A Constitutional Culture

New England and the Struggle Against Arbitrary Rule in the Restoration Empire (Early American Studies)

By: Adrian Chastain Weimer

Narrated by: Douglas R Pratt

In A Constitutional Culture, Adrian Chastain Weimer uncovers the story of how more than a hundred years before the American Revolution, colonists pledged their lives and livelihoods to the defense of local political institutions against arbitrary rule.

With the return of Charles II to the English throne in 1660, the puritan-led colonies faced enormous pressure to conform to the crown’s priorities. Charles demanded that puritans change voting practices, baptismal policies, and laws, and he also cast an eye on local resources such as forests, a valuable source of masts for the English navy.

Those resisting the crown included not just freemen (voters) but also people often seen as excluded or marginalized such as non-freemen, indentured servants, and women. Together they crafted a potent regional constitutional culture in defiance of Charles II that was characterized by a skepticism of metropolitan ambition, a defense of civil and religious liberties, and a conviction that self-government was divinely sanctioned. Weimer shows how they expressed this constitutional culture through a set of well-rehearsed practices—including fast days, debates, committee work, and petitions. Equipped with a ready vocabulary for criticizing arbitrary rule, with a providentially informed capacity for risk-taking, and with a set of intellectual frameworks for divided sovereignty, the constitutional culture that New Englanders forged would not easily succumb to an imperial authority intent on consolidating its power.

The book is published by University of Pennsylvania Press. The audiobook is published by University Press Audiobooks.

"With A Constitutional Culture, Adrian Chastain Weimer joins the first rank of historians of colonial New England...." (Mark A. Peterson, Yale University)

"A must-read for English historians and Americanists alike." (Tim Harris, Brown University)

©2023 University of Pennsylvania Press (P)2023 Redwood Audiobooks