As I reflect on the possibility of a new national coalition forming, I read “The Revolution: Treason and Rescue,” a review of The Quartet: Orchestrating the Second American Revolution, 1783–1789 by Pulitzer winner Joseph J. Ellis, written by Susan Dunn for The New York Review of Books.

I was struck by certain parallels between the fragmentation of the post-revolutionary government under the Articles of Confederation and the current fragmentation of the progressive movement. It also seems that some of the principles the Founders employed to forge a united government might help unify progressives.

As Ellis and Dunn tell the story, after winning the war against Britain, the thirteen new states were fiercely independent and resisted a strong, consolidated union. In response Alexander Hamilton, aide-de-camp for General George Washington, drafted in 1783 “‘a generic blueprint’ for what would become the Constitution.” By 1786, Washington, John Jay, and James Madison had endorsed Hamilton’s proposal.

Hamilton then got the Continental Congress to endorse a “‘future Convention’ that would forgo incremental adjustments and instead tackle at once all the problems plaguing the confederation.”

Hamilton, Jay, and Madison then persuaded Washington to “retract his promise ‘never more to meddle in public matters.’ and attend the convention,” thereby giving the Convention credibility.

The four were determined to “replace, and not just revise, the Articles of Confederation.”

After almost four months of intense negotiations, the Constitution was drafted and signed, later to be ratified by the states.

The question of state’s sovereignty was left ambiguous, “based on two principles: ‘that any legitimate government must rest on a popular foundation and that popular majorities cannot be trusted to act responsibly’—’a paradox,’ Ellis judges, ‘that has aged remarkably well.’”

Thus, the Constitution established representative democracy, not direct democracy, and included “checks-and-balances” to assure stability.

Whether a new national coalition might learn from that experience is an intriguing question.