Inventing the People: The Rise of Popular Sovereignty in England and America by Edmund S. Morgan (PDF)

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“The best explanation that I have seen for our distinctive combination of faith, hope and naiveté concerning the governmental process.” ―Michael Kamman, Washington Post This book makes the provocative case here that America has remained politically stable because the Founding Fathers invented the idea of the American people and used it to impose a government on the new nation. His landmark analysis shows how the notion of popular sovereignty―the unexpected offspring of an older, equally fictional notion, the “divine right of kings”―has worked in our history and remains a political force today.

User’s Reviews

Editorial Reviews: Review “[A] provocative new study. . . . In a series of brilliant chapters, [Morgan] probes the myths that sustained eighteenth-century American notions of liberty.” ― Keith Thomas, New York Review of Books”Edmund S. Morgan . . . [is] a man with a rare gift for telling the story of the past simply and elegantly without sacrificing its abundant complexity. . . . The story he tells is of enormous interest and importance.” ― Pauline Meier, New York Times Book Review About the Author Edmund S. Morgan (1916–2013) was the Sterling Professor Emeritus at Yale University and the recipient of the National Humanities Medal, the Pulitzer Prize, and the American Academy’s Gold Medal. The author of The Genuine Article; American Slavery, American Freedom; Benjamin Franklin; and American Heroes, among many others.

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐See, for example, on page 14 crucial information about Thomas Jefferson’s statement in our Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal.” There is also important information about James Madison’s vision that “a genuine national government” and its authority do not rest on a limited group, but on “an American people.” (page 267). In sum, the book describes essential knowledge about the foundation of our form of constitutionalism and government. I highlight these two founders because for decades they were close friends and were in the view of a number of scholars the most influential in establishing our nation as a model for others. In practice we are far from perfect, but arguably we have the knowledge and foundation to become much more more perfect.

⭐The late E. S. Morgan was one of our great writer-historians. Winning every prize in his field, this Yale professor had the gift of writing in a way to enchant the layman. This book discusses how the conflict with Charles I in Great Britain inspired political actors and thinkers to consider the role of The People in a theory of government.Charles embodied the idea of the Divine Right of kings, the antithesis of popular sovereignty. At the same time the Pilgrims were settling New England 3000 miles away and, out from under the eye of King and Parliament, were feeling their way toward a more truly representative government. Another book by Dr Morgan, a short biography of John Winthrop, is a valuable companion to this period.He moves between this country and its eventual independence and Great Britain as Parliament checked the idea of royal supremacy. I was fascinated by his exposition of why this country developed a written constitution and Great Britain didn’t.This is an important book for these days when so many are trying to determine what our Founding Fathers intended by the Constitution and how they arrived at their positions on government. It is an easy read and had many profound insights. I couldn’t recommend it more.

⭐Why are schools offering mythical pablum when works of this quality and clarity can help us understand where we have come from? Many of the themes raised in this wonderful book ring through in current discourse, though perhaps not well understood by the expositors. If you wish to better understand the United States, read everything you can by this author. His bibliography will lead to to original sources and other outstanding historians.

⭐Good

⭐An absolutely essential book for people interested in how the U.S. democratic model evolved from the English experience. Professor Morgan has a lively writing style that keeps the reader engaged.

⭐A fine historical book worthy of being read by serious students of Democracy. See how we settled on representative government after the bad lessons learned in Europe.

⭐Everything was fine

⭐In the denouement of the disputed Presidential election of 2020, attempts were made to allow partisan state legislatures to disregard the popular vote and appoint their own slates of electors to the Electoral College. They were beaten back, but the mere fact that they occurred demonstrates that the overriding role of the popular will in American politics cannot be taken for granted. This book is about how the concept of the popular will came to be–and current events demonstrate the ongoing relevance of that history. Morgan argues that the doctrine of popular sovereignty replaced the doctrine of the Divine right of kings. Though the initial replacement occurred in Britain, it was vastly strengthened in the American colonies, in part because of their geographic isolation from the mother country, in part because of the relative lack of an entrenched landed gentry.One of Morgan’s most interesting observations is that popular sovereignty from the very beginning was institutionalized on a geographic basis, representatives being chosen by district. Although he does not pursue the comparison, this differs dramatically from the class basis envisioned in socialist and communist governance, for example the trade-union basis of government as imagined by Daniel DeLeon and the (now-moribund) Socialist Labor Party. (Remember Joe Hill’s version of “Pie in the Sky”–“What we’ll have for government when we’re through/is one big industrial union!”)Morgan never considers the traditional Chinese concept of the “Mandate of Heaven,” a variation on the Divine right of kings which explicitly authorizes rebellion against the powers that be on the basis that if Heaven wills a dynastic change it will happen, and if not, not.In a sense, what we have, or think we have, is a “Divine right of the People.”A challenging read, underlining the pervasive role of historical contingency in shaping the institutions we tend to take for granted or even hold sacred.

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