A Study Of The Role Of Provincialism In The Founding Of The United States Of America

Provincialism played a disgraceful role in the American Revolution. The disadvantagesof provincialism were not only sharply denounced by the political elites who contributed tothe founding of the United States, but also widely lashed by the later scholars. Actually, theeffect of provincialism in the process of founding in the United States was not totally negative,it also helped to maintain the interests of the country; otherwise, it is hard to explain thatunder the Confederation, which was full of defects, the weakness Continental Governmentcould lead the American to win the war of independence. As for individual community,provincialism is positive, but for the State-Building, its negative effect has been infinitelymagnified, because it lacked rational system design. Based on a lot of original literatures ofrevolutionary period, scholars’ related writings, using historical research perspective andcomprehensive research methods of other disciplines, I will study the role of provincialism inthe process of the founding of the United States.The dissertation is consisted of three parts: introduction, four chapters, and conclusion.The introduction mainly introduces the reason of choosing such topic, the research objectivesand innovations and shortcomings of this dissertation, and then makes an overview of theprevious research works by American and Chinese scholars.Chapter One reviews the British origin of North American provincialism, andemphatically discusses the conception and development of provincialism in colonial America,analyzes the influence of provincialism on the relations between the colonies.Chapter Two examines the early revolution provincial congresses influence on theprocess of revolution, the state is studied in the view of the constitution, constitutional debate,the constitutional way of power and the establishment of a republic, and analyzes the stateconstitution protection of citizens’ rights and the structure changes of parliament.Chapter Three mainly examines the procedure of the establishment of the confederacy,analyzes the regionalism of the confederate congress and state the influence, to solve theproblem of the western land war states on the contribution of the continental army, problemsand efforts to seek to increase union power.Chapter Four analyzes the war fiscal and debt situation after the war, examines theregionalism of confederate congress for taxation power and management power failure therole of foreign trade, this paper expounds the Constitutional Convention of regionalism tocongressional representation problem and sectionalism of the debate about black three-fifthsof the terms and conditions, and through the redefinition of the federal government and statepower’s research, analyzes the provincialism under federal and national interestsThe Conclusion part briefly summarizes the role of provincialism in the process offounding U.S., and analyzed the political, economic, and social basis of provincialism,discusses the dual role of provincialism with the confederation, federalism, and examines theprovincialism and the internal logic relations of civil war.