HIST 6310-001: Early American Political History

Fall 2010 Prof. Eric R. Schlereth

JO 4.312 schlereth@utdallas.edu
Tuesdays 4:00-6:45 PM Office: JO 5.704, 972-883-2168
Office Hours: Thursdays,10:00-11:00 and
2:30-4:00 or by Appt.

Course Overview
Politics in the early United States was raucous as well as rarefied. American politicians dueled
with pistols and fought each other on the floors of Congress, but they also debated ideas about
liberty and representation in constitutional conventions and political pamphlets. Outside the
country’s formal political institutions, ordinary Americans – including newspaper editors,
seamstresses, artisans, and freed slaves – all participated in the creation of a highly partisan
political culture. Debate clubs, taverns, and parades were all important sites of American
political life in the early republic. Exploring this complex and exciting political world is the
central focus of this course. Students in this course will read and discuss some of the most
influential recent scholarship on the political history of the United States from roughly 1776
through 1860.
Required Readings:
The following books can be purchased at the UTD bookstore or at Off Campus Books,
581 W. Campbell Road, #201. All additional weekly readings are available through
various databases accessible using the McDermott Library website.

Joyce Appleby, Capitalism and a New Social Order: The Republican Vision of the 1790s
(New York: New York University Press, 1984). Paperback. ISBN-10: 0814705839

Woody Holton, Unruly Americans and the Origins of the Constitution (New York: Hill
and Wang, 2008). Paperback. ISBN-10: 0809016435

Trish Loughran, The Republic in Print: Print Culture in the Age of U.S. Nation Building,
1770-1870 ( New York: Columbia University Press, 2007). Paperback. ISBN: 978-0-231-
13909-0

Matthew Mason, Slavery and Politics in the Early American Republic (Chapel Hill: The
University of North Carolina Press, 2008). Paperback. ISBN: 978-0-8078-5923-0

Brendan McConville, The King’s Three Faces: The Rise and Fall of Royal America,
1688-1776 (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2007). Paperback.
ISBN: 978-0-8078-3065-9

William J. Novak, The People’s Welfare: Law and Regulation in Nineteenth-Century

America (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1996). Paperback. ISBN
978-0-8078-4611-7

Jeffrey L. Pasley, Andrew W. Robertson, and David Waldstreicher, eds., Beyond the
Founders New Approaches to the Political History of the Early American Republic.
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004). Paperback. ISBN 978-0-8078-
5558-4

Jeffrey L. Pasley, "The Tyranny of Printers”: Newspaper Politics in the Early American
Republic (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2001). Paperback. ISBN 0-8139-
2177-5

David Waldstreicher, In the Midst of Perpetual Fetes: The Making of American

Nationalism, 1776-1820 (Chapell Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1997).
Paperback. ISBN 978-0-8078-4691-9

Rosemarie Zagarri, Revolutionary Backlash: Women and Politics in the Early American
Republic (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008). Paperback. ISBN 978-
0-8122-2073-5

Grading:
Participation 25%
Weekly Questions 10%
Book Reviews 20%
Historiographic Essay 45%
Assignments:
1. Participation. You are expected to attend every class prepared for in-depth discussion of
the week’s readings.
2. Discussion Introduction. You will select one week to introduce the reading materials
for that meeting.
3. Weekly Questions. In order to facilitate discussion, each student is required to submit
two detailed questions via email about the week’s readings by 5:00 PM on the Monday
before class. You will not earn credit for late questions. These questions might raise
points about evidence, argumentation, or historiography in regard to a given reading. In
any case, your questions should deal with interpretive or conceptual issues. Reserve
questions of fact for the classroom discussion.
4. Book Reviews. Over the course of the semester each student will write two book
reviews on assigned readings, which will be due according to a schedule determined by
the instructor.
Academic book reviews should:

-Briefly summarize the book’s content and identify the author’s thesis.

-Assess the argument and the evidence used to support it.

-Place the book in the existing scholarship.

-Provide an overall assessment of the book.

5. Historiographic Essay. Students are required to write an essay (15 page minimum)
assessing scholarship on a particular aspect of the political history of early America. This
assignment will be due in my office, JO 5.708, by 5 PM on Tuesday, December 7. You
are required to submit a précis and a bibliography by Tuesday, November 16. We will
discuss this assignment in class and I will provide examples well before this assignment
is due.

Course Policies:

1. Cell phones must be turned off and laptops are not allowed.
2. All course communication not conducted in class will be made using UTD email
addresses, and UTD email ONLY.
3. Late assignments will not be accepted.

Academic Readings
Calendar
Week 1. Introduction
Tue. Aug. 24 No Reading.

Week 2. What is Political History?

Tue. Aug. 31 Daniel Walker Howe, “The Evangelical Movement and Political Culture in the
North during the Second Party System,” The Journal of American History 77
(1991): 1216-1239. Available through JSTOR.

William G. Shade, “Commentary: Déjà Vu All Over Again: Is There a New

New Political History?” in Beyond the Founders, 387-404.

Pasley et al. “Introduction: Beyond the Founders,” in Beyond the Founders 1-

11.
Week 3. Key Concepts
Tue. Sep. 7 James T. Kloppenberg, “The Virtues of Liberalism: Christianity,
Republicanism, and Ethics in Early American Political Discourse” Journal of
American History (1987). Available through America: History and Life.

Daniel T. Rodgers, “Republicanism: The Career of a Concept” Journal of

American History (1992). Available through America: History and Life.

Ronald P. Formisano, “The Concept of Political Culture,” Journal of

Interdisciplinary History 31 (2001): 393-426. Available through Project Muse.

John L. Brooke, “Consent, Civil Society, and the Public Sphere in the Age of
Revolution and the Early American Republic” in Beyond the Founders, 207-
250.
Week 4. Monarchy
Tue. Sep. 14 Brendan McConville, The King’s Three Faces: The Rise and Fall of Royal
America, 1688-1776.
Week 5. Constitution
Tue. Sep. 21 Woody Holton, Unruly Americans and the Origins of the Constitution.

Week 6. Political Economy and Ideology

Tue. Sep. 28 Joyce Appleby, Capitalism and a New Social Order: The Republican Vision of
the 1790s.
Week 7. Nationalism from the Streets Up
Tue. Oct. 5 David Waldstreicher, In the Midst of Perpetual Fetes: The Making of American
Nationalism, 1776-1820.
Week 8. Who Were the Founders?: A Story of Guns, Cheese, and Race
Tue. Oct. 12 Joanne B. Freeman, “Dueling as Politics: Reinterpreting the Burr-Hamilton
Duel,” The William and Mary Quarterly 53 (1996): 289-318. Available
through JSTOR.

Jeffrey L. Pasley, “The Cheese and the Words,” in Beyond the Founders, 31-56.

Richard Newman, “Protest in Black and White,” in Beyond the Founders, 180-
206.
Week 9. Gender Politics
Tue. Oct. 19 Rosemarie Zagarri, Revolutionary Backlash: Women and Politics in the Early
American Republic.
Week 10. The Press
Tue. Oct. 26 Jeffrey L. Pasley, "The Tyranny of Printers”: Newspaper Politics in the Early
American Republic.
Week 11. The Slavery Issue
Tue. Nov. 2 Matthew Mason, Slavery and Politics in the Early American Republic.
Week 12. Law
Tue. Nov. 9 William J. Novak, The People’s Welfare: Law and Regulation in Nineteenth-
Century America.
Week 13. The State
Tue. Nov. 16 Richard R. John “Affairs of Office: The Executive Departments, the Election of
1828, and the Making of the Democratic Party.” (Circulated in Class)

Richard R. John, “Governmental Institutions As Agents of Change: Rethinking

American Political Development in the Early Republic, 1787-1835,”Studies in
American Political Development 11(1997): 347-380. (Circulated in Class)

William J. Novak, “The Myth of the ‘Weak’ American State,” American

Historical Review 113 (2008): 752-772.
Week 14. No Class
Tue. Nov. 23 Research and Reading Day
Week 15. Print Culture
Tue. Nov. 30 Trish Loughran, The Republic in Print: Print Culture in the Age of U.S. Nation
Building, 1770-1870.

Please review important university policies at: http://provost.utdallas.edu/syllabus-

policies/

** The professor reserves the right to amend this syllabus as needed throughout the
semester. Any changes made to this syllabus will be announced in class.**