I’m reading Charles Sellers currently and he emphasizes your point about republicanism in that era. The carryover of “entrepreneurial spirit” that prompted yeoman farmers to settle further and further west during the Jefferson administration has not yet subsided. It was during Monroe’s administration that, he argues, that the essential aspects of capitalism were established by the gentry class and, then, there was no turning back.
That seems like an interesting thesis. My own view on the drive West was less an entrepreneurial spirit and more mania. Westward movement became the "thing to do," and everyone who was anyone went West.
I’m reading Charles Sellers currently and he emphasizes your point about republicanism in that era. The carryover of “entrepreneurial spirit” that prompted yeoman farmers to settle further and further west during the Jefferson administration has not yet subsided. It was during Monroe’s administration that, he argues, that the essential aspects of capitalism were established by the gentry class and, then, there was no turning back.
That seems like an interesting thesis. My own view on the drive West was less an entrepreneurial spirit and more mania. Westward movement became the "thing to do," and everyone who was anyone went West.