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Book Review
| Woody Holton, Unruly Americans and the Origins of the Constitution, New York: Hill and Wang, 2007. Pp. xi + 370. $30 (ISBN 978-0-8090-8061-8).
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| Woody Holton wants historians to remember Charles Beard. He also wants Americans to forget James Madison. Unruly Americans is an attempt to bust two myths: one, that, polemics aside, Beard was really on to something significant in his landmark 1913 study An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution, and two, that Americans have done themselves a great disservice by taking the Founding Federalists at their word that the miraculous Constitution saved the new republic from utter disaster. This unfortunate willingness to buy what Hamilton, Jay, and Madison were selling, Holton argues, has given generations of Americans "nagging feelings" that only bad things happen "when ordinary folk get their hands on the levers of power" (273). |
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One of the chestnuts of the history of Revolutionary America is the question of just how "critical" was the so-called "critical period" of the 1780s? In the two hundred plus years since then there have been two main answers to this question. For Hamilton and other leading Federalists, weaknesses in the private and public financial structures and mismanagement by state legislatures threatened America's political union and diplomatic standing. If not fixed quickly, these problems would likely lead to internecine war. On the other hand, opponents of the Constitution at the time and historians like Charles Beard and Merrill Jensen in the twentieth century believed that the crisis of the 1780s was hardly terminal. It was a natural postwar cycle; given a bit more time the state governments under the Articles of Confederation would flourish. According to this view, the creation of a strong central government was a devious overreaction that threatened the thrust of the American Revolution. |
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The achievement of Unruly Americans is Holton's fleshing out the other sides to this long-standing disagreement. He shows how there were voices in several states that denounced state legislatures—the same ones that the Federalists complained were too democratic—as being not popular enough. Instead of seeing the recession as the fault of the irresponsible farmers or inefficient state governments, Holton amplifies those Americans who complained that the legislatures were acting far too responsibly: by trying to pay their Revolutionary War debt quickly, they created oppressive tax schemes that crippled the economy. Also, Holton shows that the failure to raise revenue under the Articles wasn't all the farmers' fault either. Alternative methods to raise cash, such as selling western lands or closing the trade gap, were blocked by resistant Indians and the Royal Navy. |
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Unruly Americans consistently offers Herman Husband as the anti-Alexander Hamilton. Husband, who Holton refers to at one point as the "Allegheny prophet" (185), was involved in rebellions before the Revolution in North Carolina and after in Pennsylvania. He also wrote pamphlets that called for tax relief and small electoral districts to keep government close to the people and fair for all. Ordinary Americans like Husband did have a vision for justice, for the purpose of government, and what the Revolution was about. And, according to Holton, they had a significant impact on the Constitution. Making themselves heard via a range of protests from elections and petitioning to uprisings and rebellions (much of which Holton argues was quite effective in redressing popular grievances) "the people" were present at the Constitutional Convention. Without their pressure, Holton concludes, the Constitution would have been much less fair, it would not have been sent out for ratification, and there would be no Bill of Rights. Our collective perception of the Constitution as the chief protector of the underdog is wrong— those guards, he reminds us rightly, come from the Bill of Rights, the document that the Framers "did not intend to write" (277). We should thank Herman Husband for our freedoms, not James Madison. |
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Unruly Americans is a must-read for all students of the Revolutionary period. It offers fresh perspectives and nuance; its conclusion—which forwards a provocative comparison between how historians treat "the people" in the 1780s and how they used to portray African Americans during Reconstruction—is a tour-deforce. Here's the problem—and it too is nagging. Holton clearly sees himself as a plebian defender, in association with Husband and Beard. Yet, strangely, Unruly Americans at times reads more like a Federalist paper. The financial world of eighteenth-century government securities, stocks, bonds, speculation, and paper money can be confusing for Ph.D.s who teach it daily. Holton offers the reader little aid or comfort on these opaque topics. This is puzzling. If his message is that ordinary, unruly Americans have always been capable of either fighting city hall or running it better, it is curious to produce a book that assumes advanced knowledge in political economy. Holton's tone, therefore, seems a bit false. In fact, it is an inversion of the complaint that the Federalists packaged elitism in democratic wrapping-paper. Holton, rather, has a democratic gift for us but its dense presentation makes it difficult to enjoy. |
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| Robert G. Parkinson
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| College of William & Mary |
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