New states adopted constitutions that did not contain property qualifications for voting, a move designed to stimulate migration across their borders. They argued for universal manhood suffrage, or voting rights for all White male adults. However, as Federalist ideals fell out of favor, ordinary men from the middle and lower classes increasingly questioned the idea that property ownership was an indication of virtue. The spirit of democratic reform became most evident in the widespread belief that all White men, regardless of whether they owned property, had the right to participate in elections.īefore the 1820s, many state constitutions had imposed property qualifications for voting as a means to keep democratic tendencies in check. A new type of deference-to the will of the majority and not to a ruling class-took hold. In the early 1820s, deference to pedigree began to wane in American society. With the exception of John Adams, who was from Massachusetts, all the early presidents-Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe-were members of Virginia’s elite slaveholder aristocracy. The presidents who followed Washington shared the first president’s pedigree. Washington and those who celebrated his role as president established a standard for elite, virtuous leadership that cast a long shadow over subsequent presidential administrations. Although it was fiction, this story about Washington taught generations of children about the importance of virtue. The story spoke to Washington’s unflinching honesty and integrity, encouraging readers to remember the deference owed to such towering national figures.įigure 10.3 “ Father, I Can Not Tell a Lie: I Cut the Tree” (1867) by John McRae, after a painting by George Gorgas White, illustrates Mason Locke Weems’s tale of Washington’s honesty and integrity as revealed in the incident of the cherry tree. Generations of nineteenth-century American children read its fictional story of a youthful Washington chopping down one of his father’s cherry trees and, when confronted by his father, confessing: “I cannot tell a lie” ( Figure 10.3). An Anglican minister named Mason Locke Weems wrote the classic tale of Washington’s unimpeachable virtue in his 1800 book, The Life of Washington. His judgment and decisions were considered beyond reproach. Republican statesmen in the 1780s and 1790s expected and routinely received deferential treatment from others, and ordinary Americans deferred to their “social betters” as a matter of course.įor the generation who lived through the American Revolution, for instance, George Washington epitomized republican virtue, entitling him to great deference from his countrymen. Deference shown to them dovetailed with republicanism and its emphasis on virtue, the ideal of placing the common good above narrow self-interest. Such individuals were members of what many Americans in the early republic agreed was a natural aristocracy. Deference was the practice of showing respect for individuals who had distinguished themselves through military accomplishments, educational attainment, business success, or family pedigree. After 1816, in which Democratic-Republican James Monroe defeated his Federalist rival Rufus King, the Federalists never ran another presidential candidate.īefore the 1820s, a code of deference had underwritten the republic’s political order. The gradual decline of the Federalist Party is evident in its losses in the presidential contests that occurred between 18. After the election of Thomas Jefferson-the Revolution of 1800-the Democratic-Republicans gained ascendance. The Federalists, led by Washington, Hamilton, and Adams, dominated American politics in the 1790s. The first party system in the United States shaped the political contest between the Federalists and the Democratic-Republicans. However, this expansion of political power was limited to White men women, free Black people, and Native Americans remained-or grew increasingly-disenfranchised by the American political system. Political leaders and parties rose to popularity by championing the will of the people, pushing the country toward a future in which a wider swath of citizens gained a political voice. In the 1820s, American political culture gave way to the democratic urges of the citizenry.
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