Rebels and Democrats: The Struggle for Equal Political Rights and Majority Rule During the American Revolution

by Elisha P. Douglass

How the struggle for equal political rights and majority rule during the American Revolution laid the foundation for modern American democracy. “No other work brings together in a single volume so much that is significant in the political history of our revolutionary period.”— Annals .

386 pages, Paperback

First published August 25, 1989

Reviews

[Josh Hager · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read the original version published in the mid-1950s. Do not discount the analysis brought forth by Douglass simply due to its age. Douglass well documents the political struggles between the conservative and radical impulses of the Revolutionary movement as viewed through class, geographic, and religious identities. His treatment of North Carolina's Regulator movement and its inability to bring reform even after the Revolution as well as his discussion of the varied polities fighting for and against "full democracy" in Pennsylvania merit special commendation. Fans of social and political history with an influence of Marxist class theory will enjoy this monograph immensely.

[Maia Corbin · Rating 5 out of 5]

We often frame the struggle for political and social equality as a struggle to extend the protections afforded to landed white men from the founding of the US to people of color, women, the poor, etc, but this book is an excellent examination of how history shows the "Founding Fathers" deliberately structured the US Constitution to limit the ability of *even landed white men* from democratically challenging the capitalist elite.

While we should certainly center the history of slavery and genocide against people outside the society built by the founders, I think it's also important not to portray American Democracy as a system that temporarily overlooked some people due to an underdeveloped, 18th century understanding of human rights, but rather a system that was consciously intended from the very beginning to insulate the elite from any danger democracy might pose to their ability to exploit even those endowed with the vote from the start.