During the presidency of James Monroe (1817-1825), American author James Fenimore Cooper (The Last of the Mohicans) wrote about a visit to the White House by a member of the working class, a man who drove a horse-drawn cart for a living: "I have known a cartman leave his horse in the street and go into a reception room to shake hands with the President. He offended the good taste of all present, because it was not thought decent that a laborer should come in dirty dress on such an occasion; but while he made a trifling mistake . . . he proved how well he understood the difference between government and society. He knew the levee [presidential reception] was a sort of homage paid to political equality in the person of [the president], but he would not have presumed to enter the house of the same person as a private individual without being invited."



A Washington street scene near the White House in 1817.
Watercolor by Madame de Neuville, New York Public Library

The cartman was allowed to enter the White House and meet the president, and yet those in the room were uncomfortable with this. Why do you think they were embarrassed? What does the writer mean that the cartman understood the difference between "government and society"? Cooper also told a French friend that "the poorer and laboring classes stay away" from the White House, but he does not say they were told they could not enter the President’s House. The president wanted citizens to know they were welcome at the White House, that they would not be turned away like they might have been at a king or emperor’s court. But in a new, democratic nation, it was often difficult to know what place you held in society. Is this still true today? Why or why not?