Honors Theses
Document Type
Thesis
Date of Completion
Spring 4-30-2026
Academic Year
2025-2026
Department
English
Academic Major
English
Second Academic Major
Theological Studies
Faculty Advisor
Nicholas Boone, Ph.D.
Abstract
The literary context of post-Revolutionary America developed a broad sense of the American character as virtuous, hardworking, and responsible. In the 1780s, three American writers, representing these three categories of literature, penned their perspectives on human character and society, to much commercial success. J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur, Royall Tyler, and Philip Freneau described their situations and opinions with candor and wit, helped spark a broad sense of the American character, and influenced the authors of the nation’s founding documents. At the end of that same decade, Anti-Federalist political philosophy drew from an established literary conception of the American character. Anti-Federalist writings lauded and defended agrarian American virtue, industry, and responsibility, while warning against governmental overreach, national taxation, and ambition. The Anti-Federalists won a victory in the ratification of the Bill of Rights, which has been a longstanding defense of personal liberties in the history of American law. Thus, the principles which post-revolutionary American literature, and the Anti-Federalists, had defined and defended, became enduring legislation.
Recommended Citation
Kernodle, Clara and Boone, Nicholas, "“Under the Fig-Tree”: Post-revolutionary Literature Influences American Government" (2026). Honors Theses. 47.
https://scholarworks.harding.edu/honors-theses/47
