The American Declaration of Independence came to light the same year as Smith's Wealth of Nations.

It proclaimed men's right to happiness, as well as life and liberty, describing the pursuit of self-interest as a natural virtue. The colonists pronounced that they had come of age and outgrown the yoke of royal authority.

The founding fathers of the new republic preached not just the ideals but also the assumptions of the Enlightenment. Political victory and economic progress would flow from the virtues of Christian love combined with indi­vidual initiative. John Adams located social affections in the human breast.² Thomas Jefferson explained that the creator had planted them in the generous soil of human nature.³ Tom Paine, whose pamphlets rallied many behind the revolutionary cause, credited Nature rather than God.⁴ Whatever their loca­tion or origins, these affections would presumably civilize self-interest.

Their civilizing touch, however, remained light. The inhabitants of the colonies in 1776 were ethnically diverse—in 1776, the British colonial population numbered about 2.5 million; the enclaves of French, Spanish, Germans, and Dutch came to no more than 100,000. Native Americans were estimated at about 800,000, and enslaved Africans at least 500,000.⁵ No English love was lost on the Native Americans or enslaved Africans who were excluded from the democratic brotherhood. Even the love of fellow white men extended only to establishment of political rights, stopping short of any economic obligations. The rights of women were circumscribed for reasons exactly opposite. They were presumably so loved that they required no independent representation.