Explores the legal and political dilemmas engendered by the American Revolution's enthronement of "the people" as the legitimate ground of public authority by focusing on moments of contestation around self-representation.

Acknowledgments ix
Introduction: Constituent Moments 1
1. Revolution and Reiteration: Hannah Arendt's Critique of Constituent Power 41
2. Crowds and Communication: Representation and Voice in Postrevolutionary America 67
3. Sympathy and Separation: Benjamin Rush and the Contagious Public 101
4. Spaces of Insurgent Citizenship: Theorizing the Democratic-Republican Societies 128
5. Hearing Voices: Imagination and Authority in Wieland 156
6. Aesthetic Democracy: Walt Whitman and the Poetry of the People 182
7. Staging Dissensus: Frederick Douglass and "We the People" 209
Conclusion: Prospective Time 237
Notes 255
Bibliography 301
Index 331