The United States has been a nation of dreamers since its beginning. It was formed to give many families a fresh start, free of an oppressive government and a place to build a life and a family. That ideal of having a better life is still very relevant and true today. Unfortunately, while everyone has equal opportunities in life, events in individuals lives sometimes prevent some from reaching that goal of the “American Dream.” This chance and inevitability of life has resulted in conflict between classes known as the “The Common” and “The Elite.” This conflict can often be attributed in history to politics, land ownership, and religious affiliations. It is important to note that politics, land ownership, and religion are not mutually exclusive; they all affect one another and are a part of a cyclical motif in our nation’s history.
Religion in the U.S. can at times be very prideful, particularly in the Christian church. There is a huge divide in what groups are considered more important than others. A lot of times, humanity uses religion as a way to progress and justify how some people act and why they do things a certain way. If you look at the very beginning, Europeans all had their own beliefs in how it should conquer the New World. In the north we see the rise of the Puritan Church, which sought to separate itself from the Catholic Church. Towards the south, the conquistadors tried to save the souls of the savages through Catholicism. Through the course of America’s beginning, we see the elites were rich, white, and Christian. However, during the Second Great Awakening, historians observed a shift in the tune of America which proved to be a very wide spread and inclusive movement. This revival was different in that it included slaves and women, which challenged the ideas of social hierarchy, all the while promoting forgiveness and humility. The Second Great Awakening was a great tool to try and bridge that gap between the elites and the common. Nevertheless, it also created some resentment by a few elites. In many ways, the elites often rejected the common folk. One of the ways they often rejected others was through religion and politics. Elites throughout our history were often Anglicans while the common folk were Puritans. The Puritans became a political movement within the Church that wanted to cleanse itself of the Catholic beliefs and practices that dominated the Anglican Church. This separation caused a lot of resentment and rejection of the new branch of Christianity, some of which still can be true today. To the Anglicans, Puritans were poor drunkards and sex addicts. This crass belief system led to pride on both sides, and for a while, led both sects very far away from what each one believed. The differences in beliefs led to conflict in later years that affected the political process of the United States.
If you look in the broad scheme of history, you will start to realize that American politics were shaped heavily by the constant disagreements between the elites and the common folk. At our beginning when the Articles of Confederation were ratified, it seemed as though our quest for freedom from our oligarchical past was not met. The government some wanted to create gave way too much power to the elites. This angered a lot of citizens, particularly the Anti-federalists. The Anti-federalists were known as the ‘common man,’ who wanted less central government and were comprised mostly by rural farmers. In the end, the elites and the common people found a middle ground that at the time seemed to benefit both sides. In Shay’s Rebellion, we see that the abuse of power by the elites directly affected and hurt the common folk. This can also be seen in the discord between classes in the Alien and Sedition Act of 1798, in which its restrictions on immigration and freedom of speech was shown to only benefit the elite. Despite all these disagreements between the two classes, we see that our country was headed in a certain direction that was to be representative of all its people. At times the scales were tipped, however they always would return back to the middle ground.
Universally, the one thing that usually separates the elites from all other classes is ownership of a desirable good or service. At the beginning of our nation’s founding, that desirable good was land. Europe originally sought after American land in hopes that it contained riches and resources that would bring them more money. The three G’s were their primary source of motivation: God, to spread Christianity; Gold, riches to provide and buy goods; and Glory, or better known as land, because land equaled power for countries. Fast-forward to when the first settlers arrive in which they claimed land that was not theirs to express their dominance over the Native Americans. Settlers instantly viewed the natives as savages and beneath themselves, making it much easier to gain control over them. Here is where the Encomienda System enters, created by the Spanish to control the Native Americans while they colonized the New World (Lecture 3). This oppressive system was to exact control over the natives that expressed the elites power over them. This is one of the ways the elites used the natives to do the hard labor needed to colonize the new land. As can be seen, the expression of dominance by one race or organization can lead to racial inequality, something the U.S. struggled with for many years. After the Native Americans came the slave trade which brought Africans to America. The slave trade was comprised of owners, often elites. In one chapter of the “Apostles of Disunion,” one woman’s account stated that “she had rather see the last of her race, men, women and children, immolated in one common funeral pile…, than see them subjected to the degradation of civil, political and social equality with the negro race” (29-30).