Reading Guide: Journal of American Political Thought

Bridging the gap between historical, empirical, and theoretical research, American Political Thought (APT) is the only journal dedicated exclusively to the study of the American political tradition. Interdisciplinary in scope, APT features research by political scientists, historians, literary scholars, economists, and philosophers who study the foundation and political tradition of concepts such as democracy, constitutionalism, equality, liberty, citizenship, political identity, and the role of the state.

The selected peer-reviewed scholarship below spotlights cutting-edge scholarship from the journal of American Political Thought on the meaning and legacy of America's founding.

Journal of American Political Thought

Politics, Political Identity, and Political Thought

Schwarze, Michelle. "'We the People'": The Moral Psychology of Gouverneur Morris's Nationalism." American Political Thought 15.2 (2026): 188-205.
Ecker, Jordan. "Thomas Paine’s Natural Society and the End of Politics." American Political Thought 14.3 (2025): 305-329.
Ashbach, Jonathan. "Ultimate Happiness: James Madison’s Common Good." American Political Thought 14.2 (2025): 176-200.
Wilford, Heather P., and Paul T. Wilford. "Tocqueville and the Empire of Commerce in America." American Political Thought 13.4 (2024): 449-481.
Pinell, Phillip. "How a People Becomes a People: Memory and Identity in Jefferson’s Notes on the State of Virginia." American Political Thought 13.3 (2024): 371-394.
Boxill, Bernard. "Debating African American Political Thought." American Political Thought 13.1 (2024): 95-111.
Rodríguez, Raúl. "Tocqueville and Native Americans." American Political Thought 13.2 (2024): 215-238.
Piccolo, Samuel. "Nature in Native American Political Thinking." American Political Thought 13.1 (2024): 1-29
Rogers, Melvin L., and Jack Turner. "Black Individualism, Black Communalism, and Conceptual Adequacy." American Political Thought 13.1 (2024): 112-120.
Eber-Schmid, Noah. "American Jacobinism: The French Revolution, American Anti-Jacobinism, and Antidemocratic Anxieties." American Political Thought 11.3 (2022): 320-346.

Constitutionalism and Statesmanship

Kurlowski, Drew, and Michael E. Promisel. "Constellations of Character: The Moral Vocabulary of America’s Founders." American Political Thought 15.2 (2026): 206-226.
Martin, Kyle Jeffrey. "Alexander Hamilton’s Theory of Conscience: Conscience as a Source of Constitutional Obligation." American Political Thought 14.3 (2025): 356-380.
Brennan, Timothy. "The Limits of Enlighted Self-Interest: Franklin's Profession of Faith in the Autobiography." American Political Thought 14.2 (2025): 201-224.
Ashbach, Jonathan. "Ultimate Happiness: James Madison’s Common Good" American Political Thought 14.2 (2025): 176-200.
Ross, Robert E. "Veto Messages as Constitutional Constructions: Reevaluating the Impact of George Washington’s First Presidential Veto on Early Reapportionment." American Political Thought 14.1 (2025): 1-22.
Mattes, Armin. "The Antidotes of Truth": The First Editions of Thomas Jefferson's and James Madison's Papers." American Political Thought 13.3 (2024): 285-308.
Burns, Kevin J. "Republican Manners, Monarchic Vigor: The Federalist Defense of Pardon." American Political Thought 11.2 (2022): 209-231.
Ashbach, Jonathan. "Against Every General Principle: Prudence in the Constitutional Statesmanship of James Madison." American Political Thought 10.3 (2021): 363-389.
German, Zachary K. and Burton, Robert J. "Constitutional Humility: The Contested Meaning of Judicial Virtue." American Political Thought 10.2 (2021): 238-270.
Overeem, Patrick. "Not Always at the Helm: The Federalist and the Modern Dismissal of Statesmanship." American Political Thought 11.4 (2022): 467-492.
Wirls, Stephen. "Alexander Hamilton and the Origin of Political Obligation." American Political Thought 9.2 (2020): 571-593.

Liberalism, Freedom, and Slavery

Spiegler, Jonathan. "Tocqueville on Racism, Fatalism, and Democracy." American Political Thought 14.1(2025): 23-47
Yarbrough, Jean M. "Tocqueville and Lincoln on Slavery." American Political Thought 12.4 (2023): 479-517.
Ross, Jason. “Dishonorable to the American Character”: James Madison and the Impact of the Federal Convention’s Bargain on Slavery." American Political Thought 12.4 (2023): 518-551.
Klein, Daniel B., and Kendra H. Asher. "Adam Smith’s Unmerited Censure: Revisiting a Satirical 1764 Pamphlet on Slavery." American Political Thought 11.1 (2022): 48-72.
Rogers, Cara J. "The French Experiment: Thomas Jefferson and William Short Debate Slavery, 1785–1826." American Political Thought 10.3 (2021): 327-362.
Buccola, Nicholas. “The Essential Dignity of Man as Man”: Frederick Douglass on Human Dignity." American Political Thought 4.2 (2015): 228-258.

Federalism and State Sovereignty

Religion in the Early Republic

Salamanca, Emily. "Reconstructing Religion-contra-Democracy in Tocqueville’s Democracy in America." American Political Thought 13.4 (2024): 423-448.
Flessen, Ivy. "The Church in “Politics Proper”: Religion and Civic Education in Tocqueville’s Ancien Régime." American Political Thought 13.4 (2024): 482-504.
Muñoz, Vincent Phillip. "James Madison’s Political Science of Religious Liberty" American Political Thought 10.4 (2021): 552-576.

Democracy and Democratic Legitimacy

Emanicapation and Reconstruction

Zuckerman, Ian. "The Abolitionist State of Exception: Frederick Douglass’s Constitutionalism." American Political Thought 14.1 (2025): 78-110.
Svabek, Lawrence. "To Break the Slave Power: Thaddeus Stevens, Land Confiscation, and the Politics of Reparations." American Political Thought 10.4 (2021): 523-551.
Lynerd, Benjamin T. "Emancipation, the Ager Publicus, and Black Political Thought." American Political Thought 12.1 (2023): 27-53.
Smith, Max. "Their Souls Are Marching On: What Abraham Lincoln and John Brown Have in Common." American Political Thought 12.4 (2023): 581-604.
Ross, Jason. "William Lloyd Garrison's Shattered Faith in Antislavery Constitutionalism: The Origins and Limits of the Garrisonian Critique." American Political Thought 9.2 (2020):199-234