The Political Thought of Fisher Ames

Abstract

Fisher Ames (1758-1808), a Federalist representative from Dedham, Massachusetts in the first four Congresses, is perhaps the most quoted but least understood politician of the early American republic.* As the leading Federalist voice in the House of Representatives, Ames has attracted a good deal of notice from historians but, despite this attention, he still appears today as little more than a two dimensional caricature. The viewpoint which has emerged after decades of analysis is that Ames was a brilliant but erratic orator, extreme conservative who resisted the idealism of the American Revolution, and a perennial prophet of doom. The description of the Massachusetts Federalist provided by historian Elisha P. Douglass is typical of the treatment Ames has received in historical circles. Conceding that he was consistent and principled, Douglass nonetheless concluded in a 1959 essay that Ames was emotionally unstable and that his writing seems to be so thoroughly infected with hysterical and paranoid symptoms that it is difficult to believe that he represented a sane body of thought. Even in the most recent account, Winfred E. A. Bernhard's laudatory biography which has done much to restore Ames's reputation, he is portrayed as ardent nationalist and unrelenting critic of his political opponents, but no analysis is offered to explain the basis for this behavior. In Bernhard's view, Ames was simply an incurable idealist with inflexible ideal of government ... ..