Title: Liberty without anarchy : a history of the Society of the Cincinnati /
Authors: Myers, Minor, 1942-
Publisher: University Press of Virginia ; Eurospan,
Year: 2004
Subjects: Society of the Cincinnati History.
Abstract: Founded in May 1783 at Steuben's headquarters near Newburg, N.Y., by officers of the Continental army and navy, the Society of the Cincinnati was at one time one of America's most controversial organizations. In Liberty without Anarchy, Minor Myers relates how the officers, who had not been paid for four years, began to circulate rumors of a military coup. The society, with Washington as President-General, was formed to exert political pressure on Congress to guarantee payment in response to the angry men. Many Americans, Thomas Jefferson principal among them, viewed the new organization with suspicion, as a seedbed for a hereditary American aristocracy.
Contents: A Mutiny Transformed into One Society of Friends -- The Institution -- A New and Strange Order of Men -- Facing the Threat of Anarchy -- The Cincinnati and the Politics of a New Constitution -- The Original Members -- The French Society -- A New Government: Some Compensation for the Toils and Dangers -- Frustration, Success, and Decline -- Rebirth -- Esto Perpetua -- Appendix: The Institution of the Society of the Cincinnati -- Index.