Explore "An American Lord" by Frank R. Stockton on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Among the principal men of colonial days and of Revolutionary times, there were many whose social positions were much the same as the station of the ordinary European aristocrat. From their ancestors the colonists had inherited the disposition to recognize differences in rank; and men of wealth and high position in the colonial government were regarded to a certain extent as members of the nobility are regarded in England. Before the Declaration of Independence, it was not even assumed in this country that all men are born equal.
But, although there were native-born personages in the Colonies who might well be termed aristocrats, their titles were political or military; and an American lord was, as he would be now, something entirely out of the common.