In America’s revolutionary years—the late 1700s—the nation’s people rapidly transitioned from subjects of monarchy and hierarchy to citizens of democracy and meritocracy. Because society was intertwined with the government at the time, social customs began to emphasize equal opportunity and the pursuit of happiness for all American citizens. The new Republic demolished the hereditary, dependent aristocracy and replaced it with a natural, talent-based aristocracy. Using the new sociopolitical foundation of independence and egalitarianism, citizens were suddenly able to assault other traditional institutions—domestic and indentured servitude and slavery—as attacks on liberty. Gordon Wood argues in his critical essay “The Radicalism of the American
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Before the Revolution, those who amassed wealth monopolized political power, creating an interlocking directorate that passed down power and influence through generations. The establishment of a set social hierarchy in America, the ancient regime, made it difficult for other seeking social mobility to enter these webs of inherent personal and familial authority. Called Courtiers, these people received “position or rank…artificially from above—from hereditary or personal connections that…flowed from the crown” (Wood 24). Independent men whose “position or rank came naturally from their talent and from below, from recognition by the people” clashed with the Patriots (Wood 24). The Courtiers were loyalists; during the Revolution, families such as the Penns and Allens of Pennsylvania and the Crugers of New York emigrated, bringing with them the hereditary aristocracy. Although many of these families returned after the Revolution, Wood explains that America no longer had a use for them, instead allotting power to the patriots and the wealthy. Remnants of inherited privilege in law—primogeniture and entail—were abolished by the 1790s. The natural aristocracy had superseded the hereditary one, for the nascent Republic considered “a man’s merit to rest entirely with himself, without any regard to family, blood, or connection” (Wood 27). Patriot America assaulted the patriarchal monarchy, definitively replacing it with a natural aristocracy based on individual merit rather than family
Before the Revolution, those who amassed wealth monopolized political power, creating an interlocking directorate that passed down power and influence through generations. The establishment of a set social hierarchy in America, the ancient regime, made it difficult for other seeking social mobility to enter these webs of inherent personal and familial authority. Called Courtiers, these people received “position or rank…artificially from above—from hereditary or personal connections that…flowed from the crown” (Wood 24). Independent men whose “position or rank came naturally from their talent and from below, from recognition by the people” clashed with the Patriots (Wood 24). The Courtiers were loyalists; during the Revolution, families such as the Penns and Allens of Pennsylvania and the Crugers of New York emigrated, bringing with them the hereditary aristocracy. Although many of these families returned after the Revolution, Wood explains that America no longer had a use for them, instead allotting power to the patriots and the wealthy. Remnants of inherited privilege in law—primogeniture and entail—were abolished by the 1790s. The natural aristocracy had superseded the hereditary one, for the nascent Republic considered “a man’s merit to rest entirely with himself, without any regard to family, blood, or connection” (Wood 27). Patriot America assaulted the patriarchal monarchy, definitively replacing it with a natural aristocracy based on individual merit rather than family