Paper Topic:

History

6

The Creation of American Republic 1176-1787

The Creation of American Republic 1176-1787

The creation of American Republic 1176-1787 by Gordon S . Wood is an intellectual and scholarly enterprise that provides a comprehensive account of the emergence of political thought during the revolutionary phase of American history . Unlike ordinary depiction of causes of its origin and its advantages and disadvantages , Wood takes into consideration an entirely novels manifestation of American constitutionalism i .e . materialization of American political thought The title of the book is appropriate as the major thesis

of the book and its various thematic expressions deals with the primary stages of American constitutionalism and the formative phase of a American political system both at the federal and the state level . The major focus of the book is not the constitution itself or the incidents during the 1770s and 1780s but it narrates the processes , struggle and political ideology that formatted the pattern of American Republic . Wood beautifully synthesizes development of political thought in that era and its application on the formative phase of American democracy

Time and again , Wood manifests the fact that American revolutionaries did not only construct a new republic but they ascertained a new form of representative government that was based on the cherished ideals of democracy , freedom and equality . Wood underpins this idea very early in the book and says that American revolutionaries did not borrowed political ideas of the past but carved out a new one according to their political sagacity . This political conception was modern in nature as it not only denounced various form of mixed governments and looked forward an absolute Republic . He recognizes American Republic as an entirely new conception of politics , a conception that took them out of an essentially classical and medieval world of political discussion into one that was recognizably modern (p . vii ) He further describes this system as truly original formulation of political assumptions and the creation of a distinctly American system of politics (p . ix ) He is of the view that intellectual exercise of the revolutionaries produced contradictory ideas and political models but the melting pot of the continental congresses provided a platform to merge these ideas to produce a synchronized effect i .e . a strong political conception of a more representative form of government

Woods devotes almost 3 /5 volume of the book on tracing down the different idealist ' approaches and thought processes that American leaders forwarded during the 1770s . These rudimentary political ideologies were manifested during the hot congressional debates in 1770s . Whereas 2 /5 of the book is primarily concerned with the realist ' foundations of American Republic as they also addressed the socio-economic and political maladies that war of Independence and British rule has afflicted on American people

Wood regards the early struggle between Federalists and anti-federalists as a clash of elite interest and democratic ideals . He writes in this regards The quarrel was fundamentally one between aristocracy and democracy (p .485 ) He further states an important factual analysis that through the...

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