Tom Cutterham: “Anarchy and the American Revolution”

“In short, anarchy seemed like a very real threat to the gentlemen who sought to lead America out of its revolution and into the sunlit uplands of a new, stable, republican society. It took the form not only of insurrection and potential dissolution of the union, but—more insidiously—of a breakdown in the relations of class and gender on which the status and power of such gentlemen relied. With increasing urgency throughout the decade after the end of war, these gentlemen did what they could to thwart what they saw as the excesses of liberty and democracy.”