The Bonds of Union: Benjamin Rush, Noah Webster, and Defining the Nation in the Early Republic

Benjamin Rush argued for particular forms of union and nation at the very moment those political concepts were undergoing an evolution. The Age of Revolution introduced new ways to imagine federal bodies and governing constitutions, and Rush and his contemporaries were forced to adapt accordingly. This essay examines how Rush and one of his colleagues, Noah Webster, addressed the problem of nationality at the moment of America’s independence in order to investigate the tensions of cultural continuity during a moment of political disruption. In a nation full of so many diverse populations, how was it possible to conceive of a governing structure that matched the character of the governed?