What did republicanism mean for economic life? In early-nineteenth-century America, it meant private property, market exchange, individual opportunity, and activist governments. Throughout the nation, and especially in the Northeast, republican state legislatures embraced a “neomercantilist” system of government-assisted economic development. And it worked. Beginning around 1800, the average per capita income of Americans increased by more than 1 percent a year — more than 30 percent in a single generation.