Jesse Wegman

They're armed.

They're drunk.

And he barricades himself in his house with

about two dozen of his friends and allies.

And the mob approaches the house.

There are words exchanged.

A gun is fired.

There end up being about seven people who are killed.

There are many more wounded.

Wilson is almost pulled out of the house himself.

They breach the front door.

They go in with clubs and

And they try to pull him down the stairs.

He actually escapes with his life.

He leaves town in the middle of the night.

He hides out for several days and doesn't come back until things have quieted down.

But it was this incident really drove me to want to write this book because I was so struck that a man who was –

committed to the idea of popular sovereignty, the idea that people are the foundation of all power in government, would experience a life-threatening attack by a mob and come out the other side no less committed to that ideal.

I wanted to know how could somebody experience that sort of attack and not for a second stop and think maybe I don't want democracy.

Maybe democracy is too dangerous.