Originally intended as a textbook on the American republican democracy, the work analyzes the social forces that shape, and can ultimately corrupt such a system.

Unlike his previous work where he set out to create American literature, this essay is credited with helping Cooper to establish a new identity as a writer as one who exposed the vices in society.

[5] This occurrence led Cooper to write about the role of property rights in America, "giv[ing] universal meaning" to the dispute.

This distinction raises the question of the role of the states, which Cooper believes are sovereign in their own way because they consent to their union under a federal government.

Additionally, with democracy's promotion of "juster [sic] notions of all moral truths ... society is ... a gainer in the greatest element of happiness.

"[13] Cooper claims that a democracy provides its citizens, who are naturally unequal physically and morally, with equal civil and political rights.

Without natural inequality resulting from property rights and inheritance, without which "civilization would become stationary, or, it would recede; the incentives of individuality and of the affections, being absolutely necessary to impel men to endure the labor and privations that alone can advance it.

Also, the American democrat must keep his representatives in check, constantly questioning their motives and objectively judging policy initiatives in comparison with the constitution, not their own values, prejudices, or opinions.

[17] In fact, "the elector who gives his vote, on any grounds, party or personal, to an unworthy candidate, violates a sacred publick duty, and is unfit to be a freeman.

He believed that the corruption of these things made political liberty, equality, rights, and justice more abstract notions rather than true pillars of society.

Cooper claims that whenever the government of the United States shall break up, it will probably be in consequence of a false direction having been given to publick [sic] opinion.

In the end, he argues, the habit of seeing the publick [sic] rule, is gradually accustoming the American mind to an interference with private rights that is slowly undermining the individuality of the national character.

As the press now exists, it would seem to be expressly devised by the great agent of mischief, to depress and destroy all that is good, and to elevate and advance all that is evil in the nation.

"[33] However, some have argued that in The American Democrat, he never quite unites the dilemma concerning the rising class society, which "politically ... threatens majority rule, because a minority of wealth and talent can always subvert democratic institutions ... [but] socially ... assures 'the utmost practicable personal liberty' by recognizing the right of association of men of like interests and tastes.

"[33] Still, others have argued that The American Democrat could have been more influential had it not been overshadowed by Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America, whose first volume had been published internationally in 1835.

Other critics, such as Wayne Franklin, further this point in claiming that what compelled Cooper to write about the state of the nation was the fact that when he came back from Europe in 1833, he had become "widely discredited as the spokesman for America he had tried to be.

"[37] Ultimately, though, at least one critic has argued that his musings on the state of the nation, "show us ... the true democrat is he who wishes to conserve the republic.

"[38] Another author writes that Cooper expressed sympathy with "liberal opinions" which he defined as the "generous, manly determination to let all enjoy equal political rights, and to bring those to whom authority is necessarily confided under the control of the community they serve" but rejected the "devices of demagogues" who teach that "the voice of the people is the voice of God.