The drafting and ratification of the federal constitution between 1787 and 1788 capped almost 30 years of revolutionary turmoil and warfare. The supporters of the new constitution, known at the time as Federalists, looked to the new national government to secure the achievements of the Revolution. But they shared the same doubts that the Anti-federalists had voiced about whether the republican form of government could be made to work on a continental scale. Nor was it a foregone conclusion that the new government would succeed in overcoming parochial interests to weld the separate states into a single nation. During the next four decades the institutions and precedents governing the behavior of the national government took shape, many of which are still operative today. This second edition of Historical Dictionary of the Early American Republic contains a chronology, an introduction, appendixes, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 500 cross-referenced entries on important personalities, politics, economy, foreign relations, religion, and culture. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about American history.

The formative period of the United States, running roughly from 1789 to 1829, has become remote and perhaps overly idealized. While the administrations of George Washington, John Adams, James Madison, James Monroe and John Quincy Adams set the country on the path to modernity by resolving some nagging problems left over from the Revolution, they failed to resolve many crucial issues, such as slavery, the treatment of Native Americans, and the consequences of industrial development. Despite many common goals, the gentry's leadership was riven by sectional friction, personal competition, and partisan bickering that almost tore the nation apart during the War of 1812. The A to Z of the Early American Republic recounts the achievements and the failures, the progress and the backsliding, and the high and low points of our forefathers. First traced in the chronology and then explained in the introduction, the history of our nation's formative years is laid out in great detail. The several hundred dictionary entries describe the more eminent persons, the evolving institutions, and the crucial events that our young country faced. An extensive bibliography is included to provide easy access for further studies.

Poet, republican, diplomat, and entrepreneur, Joel Barlow filled many roles and registered impressive accomplishments. In the first biography of this fascinating figure in decades, Richard Buel Jr. recounts the life of a man more intimately connected to the Age of Revolution than perhaps any other American.

Barlow was a citizen of the revolutionary world, and his adventures throughout the United States and Europe during both the American and French Revolutions are numerous and notorious. From writing his epic poem, "The Vision of Columbus," to plotting a republican revolution in Britain to negotiating the release of American sailors taken captive by Barbary pirates, Joel Barlow personified the true spirit of the tumultuous times in which he lived.

No one witnessed more climactic events or interacted with more significant people than Joel Barlow. It was his unique vision, his unfailing belief in republicanism, and his entrepreneurial spirit that drove Barlow to pursue the revolutionary ideal in a way more emblematic of the age than the lives of many of its prominent heroes.

Buel is a knowledgeable guide, and in telling Barlow's story he explores the cultural landscape of the early American republic and engages the broader themes of the Age of Revolution. Few books explore in such a comprehensive fashion the political, economic, ideological, diplomatic, and technological dimensions of this defining moment in world history.

A sailing ship that becomes stalled with its bow to the wind is said to be "in irons." In this groundbreaking examination of America`s Revolutionary War economy, the phrase is an apt metaphor for the inability of that economy to free itself from the constraints of Britain`s navy. Richard Buel Jr. here investigates for the first time the influence of Britain`s navy on the American revolutionary economy, particularly its agricultural sector, and the damage that Britain inflicted by seizing major colonial centers and denying Americans access to overseas markets. Drawing on documents newly culled from American, British, and French archives, the author shows how the French alliance, naval operations in the Atlantic and Caribbean, military operations in North America, and the policies of state and continental authorities contributed to the collapse and then revival of the revolutionary economy. Buel places the American economy in international context and discusses how both Spain and France created the conditions-though sometimes inadvertently-that bolstered the economic survival of the infant republic.

The Old State House in Hartford, Connecticut, was the site of two key political conventions in the early nineteenth century. The legislatures of Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island sent official delegations to the first "Hartford Convention" at the end of 1814, when the War of 1812 was going badly. This convention threatened to make a separate peace with Britain if certain amendments to the United States Constitution were not accepted, and fell into disgrace when the war came to an unexpectedly favorable conclusion. The second convention, in 1818, drafted a constitution that reformed the structure of government established in the Charter of 1662 and submitted its handiwork to the people for approval. Parts of the Constitution of 1818 survive in Connecticut's present form of government.
Original Discontents contains twenty-five selections of newspaper and pamphlet commentary about this constitutional revision, introduced and annotated by the editors, along with text of the Fundamental Orders of 1639, the Charter of Connecticut (1662), and the Constitution of 1818. This anthology is useful to all students of Connecticut history and relevant to enduring constitutional debates.

"The founding generation feared partisan conflict, and Richard Buel shows why. No previous writer has so persuasively illuminated the inextricable connections between divisions over foreign policy and partisan political alignments during a period of revolutionary instability and change throughout the Atlantic world. After Jefferson's election, Federalists who had struggled so hard to secure the success of the American experiment during the 1790s jeopardized the union's survival as they sought to regain power on the national level and preserve their tenuous control in New England. "America on the Brink" is an important contribution to our understanding of the founding of the American federal republic. Buel's fine book represents political history at its very best."--Peter Onuf, Thomas Jefferson Foundation, Professor of History, University of Virginia
"Buel's keen analysis of the partisan battle between Federalists and Jeffersonians argues powerfully that prominent Massachusetts leaders aimed to subvert the United States government during the War of 1812. This fresh, clearheaded, and masterful narrative reveals the intricate political maneuvers of politicians and statesmen during a perilous era."--Richard D. Brown, Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor of History and Director, University of Connecticut Humanities Institute Department of History
"In this carefully researched and vigorously argued account of America's least understood war, Richard Buel offers a searching critique of the political motives that placed Federalist leaders in Massachusetts and Connecticut at loggerheads with the national government. Artfully surveying the realms of politics and diplomacy from anavowedly Republican perspective, Buel closely examines the political rhetoric, partisan calculations, and internal divisions of both parties, and explains how these in turn affected and impaired the conduct of the war. In doing so, he makes a potent case for taking seriously the depth of Federalist animosity toward Republican policies and the extent to which opposition to the war went beyond non-compliance with national measures to countenance the collapse of the new American nation-state. Not every student of the war may accept his conclusions, but his argument supports a critical reappraisal of a seemingly disloyal opposition."--Jack Rakove, Stanford University

"Vivid, splendid reading—reading for pleasure, for profit, for a sure grasp of the past that made the present possible." —William Manchester

Combining the skills of a gifted writer and a scholar's grasp of early America, The Way of Duty draws readers into a vividly evoked world. The Buels have used a rich trove of documents to tell the story of a Connecticut woman, Mary Fish Silliman (1736–1818), whose adventures illuminate the day-to-day realities of living through the American Revolution.

"An admirable book about an admirable person. . . . Thoroughly engrossing." —Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post Book World

"Engrossing family history, very well told." —Kirkus Reviews

"A poignant, even heart-wrenching story. The Buels make clear just how disruptive the Revolution was in the private lives of families. It is a beautifully written, irresistible story that tells a lot about what the Revolution really meant." —Richard L. Bushman, Columbia University