One of the most curious anomalies in American history was the way southern aristocrats led by Jefferson and Madison assumed leadership of a Republican party that in the North was composed mostly of unaristocratic sorts—common farmers, artisans, manufacturers, and hustling entrepreneurs. The southern planters were able to link themselves with these ordinary working people in the North by stressing their common involvement in productive labor in contrast to all those northern Federalist professionals, bankers, speculators, and moneyed men who never grew or made a single thing and lived off their
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