David Ramsay: Brief Biography

David Ramsay was a doctor, politician, and historian from Charleston, South Carolina. Ramsay was a graduate of Princeton College, and earned his doctorate in medicine from University of Pennsylvania. During the American Revolution, Ramsay served in the South Carolina Legislature. After the war, Ramsay was a member of the Continental Congress, and assisted in drafting the Constitution of the United States. Ramsay was assassinated by one of his previous patients in May of 1815.

Ramsay favored a strong, centralized government, and later became an ardent federalist. 

The skeptical reader must ask whether The History of the American Revolution is actually packaged propaganda. Ramsay's motivations to write The History of the American Revolution may have been fueled by a desire to claim the superiority of a strong, centralized government. 

On the contrary, Ramsay’s analysis of the events leading to the Revolution is equitable. His approach is a delicate appeal to ethos, establishing himself as a trustworthy narrator and an authority on the new United States.