Unruly Americans and the Origins of the Constitution

Unruly Americans

In Woody Holton's Unruly Americans, the author endeavors to bring to light many of the as-yet unwritten aspects of the founding of the United States of America. Many men and women have written on the subject. There are films and documentaries and historical records from a plethora of perspectives. For many people, they only meet with the topic of the Founding Fathers in history class. Holton takes up the task of taking these myths of the founding of the American Revolution and make it palatable, understandable, and relatable to the average person. In this, he is wholly successful as I have never been so intrigued and felt such a personal stake in the founding of the United States.

The book's language is easy to understand and thus easy to comprehend. All too often, historical volumes become so consumed by facts and figures, names and dates that the narrative of events becomes convoluted and complicated. The choice of vocabulary that Holton utilizes makes the specific events both easier to understand and the importance of the events all the more obvious to even the least intelligent of lay persons. In the very introduction of the book, Holton asks the reader to take part of history as if it were a kind of game, like we are students learning at the knee of this historian. But, he does not take this attitude as an elitist but as a storyteller, providing us with a vantage point that we never knew. It makes the text exciting and provides readers with the ability to read the text as though it were an adventure or a fantasy rather than a dull, boring historical text.

More interestingly for me is the fact that Holton is less interesting in the illustrious names from the history textbooks than is he in interested in what the Revolution was like for the common man in the colonies. The people reading this book, like myself, would hardly be the Washingtons or the Jeffersons had we lived in that time period. Rather I would likely have been one of those farmers, fearing that the break with England may have a negative impact on my own financial standing and thus affect the future of my family. In a way, he makes the heroes of the Revolution the common man and allows the reader to feel a kinship and commonality with the ones who came before us.

This component of the book is where the author is most successful and which is of the most interest to me. Making the Revolution seem like someone like me had a personal stake in either the success or failure of the American Revolutionary War. This is the functioning thesis I believe of Holton's book, that every future American had a part in the Revolution and in the formulation of the United States of America. Yet, at the same time the Founding Fathers did not believe that the average man should have a say in the governing of the country which is what required the formulation of the federal, central government.

Upon reflection, the comparison of the necessity of the common man in the American Revolution and then the resentment of the same person after the war is over is something of a dichotomy. The average person was needed to fight the war but the Founding Fathers still did not believe that the common person was capable of helping with the governing of that nation. The Articles of Confederation were the first attempt at trying to find a system of governance that would fit the new country. This failed and then came the Bill of Rights and the Constitution of the United States. There is considerable question about why the Articles of Confederation failed and most of the reasoning for this has to do with the fact that the articles were unenforceable. Given that the introduction to the book discusses the game scenario, it is then confusing that he does not explain this enough later on in the text.