The society that emerged from the Revolution bore little resemblance to the hierarchical world Americans had inherited from Britain. By the age of Andrew Jackson, broadly the 1830s and early 1840s, voting qualifications had been dramatically relaxed, established churches were in retreat, and a cacophonous marketplace of evangelical denominations competed for converts. The deference once accorded to gentlemen steadily eroded as ordinary citizens demanded a greater voice in every aspect of public life. Even status itself was redefined. In a society that increasingly celebrated enterprise and self-making, inherited rank mattered less than individual achievement and the accumulation of wealth. The result was a noisier, more contentious, and more democratic culture than the Revolution’s architects had ever envisioned, and something thoroughly American.
Wood did not celebrate every consequence of this transformation. But he regarded it as one of the Revolution’s most significant legacies. Americans gradually dismantled a culture of deference. The old assumption that wisdom flowed naturally from station gave way to a far more democratic and often more unruly conviction that individuals were entitled to judge for themselves and chart their own path. Having begun as a protest against arbitrary political authority, the Revolution ended by challenging authority of nearly every kind.
OVER TWO CENTURIES LATER, Americans are unmistakable heirs of the democratic culture Wood described. We see it in the suspicion of expertise chronicled by political scientist Tom Nichols in The Death of Expertise, in the modern impulse to “do your own research” (experts be damned!), and in the expectation that every opinion deserves a hearing regardless of credentials or station. Far from departures from the American tradition, they are products of it. The Revolution’s assault on hierarchy helped create a society in which inherited, and even earned, authority commands little automatic respect, and individuals feel entitled to render judgment on nearly every question.
As we approach America’s 250th birthday, I think another development would have fascinated Wood. He spent a lifetime chronicling Americans’ growing distrust of inherited authority, social rank, and deference. Yet his work also suggests a paradox he never fully explored. If Americans continue to distrust traditional sources of authority, they seem to be simultaneously drawn to new forms of hierarchy and deference.
Donald Trump has governed less as a constitutional republican (and certainly not a democrat) than as a leader openly attracted to the symbols and prerogatives of personal rule. His redesign of Washington, D.C., complete with grandiose architectural projects, monumental displays, military pageantry, and the conspicuous branding of public spaces with his own name and image, reflect a distinctly monarchical understanding of political power and prestige. His repeated assertions of executive authority at Congress’s expense similarly suggest an idea of leadership rooted in personal command, not republican restraint. His demand of fealty and obeisance, particularly from his own cabinet members and followers, would have seemed entirely normal in 1750, or even 1775.