A History of the American People

With the British gone and Washington back in Mount Vernon, how was America to govern
itself? It did not miss monarchy. The British crown was only a parliamentary monarchy anyway;
18th-century Britain was a semi-republic in many ways. When Benjamin Rush, the radical
doctor who ran Washington's army medical services, was on a prewar visit to England, the
attendant at the House of Lords (parliament was in recess) allowed him to disport himself on the
throne for a considerable time' and Rush found himselfseized with a kind of horror.’ The
Americans, wrote Jefferson, shed monarchy with as much ease as would have attended their throwing off an old and putting on a new suit of clothes.' Monarchy did not make much practical sense in a country without an aristocracy. America had a sort of ruling class-in Virginia, about one man in twenty-five was agentleman,' further north one in ten and the distinction mattered
less. In Virginia about 8 percent of the population controlled a third of the land, so there was a
class divide based on wealth. Distinctions in status were reflected in careless speech. Even
Washington spoke of ordinary farmers as the Grazing Multitude.' His aide, Hamilton, referred to theunthinking populace.' John Adams termed them the common herd of mankind,' and Gouverneur Morris felt ordinary peoplehad no morals but their interests.' But this was just club
talk. Virtually all American landowners engaged in trade. For once they rejected a saying of
Locke's, Trade is wholly inconsistent with a gentleman's calling.' In fact New Yorkers stood the adage on its head, merchants listing themselves in directories asgentlemen,' if they were
prosperous enough. And, since it cost only £400 to set yourself up as a merchant in New York,
as opposed to £5,000 in England-that was why so many emigrated-there were plenty of
gentlemen' in Manhattan. In country districts, money was short, credit hard to get, monetary instruments crude, so rich landowners, if they had it, lent money out-Charles Carroll of Anapolis lent £24,000 to neighbors. This worked as a kind of bastard feudalism, supplemented by family links, so that a really rich man, especially in Maryland and the South, had a following. But the kind of clientage taken for granted by English dukes in their districts, supplemented by pocket boroughs, simply did not exist. There was no top tier in white society-no bottom tier either. Then again, anyone deciding how America was to be governed had to take account of what was perhaps the most pervasive single characteristic of the country-restlessness. Few people stayed still for long. Mostly they were moving upwards. And vast numbers were moving geographically too. A British observer noted, wonderingly, that Americans movedas their
avidity and restlessness incite them. They acquire no attachment to Place; but wandering about
Seems engrafted in their Nature; and it is weakness incident to it that they Should forever
imagine the Lands further off, are Still better than those upon which they are already Settled.'
This mobility acted as an economic dynamic-restlessness was one reason the American economy
expanded so fast, as new, and often better, land was brought into production and new economic
growth-centers created almost overnight in frontier districts. But constant moving broke up
settled society, worked against hierarchy and respect,' and promoted assumptions of equality. There is a lot of evidence that farmers' money incomes rose during the war as food was sold to armies for cash. Spending habits grew more luxurious-farmers' wives demanded not only tea but tea-sets. Merchantsset up their carriage.' The same thing was happening in England-read Jane
Austen's novels-but in America it started lower down the socioeconomic scale. And in America
there were fewer of the moralists who, in England, deplored the spread of luxuries among the
common people. On the contrary: America was already developing the notion that all were
entitled to the best if they worked hard enough, that aiming high was not only morally acceptable
but admirable. Silk handkerchiefs, feather mattresses, shop-made dresses, imported bonnets-why
shouldn't people have them? The more we have the better,' enthused James Otis,if we can