8 Creating a Republican Culture

1790–1820

In 1818, John Adams reflected that “the real American Revolution” was the “radical change in the principles, opinions, sentiments, and affections of the people.” Adams was hinting at the profound transformation that Americans experienced, moving from subject to citizen, and creating a republican government and society. While many wondered about the fate of the new republic, the young nation quickly embraced the dynamics of change, and a new republican culture was born.

America’s developing market economy shaped many aspects of that culture, and manufacturing became part of an American identity, especially after the War of 1812 weaned Americans off foreign goods. On the home front, the democratic ideals of republicanism weakened hierarchical social relationships, enabling women and others once considered “dependents” to imagine lives in a more equal society. Republican values also affected religion, where the Second Great Awakening’s democratic appeal invested men and women with belief in their own power to choose their eternal fate. Enslaved men and women, by contrast, were excluded from this republican idealism, though they were very much a part of the nation’s economic life. Slavery coexisted uneasily with celebrations of American liberty, and even Thomas Jefferson, himself a slave owner, warned of slavery’s gathering clouds.