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PLAN GALLERY LXXIV
GALLERY LXXIV

The Republican Experiment

Republicanism was a theory with a known failure mode. Every educated American had read that republics die of luxury and corruption, and almost every political fight of the early republic is people accusing each other of being the symptom.

Charles Horton Cooley
ON THE FLOOR
Charles Horton Cooley
Theorist designate - flagged from the theory registry (#8494)
“You learned who you are by watching what other people reflected back at you. The mirror, it turns out, was people all along.”
Edward Soja
ON THE FLOOR
Edward Soja
Theorist designate - flagged from the theory registry (#8494)
“Space is not the stage the story happens on - it is one of the actors. Ask WHERE, and half the mystery answers itself.”
George Herbert Mead
ON THE FLOOR
George Herbert Mead
Theorist designate - flagged from the theory registry (#8494)
“The self is a conversation: the I speaking, the Me listening with everyone else's ears. You rehearse society every time you think.”
AM2-091 · The Republican Experiment — Open the drawer
A handwritten list recording names, ages, and property valuations of men enrolled in a local militia company, typical of early republic civic participation records that conflated republican virtue with economic standing and armed readiness.
AM2-092 · The Republican Experiment — What is this thing?
A gilt eagle medal suspended from a blue ribbon, awarded to Continental Army officers after 1783. Membership was hereditary and exclusive, sparking immediate accusations of aristocratic corruption in the new republic.
AM2-093 · The Republican Experiment — Read the source
General George Washington's farewell address to state governors upon resigning his military commission, warning against sectional jealousy and the corruption of republican virtue through luxury and self-interest.
AM2-094 · The Republican Experiment — Map it / time it
A 1791 printed petition opposing Alexander Hamilton's Bank of the United States, signed by Philadelphia merchants and artisans. Circulated regionally to build opposition, it names specific corrupting mechanisms—monopoly, debt, aristocracy—that petitioners claimed threatened republican virtue.
AM2-095 · The Republican Experiment — Two sources disagree
A 1798 printed broadside accusing Republican leaders of corruption and monarchist conspiracy, exemplifying how early Americans weaponized classical republican theory against political opponents during the party conflicts of the 1790s.
AM2-096 · The Republican Experiment — State the claim
A four-volume collection of 144 political essays published 1720–1723 in London by John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon, reprinted in America 1754–1755. Cato's Letters became the most widely cited republican theory text in colonial America, warning that luxury, standing armies, and executive power destroy free states.
AM2-097 · The Republican Experiment — Take the other side
Hamilton's 1791 Treasury report arguing federal support for American manufacturing. Wrapped classical republican language around concrete demands for tariffs, bounties, and infrastructure—material interests dressed in Enlightenment vocabulary.
AM2-098 · The Republican Experiment — Weigh it
A representative merchant's letter of credit from the 1790s American republic, documenting a trader's request for financial backing. Such documents reveal whether republican political language masked practical economic interests or reflected genuine ideological commitment.
AM2-099 · The Republican Experiment — Build the answer
A reprinted passage from Cato's Letters (1720–1723), the political essays that taught American colonists to recognize luxury and corruption as republican death-signs, distributed as a cheap printed sheet for public reading.
AM2-100 · The Republican Experiment — For the file
A four-volume collection of 144 essays on republican virtue, corruption, and the decay of states, widely reprinted in the colonies and read by the founding generation as a manual of political warning.
AM2-101 · The Republican Experiment — Go and look
A working account book from a Philadelphia import-export merchant, recording credit transactions, debt collection, and inventory during the ratification crisis and early federal period.
AM2-102 · The Republican Experiment — Now, today
James Madison's essay arguing that a large republic could control factionalism through representation and scale, directly addressing the founding generation's fear that republics inevitably collapse into corruption and mob rule.
AM2-103 · The Republican Experiment — Teach it back
A collected edition of early 18th-century political essays warning that republics collapse into tyranny through luxury and corruption, widely read and cited by American founders as diagnosis of political danger.
AM2-104 · The Republican Experiment — The other place
A wooden pole erected by western Pennsylvania farmers in 1794 to obstruct tax collectors, embodying rural resistance to federal authority and revealing how republican ideals operated differently in frontier regions without classical education or merchant infrastructure.
AM2-105 · The Republican Experiment — One object, close
A gold eagle insignia worn by Revolutionary War officers on a blue ribbon, awarded by the hereditary Society of the Cincinnati (founded 1783). The badge sparked fierce republican debate over aristocracy, corruption, and whether the Revolution had preserved or betrayed its principles.
🎧 A moment to consider
What will you carry out of this room?
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Gallery LXXV · Who Counts?
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Galleries
IFire and the Forest IIThe First Surplus IIIWater and Power IVThe Domesticated Animal VThe First Village VIThe Metal That Mattered VIIThe Grain Empire VIIIRoads and Rivers IXThe Silk Corridor XThe Monsoon Bargain XIWhy Rome Thinned XIIThe Classical City XIIIThe Maize Bargain XIVTerrace and Milpa XVThe City in the Lake XVIThe Classic Maya Question XVIIReading the Sky XVIIIA Hemisphere Without Horses XIXThe Heavy Plough XXThe Black Death XXIThe Caravan World XXIIThe Rice Revolution XXIIIWood and the Wall XXIVThe Little Ice Age XXVThe Columbian Exchange XXVIThe Sugar Island XXVIIThe Silver Mountain XXVIIIThe Wind That Made Empires XXIXFur, Fish and Frontier XXXThe First Global City XXXIThe Walking City XXXIICoal and the Clock XXXIIIGoing Up Rural Businesses XXXIVThe Cooled Room The Gerrymander The Income Pyramid XXXVThe New Mills XXXVIThe Company and the Charter XXXVIIThe Meeting Ground XXXVIIIThe Company Town XXXIXThe Town and the Common XLThe Invisible Arrival XLIThe Consumer Revolution XLIIThe Argument in Print XLIIIWho Was the Revolution For? XLIVThe Machine of Compromise XLVThe Grid Goes West XLVIThe Port City XLVIIThe War Itself XLVIIIThe First Party Fight XLIXRemoval LThe Factory Girls LIThe House Divided LIIReconstruction and Its Undoing LIIIThe Chosen Nation LIVThe Tenement and the Terrace LVThe Immigrant Ledger LVIThe Machine and the Ward LVIIWhy Buildings Rise LVIIIThe Reservation and the Allotment LIXThe Federal Blueprint LXThe Arsenal LXIThe Subsidised Suburb LXIIThe Second Great Migration LXIIIThe Movement in the Street LXIVThe Bomb LXVThe Factory Closes LXVIThe Return Downtown LXVIIThe Sunbelt Bargain LXVIIIThe Worked Continent LXIXThe Hero and the Record LXXThe Reform Photograph LXXIThe Great Upheaval LXXIIThe Cotton Engine LXXIIIThe Corps of Discovery LXXIVThe Republican Experiment ◄ YOU ARE HERE LXXVWho Counts? LXXVIThe Canal and the Rail LXXVIIThe Edsel LXXVIIIThe Transcontinental LXXIXThe Crash and the Line LXXXThe Census LXXXIThe Tower Again LXXXIIThe Screen and the Square LXXXIIIThe Literary Digest Poll LXXXIVUrban Renewal LXXXVThe Hardening Line LXXXVIThe Population Bomb LXXXVIINew Coke LXXXVIIIGalloping Gertie LXXXIXThe Question XCThe Index XCIThe Map XCIIThe Poverty Line XCIIIThe Normal XCIVThe Hawthorne Works XCVProhibition XCVIMoving to Opportunity XCVIIThe Obedience Studies XCVIIIThe Minimum Wage Fight XCIXAfter the Towers CThe Sword Rack at the Door CIThe First Light CIIThe Forge of Stars CIIIThe Rocky Ledger CIVThe Goldilocks Band CVThe Moon's Receipt CVIThe Deep Clock CVIIThe Living Spark CVIIIThe Oxygen Revolution CIXThe Drifting Map CXThe Great Dyings CXIThe Mammal's Wager CXIIThe Grasslands Bargain CXIIIThe Fire Keeper CXIVThe Language Leap CXVThe Painted Cave CXVIThe Long Migration CXVIIThe Dog at the Fire CXVIIIThe Ice Corridor CXIXThe Seed Contract CXXThe Village Ledger CXXIThe Writing Debt CXXIIThe City Threshold CXXIIIThe Metal and the Market CXXIVThe Plague Network CXXVThe Ocean Bridge CXXVIThe Silver Circuit CXXVIIThe Machine Threshold CXXVIIIThe Energy Bonanza CXXIXThe Population Curve CXXXThe Telegraph World CXXXIThe Great Acceleration CXXXIIThe Carbon Ledger CXXXIIIThe Information Threshold CXXXIVThe Genome Drawer CXXXVThe Anthropocene Question CXXXVIThe Next Threshold CXXXVIIThe Town Meeting CXXXVIIIThe Common and the Fence CXXXIXThe Sheriff and the Jury CXLThe School Board CXLIThe Charter CXLIIThe Petition CXLIIIThe Property Line CXLIVThe Ballot Box CXLVThe Ward Machine CXLVIThe Suffrage March CXLVIIThe Poll Tax Receipt CXLVIIIThe Recount CXLIXThe King's Two Bodies CLThe Parliament CLIThe Republic's Blueprint CLIIThe Federation Question CLIIIThe One-Party State CLIVThe Referendum CLVMarbury's Desk CLVIThe Fourteenth Amendment CLVIISeparate and Unequal CLVIIIThe Warren Bench CLIXThe Commerce Clause CLXThe Dissent CLXIThe Zoning Map CLXIIThe Boss's Ledger CLXIIIThe Bond Issue CLXIVThe Police Power CLXVThe Annexation Fight CLXVIThe Renewal Bulldozer CLXVIIThe Treaty Table CLXVIIIThe Embassy CLXIXThe Blockade CLXXThe Alliance CLXXIThe Assembly Floor CLXXIIThe Trade War CLXXIIIThe Question-Mark Tracks Emblematic Films — The Decade Panels The Government Lounge Rogues, Ruffians, and Rascals The Processing Hall — The Dairy Wing The Creamery — The Second Wing The Civil Rights Movement 1945–1975 The American Indian The Gallery of Man The Sobering Rooms The Teaching Ward The Pharmacology Cabinet The Pathology Gallery The Epidemiology Map Room
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