To Organize the Sovereign People: Political Mobilization in Revolutionary Pennsylvania

Houpt makes an important contribution to our understanding of the history of democratic self-government. His process-oriented, analytical narrative is the kind of history we now so desperately need. He has illuminated the political pathway real Pennsylvanians followed in real, historical time to create a government for themselves?and to govern those partially, if not fully excluded from their citizen body. There is much to be learned from this history in our own time, as we struggle to define who we are as a people and how (or if) we can fulfill our own (poorly defined) democratic aspirations.

Peter S. Onuf, University of Virginia, author of Jefferson's Empire: The Language of American Nationhood

Historians have long maintained that after the highwater mark of its 1776 constitution, a conservative backlash against democracy ensued in Pennsyvania. Challenging this narrative of declension, David Houpt unearths evidence demonstrating the continuing vitality of politics out of doors and in the streets. With the emergence of political parties, Federalists and Republicans channeled popular participation into powerful new forms of political mobilization. In rewriting Pennsylvania history, Houpt convincingly reconceptualizes the larger story of the rise of democratic politics from the time of the American Revolution through the early 1800s.

Rosemarie Zagarri, George Mason University, author of The Politics of Size: Representation in the United States, 1776 1850