Virginia's American Revolution: From Dominion to Republic, 1776-1840 (Paperback)

by Kevin R. C. Gutzman (Author)

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Product Description
Virginia's American Revolution focuses on the remaking of colonial Virginia into a republican society. It considers this topic with a focus on particular episodes, such as the Richmond Ratification Convention of 1788 and the adoption of the Virginia Resolutions of 1798, that brought the question What does it mean to be republican? to the fore.

Product Details

• Paperback: 248 pages
• Publisher: Lexington Books (December 28, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0739121324
• ISBN-13: 978-0739121320
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #714,353 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Statehood As Originally Understood, August 20, 2008

By	C. Hicks (Concord, NC United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

In his preface Kevin Gutzman writes, "...I wanted to consider Virginia from the state level, because my understanding of the politics (broadly understood) of the period was that state identity dominated people's consciousness in a way barely conceivable now. ...I saw that the chief theme of the [Virginia Ratification Convention] was not the kind of America ratification would make but what effect ratification would have on Virginia."

So begins an indispensible study of a particular cultural and political setting in the early days of the United States, and how the formation of this nation was understood by one state -- Virginia. From the time that England's James I promised to honor Virginia's freedom and the English rights of its citizens through the Revolutionary War and the first decades of the United States, Virginians understood themselves to be an autonomous people who had signed on to the Constitution with the primacy of their state's uniqueness and identity intact. After finishing this book one can better appreciate why, threescore and ten years later, Robert E. Lee would turn down the highest command in the U.S. Army rather than turn his sword upon his home country, Virginia.

Gutzman provides an overview of Virginia's uniquely hierarchical culture -- chiefly descendants of the Caroline kings and their servants -- and introduces the key players who shaped Virginia's understanding of and response to the Ratification Convention: George Bland, Thomson Mason, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and Patrick Henry, among many others. Whether Federalist or Anti-Federalist, all parties worked to ensure Virginia's distinct identity within a non-binding contract of separate states.

Once the nationalist Federalists began to assert unstated powers, figures like the brilliant pamphleteer John Taylor of Caroline arose with prophetic vengeance, seeking to rally public and leadership sentiment back to first principles. Yet, the aristocratic culture to which Taylor and many prominent Virginians belonged unwittingly alienated many of the frontiersman who had pushed beyond the Blue Ridge escarpment, setting the stage for a future rupture in the Old Dominion.

Gutzman masterfully traces these developments and the external forces which by 1840 had undermined Virginia's primacy and example of local autonomy. Daresay most Americans have a limited or skewed understanding of the Revolution -- one that is increasingly monistic and nationalistic. Virginia's American Revolution underscores that, from the beginning, America consisted of disparate political cultures with very different visions of what the agency of Federal government meant. The Virginian vision has been obscured if not lost, and many serious social and economic ramifications of that outcome continue to manifest themselves today.