**This class will be taught on Zoom. Note that the first class, October 12, will be recorded and sent to all.**
How do you build a nation from scratch? How do people come together to construct a new national government, constitution, military, economy, society, and culture in the wake of revolution and independence? How do we create something new and lasting from the ashes of something old and battered and broken?
This new course invites all of you to explore one of history’s greatest experiments in nation-building: the rise of the early American republic. Between 1776 and 1826, the fiftieth anniversary of independence and the year both Thomas Jefferson and John Adams finally passed from the scene, the United States transformed from a fragile collection of rebellious colonies into a sprawling, diverse, and deeply divided continental power. Through six wide-ranging talks informed by post-colonial theory and studies of comparative nationalism, we will trace how Americans from every possible background wrestled with the great challenge of constructing a government strong enough to endure, yet flexible enough to embody ideals of liberty, equality, and democracy—ideals that remain hotly contested today.
Week by Week Outline:
1. The Crisis
Declaring independence in 1776 solved one problem and unleashed a dozen more. The American Revolution shattered British rule, but it left unanswered questions about power, equality, citizenship, and the nation’s future. In the turbulent 1780s, the fragile republic staggered under crushing debt, political instability, military unrest, and fears of national collapse. Shays’ Rebellion and the weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation convinced leaders like Alexander Hamilton and George Washington that independence alone would not secure liberty. This lecture explores how the unfinished promises of the Revolution and the crises of the postwar decade drove Americans toward a stronger federal union—and transformed a rebellion into a nation.
2. Inventing America
How do you build a republic from revolution? In 1787, delegates at Philadelphia battled over representation, slavery, and federal authority while Antifederalist critics warned that the proposed Constitution threatened liberty itself. The resulting framework—complete with checks and balances, the three-fifths compromise, and eventually a Bill of Rights—created a powerful but deeply contested new government. Into that uncertain experiment stepped George Washington, who transformed abstract constitutional theory into executive practice. As president, Washington established enduring precedents for federal authority, yet his administration faced fierce resistance from western whiskey rebels and Native nations in the Ohio Country. This lecture explores how Americans in the 1790s struggled to define the meaning, reach, and limits of national power.
3. The Revolution of 1800
Winning independence from Britain was only the beginning. In the turbulent years surrounding the election of 1800, Americans fought to define not just who would govern the republic, but what kind of nation it would become. Bitter rivalry between Federalists and Democratic-Republicans pushed the young Constitution to its limits as John Adams and Thomas Jefferson battled over liberty, power, and the future of democracy. At the same time, writers, artists, educators, and Black church leaders worked to free American culture from British influence. From Noah Webster’s dictionaries to Richard Allen’s independent institutions, this lecture explores how Americans declared cultural as well as political independence in the early republic.
The Newly United States at War
The early United States could never escape the violent currents of the Atlantic world. From the Haitian Revolution to the War of 1812, American leaders struggled to preserve both independence and national survival amid imperial warfare and revolutionary upheaval. This lecture follows the young republic through diplomatic crises with Britain and France, conflicts with the Barbary pirates, the Louisiana Purchase, and finally into war itself under James Madison. Along the way, enslaved rebels in Haiti terrified American slaveholders, Native leaders like Tecumseh fought to defend Indigenous homelands, and African Americans sought freedom amid wartime chaos. The result was a nation shaped as much by global revolution and empire as by its own founding ideals.
5. Democracy and Disorder
What did democracy look like on the ground in the early United States—and how did Americans maintain order in a society that prized liberty above all else? This lecture pairs Alexis de Tocqueville’s famous observations of the rough-and-tumble democracy of the early republic with the era’s fierce debates over crime and punishment. As expanding suffrage transformed politics, Americans experimented with penitentiaries, prison reform, and new ideas about justice and rehabilitation. Figures like Dorothea Dix challenged brutal punishments while politicians such as John Quincy Adams and Martin Van Buren offered competing visions of democratic society. From crowded polling places to prison cells and dueling grounds, this talk explores how democracy’s explosive growth reshaped ideas about morality, authority, and human freedom.
6. The Fire Bell in the Night
Long before the Civil War, slavery threatened to destroy the United States from within. The Missouri Compromise temporarily preserved the Union, but the furious debates surrounding Missouri’s statehood exposed deep and growing sectional divisions. Leaders like Thomas Jefferson feared slavery had become “a fire bell in the night,” while Black activists such as Richard Allen condemned the nation’s hypocrisy. At the same time, enslaved rebels like Gabriel Prosser, radical writers like David Walker, and reformers such as William Lloyd Garrison challenged slavery through resistance, protest, and organized antislavery activism. This lecture traces how the expansion of slavery and the rise of abolitionism transformed the early republic into a nation increasingly at war with itself.
