The New Aristocracy

In 1776 Americans declared themselves independent of more than arbitrary rule by a distant monarch. They also severed the ties of aristocracy. This was in itself a revolutionary notion.

It meant that political power, its attendant privilege and economic advantages would no longer be transferred by the blood. Earldoms, dukedoms, and kingdoms were banished from the territory and from the future of the American people. The citizen became the self-identifying unit of self-rule.

The generation of English colonists who gathered together in the summer of 1776 to declare their independence from the English crown knew that they had exhausted all other remedies. They had petitioned, beseeched, and protested. Finally, they had resisted with force of arms at Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill. Their declaration of independence was the last resort, the last redoubt, the final refuge. As we say today, they were putting it all on the line.

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