George Thatcher served as a U.S. representative from Maine throughout the Federalist Era (1789-1801)-the most critical and formative period of American constitutional history. A moderate on most political issues, the Cape Cod native and Harvard-educated lawyer proved a maverick in matters relating to education, the expansion of the slave interest, the rise of Unitarianism, and the separation of church and state. Written over his forty-year career as a country lawyer, national legislator, and state supreme court justice, the over two hundred letters and miscellaneous writings selected for this...