The Jeffersonian state, this book argues, which came to birth in the War of Independence, perished in the Civil War. . . . The root of the change is to be found in the destruction of the State unit. And, as a result of that destruction, power has largely shifted away from its nominal holders and passed into that of wealth. The United States are today a plutocracy . . . content, and even anxious, to allow the rich to order its life to the smallest detail.

The history of Jeffersonian America and of its downfall is told here in the lives of four famous statesmen: Thomas Jefferson, John C. Calhoun, Abraham Lincoln, and Woodrow Wilson.