Republicanism and Federalism in the Constitutional Decade.

The American Revolution reshaped American economic life, opening up opportunities for trade and enterprise. The authors survey the shifting classical republican and liberal premises of the revolutionary era, a time of rapid political change. Development of a coherent wartime and postwar political economy proved difficult. Political fragmentation created problems of stability and led critics of state sovereignty to argue for reform. And this transformed republican ideology, with a turn toward federalism.