The Beginnings of National Politics

Two momentous meetings at Philadelphia frame the subject of this book. The First Continental Congress of 1774 and the Constitutional convention of 1787. The creation of an effective national government was one of the most difficult and persistent tasks that the Revolutionaries confronted, and it was a problem whose dimensions seemed to change with the course of events. In the early years of the Revolution, union depended largely on the delegates' ability to frame a broadly acceptable strategy of resistance. By the late 1770's and early 1780's it meant devising expedients to sustain a tottering war effort and the morale of a tired populace. After independence was secured, the continued existence of a federal union came to require a thorough and incisive reexamination of major principles of American republicanism.