This dissertation explores the extent to which the political ideology that formed the basis for the American republic shaped American diplomacy, using John Adams, James Madison and John Quincy Adams as case studies. American statesmen drew on a variety of sources for republican principles of diplomacy. The law of nations and the Scottish political economists supplied the ideas of an international balance of power and freedom of trade. English writers of the Opposition Whig school provided concepts such as political separation from Europe, reliance on a navy for defense, abhorrence of a standing army and, indirectly, the belief that the United States could use its economic power to secure its diplomatic goals.;John Adams began his career with a high degree of confidence in the virtue of the American people and the coercive power of American trade. He combined a classical martial ethic with an Opposition whig strategic sense. Adams's experience in Europe disproved these beliefs, and as president he fell back on the republican realpolitik, based on naval power and separation from Europe, suggested by the Opposition Whig school.;James Madison never held out a classical model of virtue and never lost faith in the coercive power of American commerce. His combination of political economy with Opposition thought led him to reject both an army and a navy as monarchical tools of diplomacy. He saw the Constitution as a vehicle for harnessing American economic power. Madison's conception of a republican diplomacy led him, as secretary of state and president, to rely on the Embargo and similar economic measures.;John Quincy Adams combined republican realpolitik with a sense of Christian purpose and saw American government and diplomacy as a vehicle for moral improvement. Adams's republic rested on a continental union and a diplomacy directed against European colonization, as a manifestation of monarchy. Non-colonization included removing Spain as a neighbor in North America, preventing European political encroachment in the Western Hemisphere, and securing a hemisphere-wide consensus on neutral rights. as a congressman and critic of slavery-driven expansion, Adams demonstrated the persistence of Opposition Whig thought in American politics.

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This dissertation explores material life in the northern Shenandoah Valley of Virginia from 1750 to 1850 through extant objects and those found in the documentary record. In the process, it highlights diverse processes of community formation that took place among artisans in Shenandoah County. This work provides three different perspectives on the processes of community formation in Shenandoah County, focusing on the impermanent buildings of early settlers, the growth of permanence at an ironworking community at Redwell Furnace and Pine Forge, and cultural markers in the furniture and material life of artisans Godfrey Wilkin and Johannes Spitler. The project brings together ideas about the development of a community with its own distinct regional culture by exploring the material life of Shenandoah County’s residents. There was a transition from distinct ethnicities to more homogenous regionalism that occurred from the earliest settlements beginning in the 1730s to generations later in the 1850s with a growth of a regional culture distinctive to the Shenandoah Valley. A major contribution of this work is that people, not their buildings or objects, have an active voice in a rich and detailed history of material life. Objects, buildings, and landscape, both extant and long gone, allow historians to explore the everyday life of people that have often been overlooked and previously inaccessible. This dissertation thus provides a snapshot of the varied material life of a community of artisans and consumers in Virginia’s northern Shenandoah Valley.

In the early Virginia backcountry, a diverse group of individuals lived, worked, and interacted every day at furnaces and forges. Redwell Furnace, north of Luray, and Pine Forge, north east of New Market, in Shenandoah County were the earliest and largest operations oftheir kind in the county. At these ironworking communities, people of Irish, African, and Germanic descent interacted on a daily, if not hourly, basis, making iron stove plates,andirons, plates, utensils, and other utilitarian objects. This diverse furnace population gradually developed in the shadow of the Massanutten Mountain during the late eighteenth century as more settlers migrated down the Great Wagon Road through the Shenandoah Valley. Ironworking became a dominant industry in the county, but also was prevalent throughout the Valley. While the Pennybackers began their ironworking venture solely relying on white workers, they soon took cues from other Shenandoah County residents and bought several enslaved African Americans. Not only were the Pennybackers purchasing and hiring enslaved African Americans to work at Redwell Furnace and Pine Forge, but they also altered the design oftheir stove plate patterns from German scenes to more Anglo inspired republican imagery. Several members of the family also constructed homes that fit perfectly in the surrounding Shenandoah Valley landscape. Built with symmetrical facades with hall and parlor plans, the exterior of these homes had no hint whatsoever of the German origins of their inhabitants. Through the ownership of slaves and the changing design of the stove plates that they produced and sold, the Pennybacker quickly adapted to Shenandoah Valley society.

This dissertation argues that the American colonists came to resist the Stamp Act of 1765 through equating it with slavery, a state still understood as resulting from surrender in war. This metaphor both dominated print discourse and served to justify violence against supporters of the Act. Slavery rhetoric implied that resistance through violent struggle was essential for the colonists both to win their freedom and to demonstrate to the wider world that they deserved such freedom. Understanding resistance in these terms reveals the close connections between the rhetoric deployed against the Stamp Act and the actions taken against stamp officers and other supporters of the Act. A close examination of the chronology of rhetoric and resistance shows that it was the colonists' commitment to violent struggle---the actions of urban crowds and of a vigilant network of Sons of Liberty---that prevented enactment of the Stamp Act. and it was knowledge of that resistance that caused Parliament to vote against sending troops to enforce the Stamp Act, well before merchants and manufacturers testified to their economic straits.;The four chapters proceed chronologically through the period May 1765 -- May 1766. The first chapter examines the colonists' decision to resist the Stamp Act and ends in July 1765. Chapter 2 is a study of the crowd actions against crown officers in August through October. The third chapter contrasts the ineffectual Stamp Act Congress with the actions of the Sons of Liberty in the winter of 1766, while the final chapter focuses on the repeal celebrations of May 1766.

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The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the event which hurled the United States into the throes of the Second World War, convinced many military strategists that precautions should be taken to guard the West Canst against possible invasion. The erection of a formidable defense system along the coast was complicated by the fact that 110,000 Japanese lived in Washington, Oregon, and California, a situation that could be hardly ignored by a suspicious public who rapidly formed the opinion that most Japanese-Americans harbored disloyal attitudes and would prove to be a menace to the war effort unless measures were immediately taken to restrict their activities.