A Nation of Inconsistencies : Forging a New America, 1789-1860

Examining the birth of American society between 1789 and 1860, this social history reveals enduring conflicts between popular ideals of liberty and equality and the harsh realities of racial and indigenous disenfranchisement. Ordinary Americans shaped a nation marked by democratic promise alongside deep systemic injustice.

A Nation of Inconsistencies is a social history of the creation of a new American society from 1789 to 1860, told through the lives of ordinary men and women from all parts of the country and all levels of society. The American Revolution destroyed certain kinds of hierarchy and popularized a strong commitment to liberty and opportunity, political equality for white males, a government of the people, and the rule of law. But as Americans created a republican society that was unique in the world, they also built a dual state where white males redistributed wealth from African-Americans in the form of slavery and from indigenous peoples in the form of land to themselves and their families. For African-Americans and Indians, the United States was not a republican society but a predatory state that expropriated their labor and territories to help build a liberal, prosperous democratic society for others.