FEW tenets of the American creed have exerted a more per-
vasive influence on popular thought in the United States
than the idea of the free individual. Based on the assump-
tion that man is a rational and evolving creature endowed
with the ability to ascertain his own best interests, the con-
cept of individualism depicted man as the master of his
own fate and served as the foundation on which Americans
erected their theories of progress, laissez-faire capitalism
and political democracy.

But although Americans have always preached individ-
ualism, they have not always practiced it. In the early years
of the new republic the interests of many individuals were
often subordinated to those of a ruling minority, while in
a later period the freedom of every individual was in-
creasingly circumscribed by the demands for conformity
imposed by an industrial civilization and a corporate
economy.

Andrew Jackson was President of the United States dur-
ing the golden age of American individualism. An earlier
generation of American leaders had talked of equality of
opportunity, while reserving to themselves the right to con-
trol the nation's government and economy; but by the 1830s
it seemed to many people that at last the theory was on
the way to becoming a reality. Poor boys--provided that
they were able and lucky enough--were becoming rich
men; representatives of every class were entering profes-

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