The American Revolution

Readings

• Anderson, Fred. A People’s Army: Massachusetts Soldiers in the Seven Years War . Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina, 1996. ISBN: 9780807845769.
  Required
• Jensen, Merrill, ed. Tracts of the American Revolution. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing, 2003, pp. 1763-1776. ISBN: 9780872206939.
  Required
• Locke, John. Second Treatise of Government . Any unabridged edition. Recommended edition: Locke, John. Two Treatises of Government . Edited by Peter Laslett. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1988. ISBN: 9780521357302.
  Required
• Maier, Pauline. From Resistance to Revolution: Colonial Radicals and the Development of American Resistance to Britain. New York, NY: W.W. Norton, 1992, pp. 1765-1776. ISBN: 9780393308259.
  Required
• Morison, Samuel Eliot, ed. Sources and Documents Illustrating the American Revolution . New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1965. ISBN: 9780195002621.
  Required
• Shy, John. A People Numerous and Armed . Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1990. ISBN: 9780472064311.
  Required
• Wood, Gordon S. The American Revolution: A History . New York, NY: Modern Library Chronicles, 2002. ISBN: 9780679640578.
  Required
• Wood. American Revolution. pp. xxiii-xv and 3-24.
  Listed reading
• Maier. From Resistance to Revolution. p. 26.
  Listed reading
• Anderson. A People’s Army. pp. vii-xi, 3-164, 185-210, and 222-23.
  Listed reading
• Locke. Second Treatise of Government . Chapters 1-4, 8-13, and 17-19. ↗
  Listed reading
• Maier. From Resistance to Revolution. pp. 27- 48.
  Listed reading
• Wood. American Revolution. pp. 27-44.
  Listed reading
• Maier. From Resistance to Revolution. pp. 51-157.
  Listed reading
• Hopkins, Stephen. “Essay on Trade” (1764). In Tracts of the American Revolution.
  Listed reading
• -–. “The Rights of Colonies Examined” (later 1764). In Tracts of the American Revolution.
  Listed reading
• Dulany, Daniel. “Considerations on the Propriety of Imposing Taxes in the British Colonies” (1765). In Tracts of the American Revolution.
  Listed reading
• Bland, Richard. “An Inquiry into the Rights of the British Colonies” (1766). In Tracts of the American Revolution. (Note the quotations from a British writer—Thomas Whately—that Bland includes).
  Listed reading
• Dickinson, John. “Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania” (1768). In Tracts of the American Revolution .
  Listed reading
• Morison. Sources and Documents , pp. 14-24, which includes the Virginia Resolutions of 1765 and Soame Jenyns, “The Objections to the Taxation of our American Colonies by the Legislature of Great Britain, briefly consider’d” (London, 1765).
  Listed reading
• Note : It’s a good idea to read the pamphlets in chronological order. How did the American argument shift between the two Hopkins pamphlets, and between Dulany and Dickinson? If you can identify where an author is saying what everyone is saying and focus instead on what’s new, and on how the American position is developing (the British didn’t change much), you’ll be reading efficiently and intelligently. It might take some practice to get the hang of that. Be sure to take notes on each pamphlet immediately after finishing it or all of them will quickly melt together in your mind.
  Listed reading
• Wood. American Revolution. pp. 47-62.
  Listed reading
• Maier. From Resistance to Revolution. pp. 161-296.
  Listed reading
• Jefferson, Thomas. “ Summary View of the Rights of British America ” (1774). In Tracts of the American Revolution , pp. 256-76. ↗
  Listed reading
• Paine, Thomas. “ Common Sense .” In Tracts of the American Revolution , pp. 400-446. ↗
  Listed reading
• Morison. Sources and Documents. pp. 100-115 (Wilson, 1774), 116-25, and 137-48.
  Listed reading
• Mason, George. Draft of the Virginia Declaration of Rights. Pennsylvania Gazette , June 12, 1776.
  Listed reading
• The committee or “Jefferson” draft of the Declaration of Independence, with Congress’s editings (June-July 1776). In Maier, Pauline. Appendix C of American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence . New York, NY: Knopf, 1997, pp. 236-241. ISBN: 9780679454922.
  Listed reading
• The main focus of attention will be the draft Declaration with Congress’s editings. What did Congress do, and why? (You might also take a look at Morison’s version of the preamble to the Virginia constitution on p. 151 of Sources and Documents and see if you notice anything odd.)
  Listed reading
• Galloway, Joseph. “A Candid Examination of the Mutual Claims of Great Britain, And the Colonies” (1775). In Tracts of the American Revolution , pp. 350-399.
  Listed reading
• Chalmers, James. “Plain Truth” (1776). In Tracts of the American Revolution , pp. 447-488.
  Listed reading
• Norton, Mary Beth. “The Loyalist Critique of the Revolution.” In The Development of a Revolutionary Mentality. Library of Congress Symposium on the American Revolution, Washington, DC, 1972. Also published in The Development of a Revolutionary Mentality. Honolulu, HI: University Press of the Pacific, 2002. ISBN: 9781410201720.
  Listed reading
• Wood. American Revolution . pp. 74-88.
  Listed reading
• Shy. A People Numerous and Armed . Chapters 4, 6-8, 10, (roughly pp. 81-115, 133-92, 213-44).
  Listed reading
• Wood. American Revolution . pp. 65-70.
  Listed reading
• Morison. Sources and Documents . pp. 148-56, 162-77, and 206-08 (includes the first state constitutions of Virginia and Pennsylvania, both 1776, and the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom of October 1785).
  Listed reading
• WEEK #: 10 · Topics: “Liberty!”: A Sample of PBS’s Series on the American Revolution · READINGS: Reading holiday; go work on your papers. (But don’t skip class.)
  Reading assignment
• Wood. American Revolution. pp. 70-74 and 91-150.
  Listed reading
• Morison. Sources and Documents. pp. 178-86, 203-08, and 208-33.
  Listed reading
• Jefferson, Thomas. “Query XIV.” From his Notes on the State of Virginia (written in 1781 and published in 1785). (Scroll down to the part where Jefferson discusses what he proposes to do with Virginia’s slave population, and why it couldn’t just stay in Virginia.) ↗
  Listed reading
• Maier, Pauline. “The Revolutionary Origins of the American Corporation.” William and Mary Quarterly 50, no. 1 (January, 1993): 51-84. (3rd series.)
  Listed reading
• Bugbee, Bruce W. Genesis of American Patent and Copyright Law. Washington, DC: Public Affairs Press, 1967, pp. 84-131.
  Listed reading
• ( Note : There’s no reason for you to master the details of American copyright law in the 1780s, but this material is, I believe, very helpful in “getting a handle” on what was going on in the United States in the aftermath of Independence. Most U.S. history textbooks mention at most the federal copyright law of 1790, but clearly that statute emerged from a flurry of earlier activity within the states. Why, all of a sudden in the late 1780s, were American legislators so open to granting copyrights and patents to authors and inventors? What kinds of devices were being patented? What do you suppose drove people to become so inventive? Most of the proposed devices came to nothing, but notice the name of Oliver Evans, a particularly prolific inventor who designed and built a grist mill that is generally considered the first fully automated American manufacturing operation. Finally, how does the view of the state legislatures here and in the article on corporations square with Madison’s view in “Vices”?)
  Listed reading
• Wood. American Revolution . pp. 151-58.
  Listed reading
• Morison. Sources and Documents . pp. 233-304.
  Listed reading
• Wood. American Revolution . pp. 158-66.
  Listed reading
• Morison. Sources and Documents . pp. 305-62.
  Listed reading
• “Amendments to the constitution proposed by Massachusetts, South Carolina, New Hampshire, Virginia, and New York.” In Creating the Bill of Rights . Edited by Helen Veit. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991, pp. 14-28. ISBN: 9780801841002. Are these lists impossibly different? Are there any notable common elements?
  Listed reading
• Brant, Irving. “Madison: On the Separation of Church and State.” William and Mary Quarterly 3 (1951): 3-24. (3rd series.)
  Listed reading
• Edling, Max M. “Conclusion: The Constitution, The Federalists, and The American State.” In A Revolution in Favor of Government: Origins of the U.S. Constitution and the Making of the American State. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2003, pp. 219-29 and 313-14. ISBN: 9780195148701.
  Listed reading