Liberty Fund Books

Description

"An extraordinary book."

—Gordon S. Wood, Brown University

Having won independence from England, America faced a new question: Would this be politically one nation, or would it not? E Pluribus Unum is a spirited look at how that question came to be answered.

That the American people introduced a governmental system adequate to check the very forces unleashed by the Revolution—this, writes Professor McDonald, "was the miracle of the age. . . . The French, the Russians, the Italians, the Germans, all the planet's peoples in their turn, would become so unrestrained as to lose contact with sanity. The Americans might have suffered a similar history had they followed the lead of those who, in 1787 and 1788, spoke in the name . . . of popular 'rights.' But there were giants on the earth in those days, and they spoke in the name of the nation. . . ."

Forrest McDonald is Professor of History at the University of Alabama.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments 11

Preface to the Second Edition 13

Preface to the First Edition 17

Chapter One
From One, Many 27
Chapter Two
Completion of the Revolution: The Middle States 71
Chapter Three
Completion of the Revolution: The South 117
Chapter Four
Completion of the Revolution: The Eastern States 183
Chapter Five
The Critical Period of American History 227
Chapter Six
The Philadelphia Convention 259
Chapter Seven
The Constitution 309
Chapter Eight
From the Many, One 333

Index 373