Conceptual Change and the Constitution

In this volume distinguished historians and political scientists examine political discourse during that short span of years from the Revolution through ratification, a period of profound political and conceptual change. The concepts of sovereignty, representation, liberty, virtue, republic, democracy--even constitution itself--were virtually recoined. Others, like federalism, were new inventions. Out of the vehement political arguments and debates of the period came not only a new Constitution but a new political vocabulary--a political idiom that was distinctly recognizably American.