Essays by the Free Republican, 1784-1786

This is the first modern edition of ten essays published in 17841786 in the popular Boston newspaper The Independent chronicle, a newspaper whose publication was a significant intellectual event in Massachusetts politics. The essays deal with the problem of mixed government in a republic. Lincoln writes, Two distinct and different orders of men seems incident to every society, two contending interests, fed by a spirit of jealousy and distrust, would always be in dispute with one another. Whether the parties to the contents style themselves the Rich and the Poor, the Great and the Small, the High and the Low, the Elders and People, Patricians and Plebeians, Nobility and Commons, still, the Free Republican writes, the source and effects of the dispute are the same. Lincolns essays anticipate John Adams Defence of the American Constitution (1787) on every major point. The editors believe that Lincolns essays grew out of a conversation that Massachusetts people were having about the problem of a bicameral legislature in a republic. The publication of these essays may provoke an entirely new appraisal of the political thinking of the founding era.