Author: Shawn David McGhee

Shawn McGhee (PhD, Temple University) is author of No Longer Subjects of the British King: The Political Transformation of Royal Subjects to Republican Citizens, 1774-1776. His main areas of interest include the politics of eighteenth-century British North America and political identity formation. He is an educator and adjunct professor of history in the Philadelphia Metropolitan area.

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Postwar Politics (>1783) Posted on

“The Good Old Republican Cause”: Philip Freneau’s Principled Stand against the Shadow of Monarchy

Many Americans celebrated April 30, 1789, as a defining moment for the United States, a sort of political BC/AD demarcation point in the republic’s short history.[1] Once the initial jolt of national optimism and political unity induced by President George Washington’s first inauguration had worn off, however, the first administration took up the thankless business […]

by Shawn David McGhee
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Newspapers Posted on

“One Great People”: John Fenno’s Public Crusade for an American National Identity

In New York City, at nine o’clock in the morning on Thursday, April 30, 1789, Americans of diverse Christian denominations filed into their churches in and around Broad Street. Once settled, their respective clergymen led them in prayer, asking for “the blessing of Heaven upon the new government.” These well-wishers also pleaded for divine “protection […]

by Shawn David McGhee
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Postwar Politics (>1783) Posted on

“What Magic There is in Some Words!”: John Fenno’s Private Crusade for an American National Identity

Governance under the federal Constitution transformed the nature and style of American politics. The spirit of this transformation revolved broadly around fear of political corruption and the vaguely defined yet delicate balance between national authority and state and local power.[1] And while the new republic’s first elected officials deliberated the nation’s most pressing issues in […]

by Shawn David McGhee
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People Posted on

German Soldier, American Rebel: Christopher Ludwick’s Pursuits of Happiness in Revolutionary Pennsylvania

Popular narratives of the American Revolution rank Christopher Ludwick, at best, among the extras in the imperial dramatis personae, a bit player who performed as honest gingerbread baker or amusingly spoke of himself in the third person.[1] Fortunately, his limited historiographical presence more seriously depicts him as superintendent of bakers for the Continental Army and […]

by Shawn David McGhee
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Arts & Literature Posted on

Cato: A Tragedy: The Enduring Theatrical Mystery at Valley Forge

The Valley Forge winter of 1777-78 is an integral part of America’s national narrative.[1] For many citizens, the name “Valley Forge” relates both a physical and intellectual landscape, specific spatial geography in Pennsylvania and a certain emotional acreage representative of the enduring suffering many Americans embraced during the revolution. At the end of that challenging […]

by Shawn David McGhee
Engineering and Technology Posted on

Illuminating the Republic: Maritime Safety and the Federalist Vision of Empire

The national government under the Federal Constitution effectively began its reign on April 6, 1789, as an invisible and unremarkable presence in the lives of most ordinary Americans.[1] The army boasted about 750 men stationed mainly on the western frontier, there were no national buildings, roads or even construction sites, while few federal bureaucrats and […]

by Shawn David McGhee
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Memorials Posted on

“The Modern American Wallace:” Relics, Revolutions, and Revolutionaries

On Friday morning, December 30, 1792, Archibald Robertson, an ambitious painter from Aberdeen, Scotland, arrived at the doorstep of the executive mansion at Philadelphia.[1] David Steuart Erskine, 11th Earl of Buchan, entrusted him to deliver a wooden box to President George Washington.[2] Yet this was no ordinary box and Robertson’s call no ordinary visit. For […]

by Shawn David McGhee
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Constitutional Debate Posted on

“Those Noble Qualities”: Classical Pseudonyms as Reflections of Divergent Republican Value Systems

During the trial years under the Federal Constitution, some political observers contributed to the national discourse by employing one of the period’s most ambitious and creative ornaments: the classical pseudonym. Cloaked behind these ancient disguises, commenters added a historically nuanced layer to their arguments that enlisted the ubiquitous gravity of the classical past.[1] These signatures […]

by Shawn David McGhee
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Arts & Literature Posted on

George Washington’s “Rules of Civility”: An Early American Literary Mystery

Tucked away in George Washington’s papers rests a thirty-five-page handwritten folio labeled “Forms of Writing.”[1] In Washington’s neat and ornate cursive, the first roughly two-thirds of this artifact are comprised of carefully copied examples of legal mechanisms such as promissory notes, bills of exchange, short- and long-form wills, and, ominously, a “Form of a Servants […]

by Shawn David McGhee
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Clothing and Uniforms Posted on

Reframing George Washington’s Clothing at the Second Continental Congress

Dressed in defiance, Col. George Washington arrived at each session of the Second Continental Congress donning a new buff and blue uniform he helped design with fellow Virginian George Mason.[1] Washington, a staunch but cautious Whig, fully embraced the American cause and, incredibly, his military exploits from the French and Indian War roughly two decades […]

by Shawn David McGhee
Critical Thinking Posted on

“Characters Pre-eminent for Virtue and Ability”: The First Partisan Application of the Electoral College

Scholars typically cast the outcome of the second presidential election as either a forgone conclusion or a non-event.[1] After all, George Washington ran unchallenged and once again received unanimous support from the Electoral College.[2] Shifting academic focus from the first magistrate to the second, however, reframes the 1792 contest as a struggle for the soul […]

by Shawn David McGhee