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For many decades after the American Revolution, the image of the Republic shaped people's thinking and influenced events. Yet the simple republic and a growing, increasingly complex, capitalist America represented a clear paradox in American thinking. James Kirke Paulding was at one pole of that paradox. The first American writer to devote his career to describing America and Americans, to social commentary and social criticism, Paulding came to his subject as a crusader, his cause being the defense of the republic as a way of life, an economic and social system, and an ethical code....

In the midst of the United States' immense economic growth in the 1850s, Americans worried about whether the booming agricultural, industrial, and commercial expansion came at the price of cherished American values such as honesty, hard work, and dedication to the common good. Was the nation becoming greedy, selfish, vulgar, and cruel? Was there such a thing as too much prosperity?

At the same time, the United States felt the influence of the rise of popular mass-circulation newspapers and magazines and the surge in American book publishing. Concern over living correctly as well as...