Against Popular Societies and Faction: Transatlantic Discourses of Moderation in the American, French and Dutch Republics of the 1790s

René Koekkoek examines the mid-1790s efforts made by American Federalists, French Thermidorians, and Dutch Batavian revolutionaries to discredit popular societies as the embodiment of faction and party spirit, and their efforts to institutionalize moderation. Instead of institutional complexity and balance, these revolutionary moderates conceptualized political moderation in terms of the ultimate authority of representative government and the underlying principle of an undivided citizenry.