Keeping the Republic: Ideology and Early American Diplomacy

Keeping the Republic: Ideology and Early American Diplomacy
ISBN-10
0875803261
ISBN-13
9780875803265
Series
Keeping the Republic
Category
Biography & Autobiography
Pages
196
Language
English
Published
2004
Author
Robert W. Smith

Description

In Keeping the Republic, Robert W. Smith identifies three contending brands of republicanism - classical, whig, and yeoman - that shaped the founders' thinking. Jefferson and Madison pursued a yeoman republicanism with its faith in economic sanctions rather than military might as a means of diplomacy. Nations dependent upon American agricultural exports, they thought, would bow to American interests. Both Adams and Hamilton, originally admirers of classical republicanism and its belief in public virtue, came to adopt a whig republicanism that applied the balance-of-power principle, exemplified by the three branches of the federal government, to the international community. In this view, nations should have equal naval power.

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