"This work provides analysis of leadership in the Elkhorn Association during the early national period. Often portrayed in the historiography as the vanguard of a new frontier democracy, this group, upon closer inspection, reveals itself to be far more complex. Harper argues that the Elkhorn Association ministers were neither fully fledged frontier egalitarians nor radical religionists, but formed their identities in the crucible of the early national period. They were challenged by competing impulses, including their religious convictions, the market economy, Jeffersonian Republicanism, and honor, with mixed results"--