Lisa Pace Vetter’s focus in this book is the “unsung advocates and chroniclers” who worked on behalf of “marginalized populations initially left out of the founding narrative” of America. Vetter rightly criticizes political scientists for ignoring the Jacksonian-era female thinkers she so ably tackles. While she suggests that the cause of such neglect has to do with “founding feminists” writing in “unconventional modes of theorizing” (p. 3), that strikes me as overly generous, given the discipline’s willingness to accommodate diverse sources by people deemed important, and the fact that many writings by and for the marginalized were, in fact, standard theoretical treatises. Nonetheless, she is spot-on in taking the discipline to task for its exclusionary tendencies.

Vetter credits each of the seven figures she explores with something we are learning about more and more marginalized thinkers: “[N]ot only were these advocates engaging in many of the same theoretical debates and on many different levels, but, equally important, they were also broadening and innovating on traditional mainstream theoretical concepts to better accommodate women and the disenfranchised” (p. 4; my emphasis). The result, she asserts, is “a transformative understanding of democratic citizenship” (p. 6), and “a new political space” (p. 16), or “counterpublic,” in which to theorize and to act. Vetter’s strategy is to “bring the theoretical underpinnings of these reformers’ efforts to light by framing them from the perspective of specific contemporaneous [male] political theorists such as Alexis de Tocqueville, Adam Smith, and Jeremy Bentham . . . without portraying early women’s rights theorists as derivative of their male counterparts” (p. 18). She mostly succeeds in this endeavor.

Vetter first tackles freethinker Frances Wright. Especially given the breadth of her oeuvre, the influence of her lectures and newspaper, and the importance of the trends and theories she used and contested, the paucity of a secondary literature on Wright is almost shocking. Vetter’s chapter adds significantly to it. I was especially happy to see attention to Wright’s epistemology and the democracy it supports. As is often the case, the more Wright focused on systems of inequality, the more radical her thought became, shifting from a “romanticized republicanism” (p. 40) to a “withering portrayal of American society” (p. 41). The author convincingly shows that while Wright used the ideas of many, she always did so for her own ends: Her socialism was more political than that of Robert Owens, her appeal to the founding principles was more absolute than Jeremy Bentham’s, and her vision of just gender relations was more egalitarian and less sentimental than Tocqueville’s. Building in part on Bentham’s work on corruption, Wright understands inequality in very modern terms, as Vetter notes: “[W]hite male privilege is supported by an elaborate network of corrupt political and religious institutions and sustained by oppressive social and cultural practices” (p. 57). She confronts the privileged with a new look at the costs to them of their seemingly desirable position (pp. 62–63). Vetter makes Wright quite appealing, from her “rhetorical prowess” (p. 63) to her independent thinking, which includes “inquiry and self-scrutiny” (p. 68) and “release from the authority of elites and the doctrines they sought to impose” (p. 70).

Harriet Martineau, like Wright, endured “vitriolic attacks” for her life and her politics (p. 76), and was an amazingly prolific writer in multiple genres. Vetter focuses intently and productively on Martineau’s work on the concept and practice of sympathy. Vetter is most excited by the way Martineau moves Adam Smith’s internal, “imaginative” practice of sympathy to a dialogic one. Vetter worries that “Smith’s sympathetic observer may encounter difficulties in placing oneself in the shoes of someone of the opposite sex, or of a different race, or of a radically different socioeconomic status and accurately understanding that person’s position.” Martineau, in contrast, advocates direct engagement and discourse (which includes having factual social knowledge, as well as listening and observing), which allow the “other” to be heard, on their own terms (p. 81). Turning from a comparison with Smith to one with Tocqueville, Vetter compares their methods of coming to grips with the institution of slavery (Martineau’s is more detailed, thorough, and filled with anecdotes and examples, as sympathy requires [p. 91]), and how those methods relate to Tocqueville’s resigned conclusions and Martineau’s hopeful ones. Vetter then shows how “Martineau’s extensive analysis of the lamentable plight of American women in Society in America contrasts sharply with Tocqueville's” (p. 93), and the difference again turns out to be her robust practice of sympathy. Tracing one concept in this chapter is a source of its richness. In the end, both Smith and Tocqueville seem to shrink in comparison to the innovative Martineau. The first two chapters are wonderful.

Following is a relatively short, less satisfying chapter on Angelina Grimke, a figure “committed to a non-doctrinal, non-hierarchical, egalitarian form of Christianity” (p. 117). The two conversations into which she is placed, one with Catherine Beecher and one with Adam Smith, concern the ability of two sides of a deep political divide to hear each other and ultimately act in concert for greater equality. This time, the framing overwhelmed rather than made more visible the featured thinker’s contributions. Vetter turns to Smith’s “moral theory of rhetoric and his concept of propriety” (p. 104) to clarify the conflict between Beecher and Grimke, the former accusing the latter “of abusing the power of rhetoric and transgressing the boundaries of feminine domesticity by using emotional language in the public realm” (p. 103). Smith sort of “rescues” Grimke from Beecher’s criticisms with his rhetorical theory, while she in turn “expands on aspects of Smith’s theory by demonstrating specific uses of rhetoric and moral theory that may be more capable of bringing about political and social change than critics of sympathetic rhetoric would allow” (p. 123).

Grimke’s sister Sarah appears next, even more briefly, but more obviously politically, as the chapter title itself characterizes her as a “Quaker liberal.” Vetter thinks that the secular, liberal version of her has wrongly overtaken the Quaker aspects, when the two should coexist. “To highlight the unappreciated political implications of her theory while not losing sight of its religious foundation,” (p. 127) Vetter turns to “Quaker constitutionalism.” In the chapter’s second half, Vetter shows “how Sarah Grimke leads her audience through a systematic refutation of the scriptural arguments used to oppress women and a comprehensive critique of the ‘legal disabilities’ of women in America ultimately so that they may weigh her arguments on their own and form their own conclusions” (p. 133). Vetter finds some originality in Grimke’s rereading of scripture, part of a long, laborious tradition, though this originality did not shine through to me. Perhaps it is sufficient to be part of “an alternative understanding of America’s fundamental constitution . . . that requires the equality of men and women” (p. 142).

“Belligerent” pacifist and independent thinker Lucretia Mott is next. Vetter wants to push beyond Mott “as a moral and spiritual leader” who was superseded by more pragmatic and secular thinkers and activists, such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. In this chapter, debates and even “striking differences” (p. 148) among feminists and abolitionists take a more central role. Vetter offers a closer reading of Mott’s speeches, and emphasizes her “religious critique of dogmatism” that “forms the basis of a highly participatory, egalitarian, voluntarist understanding of political power” (p. 151). Vetter claims: “What is unique about Mott’s message . . . is the overarching attack on all ‘creeds and forms,’ not just theological ones” (p. 153). Mott explores unconscious complicity in oppression and “places a heavy burden on human beings because [her view of social responsibility] applies not only to those who actually commit injustice but also to those who tolerate or otherwise benefit from it” (p. 154). Mott, like the other figures in this book, is concerned with dialogue across differences of opinion and religion in a pluralistic society (p. 157). Some attention is given to Mott’s work against poverty, though more would have been welcome, both here and in other chapters, on how Vetter’s figures often went beyond attention to race and sex in their work on democracy.

“No book on political theory and the founding of American feminism would be complete without an examination of Elizabeth Cady Stanton,” Vetter rightly asserts (p. 166). But this is not a chapter on her political thought. Starting with a quick summary of what the literature says about the contributions of and criticisms against Stanton, the chapter aspires “to make a contribution to the ongoing debate regarding Stanton’s elitism and racism,” criticisms of her that “run the risk of overshadowing Stanton’s remarkable achievements” (p. 168) and of marking the entire early women’s rights movement as racist or elitist (p. 169). Vetter returns to “Adam Smith’s theory of rhetoric as an interpretative frame to examine Stanton’s rhetorical strategies” (p. 168), and many pages are devoted to the similarities between them, some aspects of which are familiar from previous chapters. Vetter focuses on “the role of ridicule in their respective moral theories of rhetoric” (p. 177), arguing that from early-on, Stanton employs a “rhetorical approach in which she frequently deploys ridicule, sarcasm, and other strategies to expose hypocrisy and advocate for reform, while consistently arguing for the equality of all people, male and female, poor and rich, black and white” (p. 169). Vetter is suggesting that Stanton may not believe some of the elitist arguments she makes but, rather, is asserting them to make the hypocrisy of elite males visible to them (p. 183), a rhetorical approach “vulnerable to misunderstanding and misuse” (p. 194). This may be so, but the argument did not contribute enough to the book or the literature on Stanton.

Finally, then, comes a short chapter on the “elusive and complex” (p. 198) Sojourner Truth, who “left behind no record written in her own hand” (p. 199) but nonetheless contributes to political thought. Methodologically, Vetter takes the two popular versions of Truth’s “Ain’t I a Woman” speech and declares that in the consistencies between them, we can infer “what she actually said and did” (p. 205). Like Stanton, Vetter’s Truth uses the rhetorical tool of ridicule “to shame her audience, encourage self-reflection, and open opportunities for change” (p. 207).

I have several quibbles with the book. The chapters are stylistically and substantively uneven. I also wonder about the utility to teachers of American political thought of Vetter’s repeated connections to A Theory of Moral Sentiments. There is, in addition, definitely more emphasis on women’s rights than on abolition. There is some hedging between chapters, as when Smith’s impartial spectator is criticized in one chapter and positively deployed in another. Vetter often makes contemporary connections to the historical figures whose thinking she recovers on the basis of a single evidentiary thread incapable of bearing the load. Attention to rhetorical strategies often overpowers attention to substance. Sample syllabi, organized both chronologically and thematically, would have made for really helpful appendices.

Yet, ultimately, I am inspired by the stories the book tells. At her best, Vetter is exemplary. The various theorists’ attention to difference and dissent is note- and praiseworthy. Despite the focus on male counterparts, Vetter manages to keep The Political Thought of America’s Founding Feminists centered on the women. Her explication of the theme of sympathy in multiple figures is most exciting, and surely nothing could be more relevant to Americanists and Americans today than information on the practice of talking across political differences. Women’s deep commitment and contributions to a democratic America are well remembered here.