Compromise Generation
The
Compromise Generation is that name given to the
generation of Americans born from
1767 to
1791 by
William Strauss and
Neil Howe in their book
Generations. As Henry Clay later recalled, this generation grew up "rocked in the cradle of the
Revolution" as they watched brave adults struggle and triumph. Compliantly coming of age, they offered a new erudition, expertise, and romantic sensibility to their heroic elders' Age of Improvement. As young adults, they became what historian Matthew Cremson calls "the administrative founding fathers" and soldiered a
Second War for Independence whose glory could never compare with the first. In midlife, they mentored populist movements, fretted over slavery and Indian removal, and presided over the
Great Compromise that reflected their irresolution. As elders during the
American Civil War, they feared that their "postheroic" mission had failed and that the United States might not outlive them.
The Compromisers' typical grandparents were of the Awakening Generation. Their parents were of the Liberty Generation and Republican Generation. Their children were of the Transcendental Generation and Gilded Generation; their typical grandchildren were of the Progressive Generation.
Altogether, about 4.2 million Americans were born from 1767 to 1791. 10 percent were immigrants and 15 percent were slaves at any point in their lives.
Sample Compromisers with birth and death dates as this generation is fully ancestral include the following:
The Compromisers had seven U.S. Presidents:
The Compromisers had a plurality in the U.S. House of Representatives from
1813 to
1835, a plurality in the U.S. Senate from
1813 to
1841, and a majority of the U.S. Supreme Court from
1829 to
1860.
Prominent foreign-born peers of the Compromisers include Napoleon Bonaparte, Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, Ludwig van Beethoven, Sir Walter Scott, and Simón Bolívar.
The cultural endowments of the Compromisers include the following: