This is the first volume of a four-volume set that will reprint in their entirety the texts of 72 pamphlets relating to the Anglo-American controversy that were published in America in the years 1750–1776. They have been selected from the corpus of the pamphlet literature on the basis of their importance in the growth of American political and social ideas, their role in the debate with England over constitutional rights, and their literary merit. All of the best known pamphlets of the period, such as James Otis’s Rights of the British Colonies (1764), John Dickinson’s Farmer’s Letters (1768), and Thomas Paine’s Common Sense (1776) are to be included. In addition there are lesser known ones particularly important in the development of American constitutional thought: Stephen Johnson’s Some Important Observations (1766), John Joachim Zubly’s An Humble Enquiry (1769), Ebenezer Baldwin’s An Appendix Stating the Heavy Grievances (1774), and Four Letters on Interesting Subjects (1776). There are also pamphlets illustrative of the sheer vituperation of the Revolutionary polemics, and others selected for their more elevated literary merit. Both sides of the Anglo-American dispute and all genres of expression—poetry, dramatic dialogues, sermons, treatises, documentary collections, political “position papers”—that appeared in this form are included.Each pamphlet is introduced by an essay written by the editor containing a biographical sketch of the author of the document, an analysis of the circumstances that led to the writing of it, and an interpretation of its contents. The texts are edited for the convenience of the modern reader according to a scheme that preserves scrupulously the integrity of every word written but that frees the text from the encumbrances of eighteenth-century printing practices. All references to writings, people, and events that are not obvious to the informed modern reader are identified in the editorial apparatus and where necessary explained in detailed notes.This first volume of the set contains the texts of 14 pamphlets through the year 1765. It presents, in addition, a book-length General Introduction by Bernard Bailyn on the ideology of the American Revolution. In the seven chapters of this essay the ideological origins and development of the Revolutionary movement are analyzed in the light of the study of the pamphlet literature that went into the preparation of these volumes. Bailyn explains that close analysis of this literature allows one to penetrate deeply into the colonists’ understanding of the events of their time; to grasp more clearly than is otherwise possible the sources of their ideas and their motives in rebelling; and, above all, to see the subtle, fundamental transformation of eighteenth-century constitutional thought that took place during these years of controversy and that became basic doctrine in America thereafter.Bailyn stresses particularly the importance in the development of American thought of the writings of a group of early eighteenth-century English radicals and opposition politicians who transmitted to the colonists most directly the seventeenth-century tradition of anti-authoritarianism born in the upheaval of the English Civil War. In the context of this seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century tradition one sees the political importance in the Revolutionary movement of concepts the twentieth century has generally dismissed as mere propaganda and rhetoric: “slavery,” “conspiracy,” “corruption.” It was the meaning these concepts imparted to the events of the time, Bailyn suggests, as well as the famous Lockean notions of natural rights and social and governmental compacts, that accounts for the origins and the basic characteristics of the American Revolution.
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GENERAL INTRODUCTION: The Transforming Radicalism of the American Revolution, by Bernard Bailyn The Pamphlets of the Revolution Literary Qualities Sources and Traditions Power and Liberty: A Theory of Politics The Logic of Rebellion A Note on Conspiracy Transformation Representation and Consent Constitutions and Rights Sovereignty The Contagion of Liberty Slavery Establishment of Religion The Democracy Unleashed "Whether Some Degree of Respect Be Not Always Due from Inferiors to Superiors" PAMPHLETS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 1750 Jonathan Mayhew, A Discourse Concerning Unlimited Submission and Non-Resistance to the Higher Powers Boston, 1750 1760 A Letter to the People of Pennsylvania; Occasioned by the...Act for Constituting the Judges...During Good Behaviour. Philadelphia, 1760 1763 [John Aplin], Verses on Doctor Mayhew's Book of Observations on...The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts: With Notes, Critical and Explanatory Providence, 1763 1764 [Richard Bland], The Colonel Dismounted: Or The Rector Vindicated, In a Letter...Containing a Dissertation upon the Constitution of the Colony Williamsburg, 1764 Considerations upon the Act of Parliament, Whereby a Duty Is Laid...on Molasses and...on Sugar Boston, 1764 [Thomas Fitch, et al.], Reasons Why the British Colonies, in America, Should Not Be Charged with Internal Taxes New Haven, 1764 James Otis, The Rights of the British Colonies Asserted and Proved. Boston, 1764 [Oxenbridge Thacher], The Sentiments of a British American. Boston, 1764 1765 [Stephen Hopkins], The Rights of Colonies Examined. Providence, 1765 [Martin Howard, Jr.], A Letter from a Gentleman at Halifax, to His Friend in Rhode-Island, Containing Remarks upon a Pamphlet. Entitled, The Rights of Colonies Examined. Newport, 1765 [James Otis], A Vindication of the British Colonies, against the Aspersions of the Halifax Gentleman Boston, 1765 [Benjamin Church], Liberty and Property Vindicated and the St-pm-n Burnt Boston ["Reprinted"], 1765 [Daniel Dulany], Considerations on the Propriety of Imposing Taxes in the British Colonies for the Purpose of Raising a Revenue [Annapolis,] 1765 [John Dickinson], The Late Regulations...Considered, in a Letter from a Gentleman in Philadelphia to his Friend in London. Philadelphia, 1765 NOTES LIST OF PAMPHLETS TO APPEAR IN SUBSEQUENT VOLUMES INDEX
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The two-hundred page introductory essay of the editor, drawing upon a vast body of literature, is an interpretive summation of the political ideas of the entire period, and it is a distinguished achievement. Mr. Bailyn writes with the authority and integrity that derive from a thorough mastery of the material. His meticulous scholarship is matched with perceptive analysis, and the result is an illuminating survey of Revolutionary thought.
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Produktdetaljer

ISBN
9780674652507
Publisert
1965-01-01
Utgiver
Vendor
The Belknap Press
Vekt
1134 gr
Høyde
235 mm
Bredde
156 mm
Aldersnivå
UU, UP, P, 05, 06
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Innbundet
Antall sider
804

Biographical note

Bernard Bailyn was Adams University Professor, Emeritus, and James Duncan Phillips Professor of Early American History, Emeritus, at Harvard University.