Benjamin Franklin's Vision of a Republican Political Economy for America

Bibliographic Data

ID3255702
AuthorsDrew R Mccoy (corresponding author)
Year1978
Volume35
Issue4
Pages605
Publication date1978-10-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe William and Mary Quarterly (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0043-5597 • E-ISSN: 1933-7698
PublisherJSTOR (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/1923207
OpenAlexW2324688352
LanguageEN
Citations received5

I N recent years we have been reminded that the creation of a republic meant much more to men of the eighteenth century than simply the elimination of a king and the substitution of an elective system of government. Broadly defined, republicanism, or ideology, has come to refer to a peculiarly eighteenth-century culture in which the idea of republican government was part of a much larger universe of assumptions about human behavior and the social process. Since the American Revolutionaries fervently believed that republican government could exist only in an extraordinary society with a distinctive people, they were intensely concerned with the fundamental character of their and society. Only a virtuous people-industrious, frugal, independent, and public-spirited-could, they believed, be truly free. To these republicans, the concept of political economy further suggested this critical interdependence of polity, economy, and society. The successful American Revolutionaries had indeed to do more than define and implement the constitutional principles of republican government. They had to envision and then attempt to secure an and society capable of sustaining this free government. They had, in short, to establish a republican for the new nation.1

Economic history · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · American Constitutional Law and Politics · History · Law

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