The Roots of American Politics: From Antiquity to the Early Republic (Perspectives on Early America)

This book examines the ways in which American habits and politics replaced the traditional European republican canon. Before the modern era, European republics relied on procedural complexity in office-filling to arrive at neutral government.They did so with such technical consistency over a long span of time as to create a republican procedural tradition.That tradition collided with conditions in the Anglo-American world: with entrenched social deference in politics, quasi-representative institutions, and an ascendant doctrine of majorities.American habits would ultimately overwhelm the European republican canon, but not without a fight.This book suggests that arguments over the abandonment of the procedural tradition shook politics in early America, especially at the federal convention, and that it is difficult to understand the convention delegates’ votes concerning the Great Compromise (apportioning the House and Senate) and the presidential selection system without reference to th