The revolution released public debates and political and social structures that expanded the scope for freedom. It also challenged inherited structures of power within America. In result of rejecting the principle of hereditary aristocracy, Americans also rejected the society of patronage, privilege, and fixed status. Men who led the revolution from start to finish were considered the most prestigious men of the American Elite. The lower classes however, did not rise to power in result of independence. Nonetheless, Inequality had been fundamental to the colonial social order. The revolution challenged it in many ways, therefore American freedom would be forever linked with the idea of equality. For free white men, the democratization of freedom was dramatic. In the political thought of the eighteenth century the term democracy had several different meanings, one meaning, coming from the writings of Aristotle defines democracy as a system in which he entire people governed directly. In the wake of the Revolution, democracy came into wider use to basically express the aspirations for greater equality.
The revolutions potential was way more evident in Pennsylvania. In the other states, the established leadership embraced independence in the spring of 1776 or they either split into pro-independence and pro-British factions. In Pennsylvania, almost the entire prewar elite opposed independence, the feared that serving the tie with Britain would lead to attacks on property. The vacuum of political leadership however, opened the door for the increase of new pro-independence grouping, based on the lower class and atisian communities of Philadelphia. Their leaders included Thomas Pain, Timothy Matlack, and Thomas Young. As a whole group these men of the middle-class who stood outside of the Merchant Elite had little political influence and believed strongly in democratic reform.