evidence: Alexis de Tocqueville was one of the first thinkers in the nineteenth century to challenge the prevailing historical account of the American Founding. According to that account, which was well on the way to becoming solidified when Tocqueville visited the United States in 1831, America's polity or regime was established in the period that began with the Revolutionary War and ended with the ratification of the Constitution. The principal leaders during this time, referred to as "founders" or "fathers," were celebrated for having decisively shaped the character of America's way of life. An illustration of this position can be found in Timothy Pitkin's widely read A Political and Civil History of the United States, published in 1828. Pitkin begins by promising his readers "a more intimate knowledge and recollection of the difficulties which their political fathers had to overcome," so that they might better appreciate the "great charter of their union, as their best and only security against domestic discord and foreign force."Footnote 1