LOOBY, Christopher. (1996) Voicing America. Language, Literary Form, and the Origins of the United States. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

p. 3-4: Precisely because the new nation's self-image was characterized by its difference from traditional (quasi-natural) conception of the nation, indeed by the conscious recognition of its historical contingency that was produced by the abrupt performativity of its inception, vocal utterance has served, in telling instances, as a privileged figure for the making of the United States. This figuration has occasionally taken the odd form of an improbable claim that the United States was actually "spoken into being."

p. 4: To anticipate a bit: since the new United States, by all accounts, manifestly lacked the kind of legitimacy and stability that might be expected of a nation that was grounded in blood loyalty or immemorial facticity -- since its legitimacy was explicitly grounded in an appeal to rational interest, not visceral passion -- voice embodied a certain legitimating charisma that print could not.