Reformist minded and very far from the Hartford Wits, to be sure, but the Jeffersonians were still fundamentally the agents of a different sort of American elite. While these white male mechanics and yeoman farmers made for a more democratic ruling elite than the great colonial landholders and office-mongers, they remained relatively content with driving slaves, dominating women and children, and using the power of government to support their own interests—local and relatively liberal as they may have been.

“Anarchiad, a New England Poem” (1786-7)

“The Design of Anarchy: ‘The Anarchiad,’ 1786-1787” by J. K. Van Dover, Early American Literature 24, No. 3 (1989): 237-247.

Banning, Lance. The Jeffersonian Persuasion: Evolution of a Party Ideology. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. 1978.

Parrington, Vernon Louis. Main Currents in American Thought: An Interpretation of American Literature from the Beginnings to 1920, Vols. 1-3. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc. 1958 (Original Printing: 1927).

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