All politics is local : family, friends, and provincial interests in the creation of the Constitution / Christopher Collier.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Collier, Christopher, 1930-2020.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

United States. Constitutional Convention (1787).

United States.

Political culture--Connecticut--History--18th century.

Political culture.

Local government--Connecticut--History--18th century.

Local government.

States' rights (American politics)--History--18th century.

States' rights (American politics).

Constitutional history--United States.

Constitutional history.

History.

Connecticut--Politics and government--1775-1865.

Connecticut.

Politics and government.

Physical Description:

xi, 224 pages : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Hanover, NH : University Press of New England, [2003]

Summary:

Since the late 1780s historians and jurists have questioned what was uppermost in the minds of the framers of the United States Constitution. In surveying the thirteen states' experiences as colonies and under the Articles of Confederation, one is struck more by their great diversity than by their commonalities. In this groundbreaking historical work, Christopher Collier brings to the fore an interpretation virtually neglected since the mid-nineteenth century: the view from the states, in which the creation and ratification of the new Constitution reflected a unique combination of internal and external needs. All Politics Is Local closely analyzes exactly what Connecticut constituents expected their representatives to achieve in Philadelphia and suggests that other states' citizens also demanded their own special returns. Collier avoids popular theory in his convincing argument that any serious modern effort to understand the Constitution as conceived by its framers must pay close attention to the state-specific needs and desires of the era.

Challenging all previous interpretations, Collier demonstrates that Connecticut's forty antifederalist representatives were motivated not by economic, geographic, intellectual, or ideological factors, but by family and militia connections, local politics, and other considerations that had nothing to do with the Constitution. Finding no overarching truth, no common ideological thread binding the antifederalists together, Collier calls for the same state-centered micro-study for the other twelve founding states. To do less leaves historical and contemporary interpretations of the U.S. Constitution not simply blurred around the edges but incomplete at the core as well.

Collier delights and surprises readers in proving -- with his trademark impeccable historical scholarship, firm grasp of known sources, and ample new material -- that in the case of Connecticut, a stalwart defender of the provincial prerogative, all politics is and was, to one degree or another, local.

Contents:

1. Geography, Politics, and Society 9

2. The Economic and Political Context 29

3. National Objectives, Local Concerns at the Constitutional Convention: Part 1. Protecting State Governments 44

4. National Objectives, Local Concerns at the Constitutional Convention: Part 2. Protecting the Local Economy 63

5. Ratification in Connecticut 79

6. Constitutional Crosswinds 95

7. Those Who Voted No 110

A Town Locator 141

B New England Turnpike Routes and Mill Villages 144

C Some Additional Local Contexts 149

D Occupations of Convention Delegates 153

E "The Looking Glass for 1787" 157.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 161-215) and index.

ISBN:

158465290X

OCLC:

52838262