James Wilson’s Republicanism

Abstract

The first formal public debate on the new United States Constitution took place in Pennsylvania, site of the Federal Convention, and home of America’s first ‘Republican’ party.¹ The Federalists’ spokesman throughout the state-ratifying Convention was James Wilson, a Scottish graduate of the University of St Andrews, and a prominent Philadelphia lawyer. Wilson’s Considerations on the Nature and Extent of the Legislative Authority of the British Parliament, composed in 1768, had provided many of the arguments that would lead to the American Declaration of Independence² Wilson signed the Declaration of Independence, represented Pennsylvania in the Continental Congress under the Articles of Confederation, and became a delegate to the United States Constitutional Convention in 1787, where he was a member of the Committee of Detail, which prepared the first draft of the new constitution. With Gouverneur Morris and James Madison, Wilson was one of the most frequent speakers during the preparation of the new constitution. Wilson had long been a leading figure in Pennsylvania’s Republican party, and a strong advocate of a balanced bicameral republican constitution for the commonwealth of Pennsylvania.³