Noah Webster published A Grammatical Institute of the English Language, known as the Blue-Backed Speller, in 1783. It sold more copies than any book in American history except the Bible. In 1787 he published an examination of the proposed federal Constitution arguing for ratification. In 1833, at age 74, he wrote to James Madison. That letter is at Founders Online. It is the primary source connection between Webster and the archive.
A Grammatical Institute of the English Language, Part I appeared in Hartford, Connecticut in 1783. Webster was 25 years old. The book was designed to standardize American spelling and pronunciation at a moment when the new nation had no unified written standard. It went through hundreds of editions over the following century. Estimated total sales over the nineteenth century reach 100 million copies, making it one of the most widely distributed books in American history.
Webster believed that a common language was necessary to American national identity. He argued that American English should develop independently of British English, reflecting American geography, society, and pronunciation. The speller was part of a larger project that eventually produced his American Dictionary of the English Language in 1828, which established most of the spelling differences between American and British English that persist to this day.
In October 1787, weeks after the Constitutional Convention adjourned, Webster published An Examination into the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution Proposed by the Late Convention Held at Philadelphia. He published it in Philadelphia under the pseudonym "a Citizen of America" and dedicated it to Benjamin Franklin. The pamphlet argued for ratification on the grounds that the Constitution's system of checks and balances was superior to any existing government.
Of all the memorable aeras that have marked the progress of men from the savage state to the refinements of luxury, that which has combined them into society, under a wise system of government, and given form to a nation, has ever been recorded and celebrated as the most important.
On October 16, 1833, Webster wrote to James Madison. Webster was 75 years old. Madison was 82. The letter discussed the language of the Constitution and the proper interpretation of its terms. Webster had recently completed his American Dictionary and had strong views about what specific words in the constitutional text meant and had meant in 1787. Madison responded. The exchange is at Founders Online and connects Webster's lifelong concern with language to the constitutional questions Madison had shaped forty-six years earlier.
The Webster-Madison letter is also cross-referenced in the Schoolroom Archive series, where Webster's educational work and the founding-era conception of literacy appear as connected themes. The Founders Online record makes the connection between language, education, and constitutional argument explicit in Webster's own words.
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