During the early years of the republic, nationalist writers, such as Jefferson, Franklin, and Irving, associated the revolutionary founding of the United States with acts of voice. In this detailed examination of crucial texts of eighteenth-century American literature, Christopher Looby argues that the United States was self-consciously enacted through the spoken word. Balancing the strong emphasis on the importance of print culture in eighteenth-century America, Voicing America uncovers the complex process of articulating a new nation and reveals a body of early American literature and political discourse intensely concerned with the power of language and, especially, vocal expression. Voicing America will find an appreciative audience, not only among those interested in the study of language, but also among early Americanists, literary critics and historians, and political scientists and philosophers interested in theories of nationalism.