Documents from Reading the American Past

Chapter 10

Introduction to the Documents

In the early republic, Americans continually referred to the ideals of the Revolution to measure the nation's progress, as the following documents illustrate. Signs of unmistakable progress seemed clearest to Jeffersonian Republicans, who claimed to embody the revolutionary legacy. The ideals of the Revolution did not lead simply to virtue and patriotism, however. Many Americans celebrated liberty by engaging in unvirtuous acts of selfishness, irresponsibility, and even crime. Farmers moving to the frontier claimed the right to pursue happiness on lands inhabited for millennia by Indians. Thomas Jefferson and other leaders seldom hesitated to uphold the rights of white citizens at the expense of Native Americans and African Americans. Slaves and free black Americans often embraced the ideals of the Revolution while faulting white Americans for violating them by countless practices of racial discrimination. Some white Americans believed that the inalienable rights inscribed in the Declaration of Independence extended beyond white men, but most did not.