ABSTRACT
Civilization of the eighteenth century had died, and a new America was emerging, whatever it might prove to be. In spite of the Declaration of Independence, America was not yet free, but was still swirling around in the wake of European States. The simple economic conditions of marriage in America had done away with the European idea of dowries, and American boys and girls “married for love,” but the hard, grinding work of daily toil and the incessant childbearing left little time for romance, and both minds and emotions became starved. New England, rapidly being altered by force of circumstances from a maritime to a manufacturing section, was disloyal almost to the point of treason. If America has stood for anything unique in the history of the world, it has been for the American dream, the belief in the common man and the insistence upon his having, as far as possible, equal opportunity in every way with the rich one.
