Empire and Nation: Letters from a Farmer

Two series of letters that have been described as “the wellsprings of nearly all ensuing debate on the limits of governmental power in the United States” are collected in this volume. The writings include Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania - the “farmer” being the gifted and courageous statesman John Dickinson and Letters from the Federal Farmer ?he being the redoubtable Richard Henry Lee of Virginia. Together, Dickinson and Lee addressed the whole remarkable range of issues provoked by the crisis of British policies in North America, a crisis from which a new nation emerged from an overreaching empire. Dickinson wrote his Letters in opposition to the Townshend Acts by which the British Parliament in 1767 proposed to reorganize colonial customs. The publication of the Letters was, as Philip Davidson believes, “the most brilliant literary event of the entire Revolution.” Forrest McDonald adds, “Their impact and their circulation were unapproached by any publication of the revolutionary period except Thomas Paine’s Common Sense.” Lee wrote in 1787 as an Anti-Federalist, and his Letters gained, as Charles Warren has noted, “much more widespread circulation and influence” than even the heralded Federalist Papers. Both sets of Letters deal, McDonald points out, “with the same question: the never-ending problem of the distribution of power in a broad and complex federal system.” The Liberty Fund second edition includes a new preface by the editor in which he responds to research since the original edition of 1962.
Empire and Nation: Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania (John Dickinson). Letters from the Federal Farmer (Richard Henry Lee), ed. Forrest McDonald (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund 1999).
Copyright:
The copyright to this edition, in both print and electronic forms, is held by Liberty Fund, Inc.
People:
- Author: John Dickinson
- Author: Richard Henry Lee
- Editor: Forrest McDonald
Formats:
Format | Description | Size |
---|---|---|
EBook PDF | This text-based PDF or EBook was created from the HTML version of this book and is part of the Portable Library of Liberty. | 512 KB |
HTML | This version has been converted from the original text. Every effort has been taken to translate the unique features of the printed book into the HTML medium. | 537 KB |
Table of Contents
- Contents
- Preface to the Liberty Fund Edition
- Introduction
- Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania to the Inhabitants of the British Colonies
- letter i
- letter ii
- letter iii
- letter iv
- letter v
- letter vi
- letter vii
- letter viii
- letter ix
- letter x
- letter xi
- letter xii
- Observations Leading to a Fair Examination of the System of Government Proposed by the Late Convention; and to Several Essential and Necessary Alterations in it, in a Number of Letters from the Federal Farmer to the Republican
- letter i
- letter ii
- letter iii
- letter iv
- letter v
- letter vi
- letter vii
- letter xvi
- letter xvii
- A Note on the Type