Nicol Rae's engaging account of the Republican revolutionaries' freshman term in Congress shows how would-be radicals became conservative reformers. He persuasively demonstrates that the precepts set forth by Madison in Federalist 10 and 51 are still in force in the American political system.

This book examines the extent to which they were successful in redirecting policy and reforming the institutions of representative government - and the extent to which those same institutions moderated, and even frustrated, efforts to introduce rapid, radical change. Contrasts are drawn both with the Republican freshmen in the Senate and with the power of the President as manifested in the 1995-96 budget battle.