Wealth and Power in the Early Republic by Mandell discusses the tumultuous timeline of America’s socioeconomic and political development. The timeline begins from 1783, America’s Independence from Great Britain, discussing essentially from scratch, with blueprints from Great Britain, Jubilee, and Agrarian laws, the prospect and direction the country is to take. Philosophical arguments among intellectuals are rampant, disseminated through pamphlets and newspapers, on America’s future regarding property, education, wealth, government, and thus reins of power.
Mandell expounds on the building axioms of America beginning with aristocracy and nobility inheritance. To curtail the hoarding and perpetual control of wealth and power through noble bloodlines, a “natural aristocracy” is proposed to distribute wealth and power to individuals with talent rather than inheritance. This postulate, at the time America was scraping together the frameworks of civilization, was much too idealistic. Though the wealth and power did go to individuals with talent and higher education: merchants, lawyers, and financial speculators, the same outcome was fated as that of the old world. A concentration of wealth and power to a select few, perpetuated by legal cunnings, however, did not at all result in the acquiescence of the people. It provoked wide criticisms and debates, though seldom amounting to anything, became the slow and arduous process of building a democratic republic.
In conclusion, the nascent nation of the New World, America, lacked a conducive dilution necessary for hasty development. Resources, population, institutions, and settlements were few, and so, it was noticeable to its citizens from even a cursory survey of the undertakings of the elite class. Communities were still small and intertwined, making the affluent elite stand out and be on grounds for much scrutiny, speculation, and thus censure. Diffusion of information needed spread only so far, and the elites would use rudimentary forms of propaganda and barriers of entry to remain in a position of power. Compared to today, where it is much too sophisticated and established for proper scrutiny, has set a course for the tremendous growth we see in contemporary America. Of course, the difference in scale is tremendous and so are the repercussions. This lack of hastiness allowed somewhat for an ideal environment for the deliberations regarding the building and forming of a nation.