The United States in 1800 by Henry Adams comprises the first six chapters of his magnum opus, History of the United States of America during the Administrations of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. In this volume, Adams explains how personalities and events of the period shaped American national development. Adams's historical masterpiece (most specifically the first six chapters) so fittingly presents what America is all about. It not only explains what Adams and others in his time described as the revolution of 1800, but it also offers a key to two other national revolutions that were to come, those of 1860 and 1991.By exploring the origins of American democracy, we can learn what Adams knew in the 1880s-that a pride in democracy and a willingness to make it prevail were all that people needed to free them from the chains of the past and perils in the future.