Aristocratic Republicanism in the age of revolutions: a transatlantic perspective

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My research seeks to elucidate a tradition in Early Modern revolutionary republican thought which historians havetypically disregarded, which championed aristocratic government and rejected democracy as incompatible with liberty.The aristocratic republicanism, of the network of conservative revolutionaries comprising Hamilton, Gouverneur Morris,Sieyès, and P.L. Roederer was extremely influential in the latter part of the 18th-century, but has received little scholarlytreatment. Despite the significant effort dedicated to the study of Transatlantic revolutionary radicalism, little attention hasbeen paid to these conservative republicans and their place in the wider republican influence on the story of the age ofrevolutions. Due to their opposition to the participatory vision of liberty seen as the hallmark of the republican tradition byscholars like Quentin Skinner, Philip Pettit, and J.G.A. Pocock, they have tended to be excluded from the 'authentic'republican traditions in their countries, and instead framed as proto-modern and liberal thinkers opposed to ClassicalRepublicanism as it manifested in their countries. I will demonstrate that this was not the case, and that these men drewupon typical republican sources to repudiate radical politics, and ought to be understood as a distinct and importantcurrent within the republican tradition.