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A compelling history of the 1846 Mormon expulsion from Illinois that exemplifies the limits of American democracy and religious tolerance. When members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (known as Mormons) settled in Illinois in 1839, they had been persecuted for their beliefs from Ohio to Missouri. Illinoisans viewed themselves as religiously tolerant egalitarians and initially welcomed the Mormons to their state. However, non-Mormon locals who valued competitive individualism perceived the saints' western Illinois settlement, Nauvoo, as a theocracy with too much political power. Amid escalating tensions in 1844, anti-Mormon vigilantes assassinated church founder Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum. Two years later, the state expelled the saints. Illinois rejected the Mormons not for their religion, but rather for their effort to create a self-governing state in Nauvoo. Mormons put the essential aspirations of American liberal democracy to the test in Illinois. The saints' inward group focus and their decision to live together in Nauvoo highlight the challenges strong group consciousness and attachment pose to democratic governance. The Saints and the State narrates this tragic story as an epic failure of governance and shows how the conflicting demands of fairness to the Mormons and accountability to Illinois's majority became incompatible.

Scholars have long debated the character of Jacksonian political culture. Many have argued that the Democrats were individualist in political culture, and those who recognize an egalitarian aspect still describe the Jacksonian view of society as “atomistic.” The article focuses on the political thought of William Leggett, “Spokesman” of Jacksonian Democracy. It distinguishes between universalist and particularist varieties of egalitarianism and argues that Leggett’s universalist egalitarianism has been frequently misunderstood as individualist. In fact Leggett, like all egalitarians, started from a negative reference group bias against elites. His positive reference group identifications were broad and deracinated; they included as civically worthy both African Americans and women. This broadly inclusive view has often been conflated with the individualist view of equality, which is horizontal or reciprocity based. Leggett’s literary writings provide a context for reconstructing his vertical equality stance. Its oppositional element and group bias highlight the need for a reassessment of Jacksonian political culture.

\"1 William Kinney was clearly taking land reform in the egalitarian tradition to heart. Since today we think of the \"Age of Jackson\" as epitomizing equality for white males, it is perhaps surprising to learn that Kinney's public lands proposal did not attract much attention in the 1830 contest for governor. Sales of public lands were a crucial source of revenue for paying off federal debt, but as Richard Rush's 1827 Annual Treasury Report predicted, \"in a few more years\" the debt would likely \"disappear.\" [...]the federal government would for the first time be able to look at the revenues generated by sales of the public lands free from the obligations of a debtor. [...]there were the National Republicans, economic nationalists who favored the American System of internal improvements and the tariff, found champions in Adams and Henry Clay, and who were unhappy about what they saw as a necessary war. [...]Edwards was actually closer to the national line of cleavage; as George Dangerfield put it, \"popular nationalism\" triumphed over \"economic nationalism\" in the Age of Jackson.32 The contest of 1830 was an ideological free for all, in which purists had to beware lest they overplayed their hands.