Given that it's one of the more combed-over events in history, histories of the American revolution often treat the event episodically. There's so much information that a text can only focus on a small portion without sacrificing depth. Histories of the revolution usually focus on the war itself and a few years before and after (for reasons described below).

Let's consider popular histories of the Boston Massacre as an example. "High School histories" will recount that the soldiers on guard were pelted with snowballs, at which point they fired.

However, just ten days before the massacre, British soldiers had killed an 11-year-old kid, and later gotten in a fight at a local rope shop. [1] The mob at the massacre weren't assembled aimlessly, but rather assembled by Crispus Attucks, in response to a British soldier refusing to pay a barber's bill. Attucks is a prime character for a populist history--he was a proletarian dockworker of mixed native-black ancestry, possibly an escaped slave, and the first to die in the revolution.

Uprisings were, in fact, rather common in the 13 colonies. The 1689 Boston revolt kidnapped the colonial governor in response to his shuttering of public democratic assemblies. Lemisch [1] notes that a 1764 British impressment expedition was foiled by professional sailors, who murdered a Marine in New York and later seized cannons to fire on royal ships in Newport.

The factor that distinguishes the American revolution, then, might be the degree to which wealthy elites backed it. As the post by /u/lord_mayor_of_reddit describes, elites only began backing popular uprisings once they had a financial interest in doing so, whether it be George Washington's interest in Ohio real estate, or aristocratic resistance to taxes on trade. I mean, if you're a colonial aristocrat and a popular (worst-case:slave) uprising occurred, you're many months away from any royal help--why else would you support popular progressive politics?

Let's jump ahead a few years to examine the second part of your question, focusing on examining the Constitution as a counter-revolution.

The revolution has ended, and the 13 colonies live under the articles of confederation--surely, now, without british rule, everyone will be find and dandy.

Spoiler alert--they weren't. Or, at least, the farmers weren't. The colonial economy was largely agricultural, meaning that farmers usually had to borrow money for tools, seed and supplies prior to a growing season. Without banking institutions, farmers and everyday folk borrowed on credit accounts directly from the stores--Hartigan-O'Connor [2] demonstrates that the colonial economy ran on this freely-given credit, connecting the farmer to the local store, the merchantman, and, finally, the globe.

With independence, each colony produced their own paper currency. In contrast to European mints, these paper currencies had the potential to fluctuate wildly in value. As such, global merchantmen (who might only stop in New England once a year) preferred payment in foreign currencies. These foreign currencies were quickly drained. The local store could no longer extend credit to their customers.

Moreover, there wasn't enough paper money to go around. Printing more money meant that those who held the old money would lose wealth through inflation . Most of the "1st edition" money had gone to the government's creditors, who tended to be wealthy, and wealthy folk generally don't like becoming less wealthy. They also tended to control the government. As farmers borrowed prior to planting, and essentially exchanged their crop for next year's supply, they rarely held any paper money.

Of course, revolution is no cheap hobby, and as such, after the revolution, the colonial governments had massive debts. With the economic restrictions listed above, this left the governments with a choice: they could either (a) print more money to pay off the public debts, angering the wealthy, or (b) enforce taxes to pay off the public debts, thereby robbing the poor to pay the rich.

They took option B, but this led to some immediate problems--how do you collect taxes from people who have no money?

As it turns out, you don't. (see: Paper Money Riot) Returning to Massachusetts, in Shay's Rebellion, farmers began revolting and capturing the public courthouses that enforced tax and debt collection.

In combination with the economic problems that caused heartache for aristocratic mercantilists, the 'founding fathers' reconvened in the Constitutional Convention. Primary concerns, of course, included coning a common currency backed by the federal government's ability to pay its debts (Article 1, Section 8). Shocked by Shay's Rebellion, the founders gave the fed enough teeth--an army and an executive, both of which it had previously lacked--so that the state might not have future problems with popular uprisings, which threatened both aristocratic rule and the value of the debt-backed currency.

In 1794, commoners in Western Pennsylvania revolted and refused to pay a federal tax on liquor, primarily whiskey. In contrast to the pre-revolutionary "intolerable acts," the whiskey rebellion seems little different--both were taxes passed by faraway governments on relatively everyday items in order to pay war debts. Backed by the new constitution, however, Washington was able to quickly crush the rebellion.

For further reading, I highly recommend Woody Holton's "Unruly Americans and the Origins of the Constitution."

Sources: [1] Jack Tar in the Streets: Merchant Seamen in the Politics of Revolutionary America. Jesse Lemisch. The William and Mary Quarterly. Vol. 25, No. 3 (Jul., 1968), pp. 371-407 [2] The Ties That Buy: Women and Commerce in Revolutionary America. Ellen Hartigan-O'Connor [3] Woody Holton's "Unruly Americans and the Origins of the Constitution."

Followup question - could the collapse of the Federalist party, the Second Great Awakening (in contrast with the deist/non-establishment spirit of the Constitution and many Founding Fathers), and the eventual rise of the Jeffersonian/Jacksonian democracy be seen as "finishing the job" of the populist revolution?

I'm particularly interested in whether the Great Awakening was a populist pushback against the "elite" Revolutionary-era establishment, many of whom were Deists, Freemasons, or otherwise believed in separation of church and state. Would the average contemporary American citizen perceive such ideas enshrined in the government, as "godless" or lacking of faith? Were contemporary anti-Federalists running on a "faith-based" agenda as part of their platform?

Hello, while waiting for additional answers, this post by /u/lord_mayor_of_reddit my get you some insight into what the revolution was about and some good sources you can read.

I answered a similar question here. Though the initial question was about the Progressive era and not the early republic era, it deals with many of the same themes. I'd be happy to follow up if you have more specific questions.

Founding Fathers**

Sorry for the typo in the title, I posted while in class because my professor randomly brought that up and didn't add anything else than that theory and I was afraid I'd forget to post later.