Chapter in Perspective

The development of a national market after 1815 transformed the American economy and society. But a second series of fundamental changes accompanied the market revolution: political changes that are often referred to as the rise of democracy. Democracy had not been valued particularly highly by the Revolutionary generation. To be sure, the United States in 1789 had widespread suffrage by European standards. But politics in the early Republic, despite the attack on aristocracy (Chapter 7), still exhibited a strong elitist strain. Leadership remained in the hands of economic and social elites, appeals to the masses were restrained, popular participation, though increasing, was limited, and politics played only a minor role in most people's lives. All of this changed in the Jacksonian period, as the earlier, more restrained style of politics gave way to the exuberant spirit of democracy.