Reviews for The American Revolution in the law

The average rating for The American Revolution in the law based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2016-09-25 00:00:00 Angelique Long One might view this 1972 monograph as a late entry in the “consensus school” that dominated American Revolutionary historiography in the mid-twentieth century. More precisely, it constitutes an answer to Richard Hofstadter’s question about the first American party system (1789-1815): how could the Revolutionary generation, who viewed political parties as dangers to a republic (“sores on the body politic”), nonetheless create a party system almost as soon as the ink dried on the Constitution? Perhaps a bit simplistically, Buel attributes the Federalist-Republican party split to a difference in political outlook among the revolutionaries. Both wanted a stable and secure Union, and both wanted unity within the body politic. The Federalists, however, had stronger fears of domestic disorder and external foes. Their fear arose from Revolutionary-era paranoia and from the French Revolution, the latter of which raised the specters of domestic subversion and foreign invasion. After trying to build positive support for their administration (with public demonstrations in favor of Jay’s Treaty, for instance), the Feds turned to repression: denouncing pro-French societies, passing the Alien and Sedition Acts, drastically enlarging the army, and trying to intimidate and prosecute their opposition into oblivion. The Jeffersonian Republicans put more faith in public opinion, especially when it so often seemed on their side. As an opposition party they accepted (apparently) the necessity for political opposition in a republic, and in place of military preparedness they favored peaceful international commerce. In power after the 1800 election, they created, according to Buel, a less paranoid and more public-facing regime. Unlike their predecessors, the Republicans did go to war with an external foe, namely Britain, in 1812. Buel attributes this war to the Jeffersonians’ desire to vindicate the honor and demonstrate the unity of their new nation. Despite Federalist “obstructionism” the United States survived the war intact, and in the postwar period a permanent party system began to seem more compatible with long-term republican stability. A few problems here: Buel identifies both the Republicans and Federalists as driven by “ideology,” but defines the term in a rather limited way, as a set of ideas people use in pursuit of interests. His “republicanist” contemporaries defined ideology as Clifford Geertz did: a set of beliefs and perceptions that people used as guides to action, “maps of a problematic social reality.” This definition makes it easier to understand the American revolutionaries’ “paranoia,” and easier too to realize something Buel downplays, which is the extent of Republican paranoia. Both parties’ members, after all, studied the same republican history, and both - pace Buel - shared the same fears of subversion and invasion; one of them simply feared a centralized government more than the other. In power, the Republicans dealt with their domestic enemy, the Federalists, through state-level sedition trials and a purge of the judicial branch. They also identified an external enemy, namely Britain, whom they fought with commercial sanctions and then with an actual war. Once that war had ended, the Republicans looked forward to a future without any parties at all, a future they actually enjoyed for nearly a decade (the “Era of Good Feelings”). The notion of a “loyal opposition” is one they never quite accepted. The idea that a multi-party system helps stabilize a republic by containing political and economic divisions didn’t evolve in the United States until late in the nineteenth century. I suspect there are many people in both American political parties today who no longer believe it.

Review # 2 was written on 2020-10-12 00:00:00 Brendan Young A neat blend of ethnography, politics and history, this dense book fills a unique place in Jefferson biography. Jefferson's figure is actually relegated to a secondary role here; while his policies are extensively dealt with, they are always done so in the context of the native peoples they affected. This emphasis, as opposed to the tack of viewing Jefferson's policies as an outgrowth of his character, is important for several reasons: first, it reveals that the attitudes and prejudices behind Jeffersonian Indian policy existed on a national scale, and secondly, that they were not necessarily borne out of Jefferson's personal vendetta against Native Americans. This widened scope has it's drawbacks; it can make following the thread of history difficult, because so many people had a role in Indian policy. It also obscures Jefferson's personal role in the affair. "Jefferson and the Indians" as a title implies a more personal and focused approach than is actually taken. The book's best parts are what is not implied in the title: the rich array of Native voices, often taken directly from the original texts; Jefferson's extra-political ventures in ethnography; the analysis and criticism of popular sentiment towards Indians, including religious missionary efforts, analyzed separately by denomination. In this area, the book is deep and interesting, if not so different from more general histories. In this way, the book is a more valuable resource on Native American history than on presidential history. The generality I found disappointing, because it wasn't what I was looking for from this particular book, but it's not a bad thing in itself. With the breadth of scope, a brisker style might have worked better. Wallace can drone at times, blurring the line between academic lecture and narrative history. The personal, human scale of the book is often neglected in favor of a more mechanistic, large-scale perspective so that little is made of the "tragedy" of the story. Still, the point ought to be obvious for any reader with a little patience. A book for a bird's-eye view of the topic, rewarding with some forbearance for its flaws.