ABSTRACT
As historians have come to an enhanced understanding of the importance of republican ideas in American history, the so-called "republican synthesis" has increasingly established itself. In America, republicanism was never the mere reflex of material interest. The widespread use of republican categories and their considerable overlap with those of classical liberalism long obscured the character and importance in American history of republicanism. Reasonably coherent libertarian republicanism informed the American Revolutionary outlook. The new states' first federal constitution and their first territorial legislation reflected the revolutionary generation's experience and ideas. Reacting swiftly, the Republicans undertook the organization and propaganda which brought them—the self-defined American Country Party—to power in 1800. The Country Party was in power; republican ideas would define policy. Between 1789 and 1860, southern particularists derived doctrines of nullification and secession from republicanism, constitutional law, and social contract theory.
