"William Tudor, Willard Phillips, and Richard Henry Dana were not their fathers' Federalists. When these young New England intellectuals and their contemporaries attempted to carve out a place for themselves in the rapidly changing and increasingly unfriendly culture of the early nineteenth century, the key to their efforts was the founding, in 1815, of the North American Review.".

"Raised as Federalists and encouraged to believe that they had special responsibilities as "the wise and the good," they came of age within a cultural and political climate that no longer deferred to men of their education and background.

But unlike their fathers, who retreated in disgust before the emerging forces of democracy, these young Federalist intellectuals tried to adapt their parents' ideology to the new political and social realities and preserve for themselves a place as the first public intellectuals in America.".

"In Coming to Terms with Democracy, Marshall Foletta contends that by callling for a new American literature in their journal, the second-generation Federalists helped American readers break free from imported neoclassical standards, thus paving the way for the American Renaissance."--BOOK JACKET.