To 1783

The push of the past half century to redefine the American canon through the incorporation of writers representative of America's heterogeneousness has given voice to a range of marginalized writers. This movement, predicated on the belief that American society was never as unified as its early leaders would have us believe, has overstated what it sought to challenge : the unitedness of early Americans. Casting the leaders of the Early Republic as in complete accord, such critical readings negate the significant differences that existed and the pains necessary to present something akin to national unity and identity. It is my aim to show that this unity came about through a constructed rhetoric meant to unify the citizens in colonial America and the Early Republic. In this thesis, I will examine three modes of this rhetoric : American Exceptionalism, the American Enlightenment, and the movements supporting a mono-dialectal view of American English.