Paul Douglas Newman

In the history of American public violence Fries's Rebellion is not exactly a household phrase. Frankly it wasn't even much of a rebellion. It was mostly just a tax revolt that became a bit overly rambunctious when some men detained for non-payment were rescued by their neighbors. That their neighbors appeared in the guise of the local militia was the point of ignition. This is seeing as 1799 was not a normal year, as the threat of war was in the air, and the Hamiltonians who dominated the administration of John Adams saw insubordination and rebellion in every shadow, leading to the political overreation that administration is best remembered for.

In examining the twists and turns of how this event came to pass, the author is most interested in teasing out the interests, values, and self-image of the German-American community at the center of this incident. What the author finds is a group of people who, while superficially prosperous, were under a fair amount of economic and cultural pressure and who took 1776's promise of popular sovereignty seriously in the face of the Federalist call to centralize power to cope with a dangerous world. It would be easy to write these people off as merely suffering from a bad case of localism, but the author depicts a well-informed group of individuals who knew when they were being disrepected and who were prepared to respond in a disciplined fashion. This is at time when the American society was only beginning to understand what practical party politics and public dissent would look like. That this lesson has to be relearned over time is also a tacit theme of this book.

Finally, while I found this to be a useful little monograph, there are times when it seemed that the author was getting a little bogged down in the details of his study; that is why I don't rate it a bit higher.… (más)