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Preface
- Liberty Fund
- Chapter
- Additional Information
PolWritV1_ i-xviii.indd 11 2/21/12 8:15 AM PREFACE The political writing of the founding era is tremendous in volume. The books, pamphlets, and letters to newspapers written in the last quarter of the eighteenth century that would repay careful reading by students and teachers of American political thought would fill a few dozen volumes the size of the two that this comment introduces. And even appraisals of amount .and worth take no account of the personal letters printed in the collected writings of men and women who achieved prominence and of the correspondence in manuscript preserved in archives and libraries. At least one collection of essays, The Federalist, has long been a classic of western literature. In the light of such an impressive literature, the appearance of a score, if not a half a hundred, brief essays hitherto unknown except to scholars ought to be high priority reading for political leaders and for those who make analysis and criticism of government a prime concern. The second volume of this collection closes with the editors' choice of five-hundred-odd items thought to represent the best analytic and polemic writing put into print in the English colonies that converted into states during the forty-five years following I 760; if printed in the type-size of this collection, they would overflow at least fifteen, and possibly eighteen, volumes the size of these two. The editors are convinced that in compiling a selected list of political writings by Americans between q6o and I 8os, they have rejected an equal amount of wordage that met tests of relevance but seemed to be less satisfying on some test of merit. It is quite clear that a vast amount of wordage went into print during this era and that only a modest proportion of that wordage is in places where readers can get to it today. With few exceptions, what the compilers of this collection examined and considered for inclusion is confined to items available in major university libraries, the less accessible holdings of a few rare book libraries, and the newspapers of that early period which have been preserved. Catalogs of American imprints cite many items which are not to be found in the libraries [xi) PolWritV1_ i-xviii.indd 12 2/21/12 8:15 AM [ xii} PREFACE that were visited, and it must be supposed that much that is in print has not yet been transferred to microcards and microfilm. Much more important than speculation about the enormous volume of writing from this era are questions about the tests applied and the judgment invoked by the editors in deciding which item to reprint , which to cite in a selected list of political writings by Americans between q6o and I 8os, and which to exclude in either case for lack of interest or merit or because of present accessibility. How the selections were made is best disclosed by giving a brief account of how the enterprise originated and how it was executed . The probe into the early writing was initiated by the senior editor, and the story will be told in fewest words if related by him in the first person. Three years before my retirement from teaching I was asked to provide a seminar for selected freshmen. The initial specification was that attention would be restricted to "the founding of the American political system and getting it under way." I had a fair acquaintance with the books of readings to be found in the university library and I was aware that, whether compiled by a historian or political scientist, those that touched on early experience tended to feature government documents over analytic and argumentative writing. I was totally unprepared , however, for the dearth of expository and polemical essays defining and describing republican government, setting forth its ideals and goals, and offering advice on surest ways of making popular selfgovernment operative in North America. The thought that went into the design of the state constitutions turned out to be a valley of unexplored terrain all but concealed from sight by towering preoccupation with the case for independence from Britain and the strategies for forming a federal union. Students could read in print John Adams' Thoughts on Government and The Essex Result if I would risk their tearing to shreds a volume of the Works of John Adams and the Handlins's Popular Sources of Political Authority. It turned out when my syllabus was completed that, save for what was...