American Thought and Writing, Volume Two, The Revolution and the Early Republic

Riverside Editions under the general editorship of Gordon N. Ray. The American colonist in 1760 lived in an environment that was not substantially different from his grandfather's. He owned the same kind of house, traveled in the same fashion, communicated with his fellows in much the same way, drew power for his production from similar sources, and for that matter produced and consumed much the same kinds of goods. The span between the close of the French and Indian War and the Treaty of Ghent measured only 51 years--but they were years of incredibly swift change. Between lay two major revoutions, the rise and fall of Napoleon, the attainment of American independence, the ratification of the Constitution, an explosion of scientific knowledge, the culmination of the Industrial Revolution, the formation of modern urban society, and a complete change to methods of transportation and communication. The America of 1820 lived in what was almost literally a new society, so recently built that one man's lifetime might have spanned it all. At the center of this period of change was the American Revolution, a relatively conservative revolution fought to protect certain rights and practices the colonists believed they already possessed. Its aim was not to destroy an established order, but rather to be allowed to create a new order without interference. American radicals, by European standards, were no more than cautious liberals; yet their Revolution was a true revolution whch wrought irrevocable alterations to American society. In some cases simply by allowing movements already under way to continue without hindrance, in others by irritiating wholly new trends. The Revolution did not create an egalitarian, level, homogeneous American society. The war disturbed but did not substantially rearrange the colonial class structure which, by the mid-18th century, was already different from that of England and Europe. Wealth, talent, education, language, manners, lineage, and such things still counted in the America of 1800 as they had in 1750 but never so much as they did abroad, and not quite so much as they had a half-century earlier. Enlightened Americans, like Jefferson, believed in leadership by "a natural aristocracy of worth" and in the social and political guidance of "gentlemen"--which was not the same as the British "gentry." Most would probably have agreed with John Adams, who, though a committed revolution, felt that there had to be stability and order in the new society, "decency and respect and veneration introduced for persons in authority, at every rank." On the other hand, this postwar society was by far the most open and flexible in the world. It included, of course, both rich and poor, educated and ignorant, gentleman and boor, but, as Lafayette noted, the gap between them was much narrower than in Europe. In a general way, almost everyone within it had a chance to better hiself and his childen; there were too many roads to success for any goup or class to monopolize them. The war and its subsequent contest for wealth and power opened the way upward for men of relatively humble origins--Patrick Henry, George Clinton, Alexander Hamilton, John Marshall, to name a few; or the two richest men of the era, John Jacob Astor, a penniless German boy, and Stephen Girard, a French-born tradesman. Land, resources, and opportunities were too plentiful to be appropriated for the benefit of the few. At the time of the Revolution, the American colonies had been settled for more than a century and a half. Colonial trade and manufacturing were severely limited by British law. It was possible to build a fortune in the colonies, as "King" Derby of Salem and John Hancock of Boston did, but colonial bakers, merchants, and planters were for the most part tightly shut within the walls of the British mercantile system. Smudging and corner wear to cover and page edges. Corner page crease. Pages clean and free of markings and highlighting.…