ABSTRACT
With the rise of Unitarianism and the development of the new industrialism, a ruder and more vigorous age entered Boston. With its twenty-five thousand inhabitants Boston ranked fourth in size among American cities. Philadelphia, the social capital of America, was nearly three times as large; New York nearly two and a half times; and even Baltimore had lately come to exceed her in population. To add that Fisher Ames and Boston Federalism, defeated in their cherished projects, were both suffering from an extraordinarily aggravated case of the political spleen. Gentlemen like Fisher Ames were careful to appear well in public; they liked to be regarded as faithful stewards of the common weal. In temper and manners Tom Paine belonged wholly to the tie-wig school that swaggered till the War of 1812 and then became obsolete overnight. In cleaving to wit and abandoning Puritanism, Paine broke with sober Boston convention, and soon all respectable folk began to shake their heads.
