also mentions that Americans' obsession with power is the most vivid on re-reading his book.

The article offers the author's opinion in the book "The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution" by Bernard Bailyn. The author says that Bailyn's reexamination of the ideas at the heart of the revolution launched a long and productive debate about the mearning of liberalism and republicanism in the American political tradition. He also says that Bailyn's vision of a colonial resistance movement impelled by fears of Parliamentary power influences textbook accounts of the revolution.

Radical democrats such as Sheldon Wolin and Jason Frank often frame radical democracy and liberal constitutionalism as mutually opposed. I argue that they are mutually constitutive. Liberal constitutionalism entails a bundle of normative commitments that support the free expression of radical democratic actors who revolt against one fundamental law in order to write another. Radical democracy enacts the spirit of revolution within the liberal constitutionalist imperative to critically interrogate the fundamental law and prepare oneself-if necessary-to overthrow it. Furthermore, liberal equality-the idea that everyone counts and that everyone counts 'only as one'-underwrites the political initiative of the 'deviants' and 'outsiders' at the center of radical democrats' concern. Popular sovereignty derives much of its appeal from the liberal individualist principle of self-determination, the idea that individuals should rule themselves. The personal and political rights of both democratic actors and their opponents are the invisible constitution of radical democracy. Anyone calling himself a democrat must treat that constitution as binding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The crises of the American republic-from climate change to economic inequality to overextended empire-make the subject of political imagination pressing. What future do we want for ourselves? How do we reconcile that vision with empirical reality? Political imagination concerns the scope and shape of the possible. Democratic theorist Jason Frank makes conflicts over political imagination the center of his scholarship. This symposium focuses on his recent work. That work helps us address two significant challenges in democratic struggles over political imagination. First, how does a democratic people wanting to make a new start, to revolutionize the polity, orient itself to the founding myths of society, especially when those myths-such as that of the American founders-have such a strong hold on public imagination? Second, how can a democratic people recover the transformative power and possibility of the idea of 'the people' that authorized the work of the founders, and that may authorize their supersession? This introduction outlines the contours of the Polity symposium on 'Political Imagination and The Problem of Founding: The Work of Jason Frank' and provides background on Frank's scholarship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The political thought of the Founders is essential to understanding American politics: their thinking was embodied in state institutions and set the conceptual parameters of much subsequent political debate. Examining early American political thought allows us to better grasp the fundamental orientations of American political institutions and ideas, and can therefore also illuminate their democratic limitations. Historically situated democratic theory of the kind that I have pursued returns to the political thinking of the Founders not to uncritically praise it, but to better understand its persistence in the present, reveal its hold on the contemporary political imagination, and glimpse political possibilities beyond its horizon. The Federalist offers a canonical case in point, and the essays in this symposium have pushed me to clarify and develop my own thinking on the Founders' authority and its limits; on the relationship between founding, violence, and exclusion; and on the distinctions between radical democracy and liberal constitutionalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the historical significance of the creation of the United States of America, with a particular focus on its context in 18th-century world history. It references the book "Empire" by philosopher Antonio Negri and economist Michael Hardt. Details on the role of modernity in the creation of the U.S. government are presented. Other topics include imperialism, popular sovereignty, and municipal rights.

In the late 18th century and early 19th the greatest part of the Americas became independent of European powers. There were numerous reasons for discontent but in each case European events contributed to the outbreak of revolution. The political and social transformation produced in Angloamerica was relatively moderate whereas the Haitian revolution produced deep social as well as political change. In the Spanish colonies, scene of the longest military struggle, and in lesser degree Brazil, the change in political system was more abrupt than in Angloamerica and the social changes uneven but not insignificant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the concept of "the people" in the political discourse of the founding of the United States. Two very different but related conceptions of "the people" are identified: an abstract moral entity from which political legitimacy is derived in American democracy, and actual citizens, the voting public, whose direct exercise of political power the founders of the republic strove to prevent. The role of these two ideas in the design of the institutions of American government is discussed.

In this article the author challenges an assertion made in another article in the journal, one that rejected consumption as a historical factor in the fight for political freedom in the 18th century American colonies. He states that consumer behavior has meaning when examined in specific historical contexts. He connects consumption with production and suggests that consumer choice could be transformed into a means of political rebellion, using the period immediately before the outbreak of the American Revolution as an example. The acceptance of consumer sacrifice before and during the revolution was also a political act.

Compares historian Gordon S. Wood's opinions on the United States' tradition of political thought during the revolutionary era with that of other historians. Emphasis on the key role of civic republicanism in the early revolutionary experience; Skepticism on the private realm of civil society; Claim on the rapid transition from an aristocratic to democratic society; Role of religion in American life; Social changes.

Looks at the political role of the royal prerogative to create and promote British peers in the period 1760-1784. Argues that during the first two decades of his reign, George III maintained his original intention that peerage creations should be few in number and isolated from short-term political influences, but during the prolonged political crisis at the end of the American War of Independence, the king's power to create peers became deeply embroiled in politics.

The article presents information the letters written by American patriot and politician John Hancock and American lawyer and statesmen Thomas Cushing. The article examines the disfavor that Hancock has fallen into among historians and suggests that these letters, while not providing new historical information, may allow Hancock to be seen in a better light. The authors hope the letters can be used in the writing of a biography on Hancock that will restore him to his true place in history. The article includes letters written by Hancock to U.S. President George Washington. It also includes letters written by Cushing that are addressed to Hancock.

The article presents information related to the settlement of the western boundary of the United States at the close of the American Revolutionary War. It examines documents relating to the activities of French statesmen Joseph Matthias Gérard de Rayneval whom American diplomat John Jay suspected of conspiring with the British about where the western boundary of the U.S. would lie. The article examines a memorandum sent by Rayneval to Jay and discusses the fears that Jay harbored regarding the loyalty of the French.

The article presents an examination into the relationship between American statesmen Benjamin Franklin and American politician and loyalist Joseph Galloway. Both men were members of the Pennsylvania Assembly during a period of conflict between the popular party and the proprietary party and both were aligned against the proprietary government. The article examines letters written between the two during the years 1757 and 1775. When Franklin left for France in 1776 he gave his collected correspondences to Galloway, but the whereabouts of these letters was jeopardized when Galloway deserted the American Revolutionary cause and left for Great Britain.

Comments on articles concerning the law and other legal issues in the U.S., featured in the November 1983 issue of the 'American Bar Association Journal.' Effectiveness of the declaration of independence on July 4, 1776; Impact of the default judgment against the People's Republic of China (P.R.C.) for non-payment of Hukuang Railroad bonds on U.S. and P.R.C. relations.