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Creation and the Republican Revival
Treanor, William Michael
Treanor, William Michael
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Abstract
Few scholars have the opportunity to leave a lasting impact on their chosen field; fewer still revolutionize it. It is a remarkable feat, and even more so when it is recognized in one’s lifetime by both one’s peers and the public alike. To do so in the field of history requires an exceptional gift for understanding and dissecting broad sweeps of the past without losing sight of the small details that show that distant land to be as rich with experience as our own lives today. Historians thus not only provide insights into the causes and effects of change, but also an understanding of the perspectives and motivations of their subjects because they have gotten to know the individuals they study as full people. Gordon Wood readily possesses all these qualities. He is for that reason and so many others a truly extraordinary historian, and his example has inspired countless historians—me included—to seek to excavate the past. I am one of the group who was not only inspired to pursue a career as an historian by Professor Wood, but was likewise inspired to become a specialist in American constitutional history of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. It was and is no surprise then that when legal scholars and historians look to understand the early years of the American republic, they reach for Wood’s work as a starting point and, more often than not, begin with his seminal work, The Creation of the American Republic 1776–1787 (“Creation”), which, remarkably, began as a dissertation.
Like many others, when I first encountered Wood’s account of the early republic I found it wholly convincing, and so, as I undertook my academic career, I did not attempt to invent and offer my own theory of how the structure of the Constitution came to be. Rather, I sought to explore in greater detail important topics that largely fit within his framework. For example, in my student note on the Takings Clause, drawing explicitly on Creation, I argued that, at the start of the Revolution, the dominant intellectual paradigm was republicanism with at its core the idea of individual sacrifice to advance the common good. Madison’s drafting of the Takings Clause reflected his rejection of republicanism and his embrace of liberalism, which grew out of his experience in the Revolutionary Era. He and others found that legislatures did not seek to advance the common good. Instead, Madison and his allies saw legislative deliberations as battles among self-interested actors. Madison sought to protect individual rights, including property rights, against majoritarian actions. In short, I argued, we have a Takings Clause because republicanism had given way to an ascending liberalism.