Project Title
Abstract/Description
Eighteenth-century American politics does more than simply provide us with the U.S. Constitution. According to Gordon Wood (1991, 32), the stakes of eighteenth-century historical arguments are very high, as they deal with “nothing less than the kind of society we have been, or ought to become.” Barry Shain (1994, xiv) concurs with Wood, arguing that an understanding of the American founding “defines how Americans understand themselves as a historical people, as well as constraining what they might become.” As Wood and Shain indicate, an understanding of eighteenth-century American political thought shapes how we understand our past and informs the decisions we make about our future.
Recommended Citation
Novotny, Hannah
(2020).
Understanding Sovereignty and the US Constitution: A View from the Massachusetts Ratifying Convention.
Undergraduate Review, 15, 234-255.
Available at: https://vc.bridgew.edu/undergrad_rev/vol15/iss1/21
Rights Statement
Articles published in The Undergraduate Review are the property of the individual contributors and may not be reprinted, reformatted, repurposed or duplicated, without the contributor’s consent.