Political Parties before the Constitution

by Jackson Turner Main

This is the first book dealing with any period in American history which attempts to describe and analyze national politics through studying voting patterns in state legislatures. During the 1780s two relatively stable legislative parties" emerged in every state, and each state possessed common characteristics. Main labels these parties "localists" and "cosmopolitans" and show how such issues as funding of debts, paper money, and land prices provided a battlefield for those early part division.

Originally published in 1972.

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Genres: Politics

501 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1972

About the author

An historian of colonial America and the early republic, Jackson Turner Main earned his BA and Ph.D. at the University of Wisconsin. He was a professor of history at the University of Colorado, and the author of seven books on the colonial era and early American republic.