Page 167 - American Stories, A History of the United States

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QUestiOns OF eQUaLity in the new repUbLic in this illustration, which appeared as the frontispiece
in the 1792 issue of The Lady’s Magazine and Repository of Entertaining Knowledge, the “Genius of the Ladies
Magazine” and the “Genius of emulation” (holding in her hand a laurel crown) present to Liberty a petition for the
rights of women.
SOURCe: Library of Congress Prints and Photograph Division(LC-DiG-ppmsca-02951)

was contrary to republican principles. In 1783, he and the officers who had served
during the Revolution formed the Society of the Cincinnati, a hereditary organiza-
tion in which membership passed from father to eldest son. The soldiers wanted to
maintain old friendships, but anxious republicans throughout America let out a howl
of protest. One South Carolina legislator, Aedanus Burke, warned that the Society
intended to create “an hereditary peerage . . . [which would] undermine the Constitu-
tion and destroy civil liberty.” After an embarrassed Washington called for reform-
ing the Society’s bylaws, the Cincinnati crisis receded. The fear of privilege remained,
however. Wealthy Americans dropped honorific titles such as “esquire.” Lawyers of
republican persuasion chided judges who had adopted the English custom of wearing
great flowing wigs to court.
The appearance of equality was as important as its achievement. In fact, the dis-
tribution of wealth in postwar America was more uneven than it had been in the mid-
eighteenth century. The sudden accumulation of large fortunes by new families made
other Americans particularly sensitive to aristocratic display. It seemed intolerable that
a revolution waged against a monarchy should produce a class of persons legally, or
even visibly, distinguished from their fellow citizens.
To root out the notion of a privileged class, states abolished laws of primogeniture
and entail. In colonial times, these laws allowed a landholder either to pass his entire
estate to his eldest son or to declare that his property could never be divided, sold, or
given away. Jefferson claimed that the repeal of these practices would eradicate “anti-
ent [sic] and future aristocracy; a foundation [has been] laid for a government truly

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