The Federalist Frontier

Reviews / Votes

Kristopher Maulden has written a path-breaking book that will change the way historians think about and teach the early national era, especially in their understanding of the importance and longevity of the Federalist Party. This well-written, carefully-researched study brings to light the crucial role of Federalist ideology in building cultural, political, and economic institutions that helped create the American state and facilitated expansion into the west. Maulden also presents a sensitive discussion of the federal government's relationship with Indians who lived in the region. Maulden argues persuasively that the Federalist Party, in structuring an orderly society governed by well-educated men of property, developed a long-lasting legacy that reached into the 1840s. This important book will be of great value to scholars and students of the political and economic development of America's emerging Republic."-Silvana R. Siddali, Saint Louis University, author of Frontier Democracy: Constitutional Conventions in the Old Northwest

"Thomas Jefferson is too often considered the sole architect of the United States' 'Empire of Liberty,' but Kris Maulden's new book recovers the critical role that Jefferson's Federalist foes played in colonizing a continent. The Federalist Frontier is an important corrective that explains the ways in which Federalist ideology continued to shape American Empire long after the party's demise."-Lawrence B. A. Hatter, Washington State University, author of Citizens of Convenience: The Imperial Origins of American Nationhood on the U.S.-Canadian Border

"With clear prose, Kristopher Maulden argues that Federalist aims - a penchant for order, and a disdain for popular politics-continued to influence the Northwest Territory long after the party itself collapsed. Indian affairs, land policy, and territorial politics continued to feel the impact of the Federalists for decades into the nineteenth century."-Robert Owens, Wichita State University, author of Red Dreams, White Nightmares: Pan-Indian Alliances in the Anglo-American Mind, 1763-1815