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254Li k e a n e a r t h q u a k e , t h e American Revolution shook the European monarchical order, and its aftershocks reverberated for decades. By %u201ccreating a new republic based on the rights of the individual, the North Americans introduced a new force into the world,%u201d the eminent German historian Leopold von Ranke warned the king of Bavaria in 1854, and this force might cost the monarch his throne. Before 1776, %u201ca king who ruled by the grace of God had been the center around which everything turned. Now the idea emerged that power should come from below [from the people].%u201dOther republican-inspired upheavals%u2014England%u2019s Puritan Revolution of the 1640s and the French Revolution of 1789%u2014ended in political chaos and military rule. Similar fates befell many Latin American republics that won independence from Spain in the early nineteenth century. But the American states escaped both anarchy and dictatorship. Having been raised in a Radical Whig political culture that viewed standing armies and powerful generals as instruments of tyranny, General George Washington left public life in 1783 to manage his plantation, astonishing European observers but bolstering the authority of elected Patriot leaders. %u201c%u2019Tis a Conduct so novel,%u201d American painter John Trumbull reported from London, that it is %u201cinconceivable to People [here].%u201dThe great task of fashioning representative republican governments absorbed the energy and intellect of an entire generation and was rife with conflict. Seeking to perpetuate the elite-led polity of the colonial era, Federalists celebrated %u201cnatural aristocrats%u201d such as Washington and condemned the radical republicanism of the French Revolution. In response, Jefferson and his Republican followers claimed the Fourth of July as their holiday and %u201cwe the people%u201d as their political language. %u201cThere was a grand democrat procession in Town on the 4th of July,%u201d came a report from Baltimore: %u201cAll the farmers, tanners, black-smiths, shoemakers, etc. were there . . . and afterwards they went to a grand feast.%u201dMany people of high status worried that the new state governments were too attentive to the demands of such ordinary workers and their families. When considering a bill, Connecticut conservative Ezra Stiles grumbled, every elected official %u201cinstantly thinks how it will affect his constituents%u201d rather than how it would enhance the general welfare. What Stiles criticized as irresponsible, however, most Americans welcomed. The concerns of ordinary citizens were now paramount, and traditional elites trembled.Hammering Out a Federal Republic1787%u20131820The Political Crisis of the 1790sThe Federalists Implement the ConstitutionHamilton%u2019s Financial ProgramJefferson%u2019s Agrarian VisionThe French Revolution Divides AmericansThe Rise of Political PartiesA Republican Empire is BornSham Treaties and Native American LandsMigration and the Changing Farm EconomyThe Jefferson PresidencyJefferson and the WestThe War of 1812 and the Transformation of PoliticsConflict in the Atlantic and the WestThe War of 1812The Federalist LegacyCHAPTER7learning focusWhy did the United States survive the challenges of its first three decades to become a viable, growing independent republic?%u00a9 Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers. For review purposes only. Do not distribute.