Access Type

Open Access Dissertation

Date of Award

January 2018

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Department

Political Science

First Advisor

Jeff Grynaviski

Abstract

In my three empirical chapters, I provide documentation for my claims that (1) the people did petition the General Government, such as through petitions and resolutions of instruction and, (2) the national representatives did acknowledge and respectively act on the people’s political documents, with attention paid to the defense of republican self-government, during the decades before and after Ratification. The evidence suggests that Americans did peripheralize the General Government before and after Ratification because of a belief in the republican values of freedom, virtue, and equality.

Practically, political scientists researching political culture should consider the conceptualization and application of republican values as noted in this work to explain observations for the republican pattern of orientations to political action. In this way, I hope to replace Elazar’s moralistic culture (1966) with the firmly established republican element of the American political culture because I provide evidence to support that republicanism was a viable political value system in America from 1775 through 1819.

Share

COinS