I. THE CONFEDERATION

When peace came in 1783 there were in the United States approximately
three million people, who were spread over the whole Atlantic coast
from Maine to Georgia and back into the interior as far as the Alleghany
Mountains; and a relatively small number of settlers had crossed the
mountain barrier. About twenty per cent of the population, or some
six hundred thousand, were negro slaves. There was also a large alien
element of foreign birth or descent, poor when they arrived in America,
and, although they had been able to raise themselves to a position of
comparative comfort, life among them was still crude and rough. Many
of the people were poorly educated and lacking in cultivation and
refinement and in a knowledge of the usages of good society. Not only
were they looked down upon by other nations of the world; there was
within the United States itself a relatively small upper class inclined
to regard the mass of the people as of an inferior order.

Thus, while forces were at work favorable to democracy, the gentry
remained in control of affairs after the Revolution, although their
numbers were reduced by the emigration of the Loyalists and their power
was lessened. The explanation of this aristocratic control may be found
in the fact that the generation of the Revolution had been accustomed
to monarchy and to an upper class and that the people were wont to
take their ideas and to accept suggestions from their betters without
question or murmur. This deferential attitude is attested by the
indifference of citizens to the right of voting. In our own day, before
the great extension of woman suffrage, the number of persons voting
approximated twenty per cent of the population, but after the Revolution
less than five per cent of the white population voted. There were many
limitations upon the exercise of the suffrage, but the small number of
voters was only partially due to these restrictions, for in later years,
without any radical change in suffrage qualifications, the proportion of
citizens who voted steadily increased.

The fact is that many of the people did not care to vote. Why should
they, when they were only registering the will or the wishes of their
superiors? But among the relatively small number who constituted the
governing class there was a high standard of intelligence. Popular
magazines were unheard of and newspapers were infrequent, so that men
depended largely upon correspondence an