JIll Lepore – Popular Politics in Early America

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Jill LePore attacks the relationship of America’s Democracy with its people over its history through the writings of various political activists and historians, most notably Thomas Jefferson, Noah Webster, Frederick Jackson Turner, and Sean Wilentz. She begins with an idealistic image presented to children regarding the positive impact of a Democracy in the United States. After all, it is important to establish an acceptance for the way the country operates into its citizens at a young age. Almost immediately after, however, LePore presents the arguments of Noah Webster and Thomas Jefferson ad they rivaled in their theories of who should hold control in the government.

Noah Webster was what one could call an elitist, while Thomas Jefferson argued for the masses of the people. LePore provides adequate evidence from both sides to shape their arguments, which both contain respectable logic. Webster was concerned that the “village idiot” had as much of a say in a Democratic government as a well-educated man, while Jefferson argued that that was exactly the moral way. These “monocrats” like Webster, however, lost influence and eventually became irrelevant as the Democratic government took hold in the early 19^thCentury. It is interesting, however, to think about how history would have shaped itself had the reverse occurred, and what we would consider man’s rights to be today. Would the masses come to accept an elitist regime or would they have rebelled themselves, resulting in a Democracy at a later date?

LePore also presents Frederck Jackson Turner’s theory of land as the root of American Democracy. The United States was different; for a vast majority of its history there was always land to expand, thus land was available to the common man with much more availability than in Europe. Americans have European roots, and in Europe land was power. Thus by following the same idea, there was much more power to be shared in America than their ancestors previously experienced. As can be seen all over the world, once new segments of the population begin to gain political power at an increasing rate, more of the population comes to desire their share as well. With Turner’s theory, Democracy was inevitable. The resources in North America were too vast for the population to sit in content with a lesser role than some of their peers, allowing a small segment of the population to rule over them.

Lastly, LePore presents Sean Wilentz’s demonstrations of how individuals can indirectly affect politics through their actions. Even without political power, in his primary example, a slave is able to influence later legislation by attempting to revolt. This then became a political move, because if it had not happened, policies would not have been changed when they did. The people, therefore, don’t have to have “official” political power to influence politics.

Wilentz’s ideas, along with Democracy’s flaws of greed and corruption, tease at the idea of imperfections in a Democratic government.

Jill Lepore’s article “People Power: Revisiting the Origins of American Democracy” reads like a brief historiography of some of the more prominent takes on the history of the American Democratic movement. Lepore does a solid job of organizing and chronicling the changes in historical thought about our democracy over time.

Lepore has portrayed the debates and arguments over the American Democracy as becoming much more complicated as time has progressed. The first book, Mabel B. Casner and Ralph Henry Gabriel’s “The Rise of American Democracy,” seems simple in its writing and intent. The play at the end of the book is used to demonstrate the theme that frontier land and hardworking men were largely responsible for the rise of the political system.

Lepore then sets up a contrast between Noah Webster and Thomas Jefferson that is also representative of the conflicting views of the Federalists and Jeffersonian Republicans. As the Federalists begin to lose ground, Jefferson’s beloved farmers gain more power and say in the government. This is something that really ticked off Webster. H believed that he had more to lose than small, poor farmers and therefore his vote should weigh more.

Lepore does a nice job of bringing in Alexis de Tocqueville’s opinions on equality and democracy. Tocqueville is such a widely read opinion that it is crucial for Lepore to include him in this historiography. The arguments made by Frederick Jackson Turner and Sean Wilentz contradict each other on the importance of the West and the frontier struggle to the development of American Democracy. While Turner’s argument glorifying the brave men who trekked out West is noble, Wilentz seems to make a stronger point that urban workers were the most democratic element of Jacksonian America.

Wilentz’s use of major political figures intertwining with less prominent men is a smart way to approach such a broad topic. Wilentz knows that in order to fully understand history, a careful balance of the big and small must struck. If this balance is made successfully, a reader or a student will be able to best learn about the past. They will receive the fullest possible idea of history and how people really lived. This will give us in the present, the best tools necessary to, as Casner and Gabriel wrote, “strive to learn not to repeat these errors. The generations which lived before us left us a heritage of noble ideals; let us hold fast to these” (1).

Tag: JIll Lepore

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