Although the Revolution brought about a change in power and established the independence of the United States, the Revolutionary War ultimately did not bring about a revolutionary transformation in the young nation, but rather, an evolutionary and continuously progressing change that had started prior to the Revolution itself. In the short term, the political, economic, social, and ideological effects of the revolution were not transformative, while the long term effects were results of the ideologies of the Enlightenment rather than the essence of the revolution itself.  

The direct political effects of the Revolution were minimal, and thus did not transform the American system. Prior to the Revolution, the power was in the hands of the upper class elites, evident in congresses like the colonial congress, Stamp Act Congress and with the writers of the Declaration of Independence; the rich land-owning elite held the overwhelming majority of political power. However, this was still the case after the Revolution; with the Constitutional Convention of “Demigods”, the power was still held by the elite class. Though there were more opportunities for the middle class after the Revolution, they were used as a buffer between the elite and the lower classes. With piecemeal reforms devised by the upper class, they maintained the power of the upper class by ensuring that the middle and lower classes would not rebel against them. The “tyrannical” power of the British had been accompanied by the power of the rich upper class, but the power still remained in the upper class after the revolution, failing to address the stark contrast and disparities between the classes. 

Despite the removal of the taxes imposed by the British government after the Revolution, taxes were again imposed on the Americans through Hamilton’s economic program. The burden of taxes was still heavy on the lower classes. Shay’s rebellion is an example of the theme of the coastal elite against the interior farmers. The farmers rose up against the economic and political tensions, showing the still inherent disparities between the two classes. Another example of this is Hamilton’s excise tax on goods including whiskey, which heavily impacted the back-country farmers. The economic tensions between tidewater and piedmont regions remained a decisive factor for the factionalism in the United States, even after the Revolution, despite the Revolution’s rhetoric of “We the people” and unity.

The key themes of the Revolution, liberty and equality, were not manifested across America as a whole, but rather only the white population. These themes had also stemmed from the Enlightenment rather than intrinsically, and thus the Revoltuiton was only a continuation of the development of these ideologies in the United States. Slaves in the south, women, and the poor lower classes had virtually no immediate revolutionary transformation. The institution of slavery, though abolished in the north due to a lack of economic necessity, was embedded in the south. Slavery would not be abolished until almost a century after the revolution. This is a direct contradiction to the spirit of the Revolution, which was based on liberty and equality. 

The fundamental ideologies of the Revolution, based on Enlightenment ideas, were ultimately not manifested in the newly-independent America. The long-term impacts like the abolition of slavery were rooted in these ideas, which had started to spread even before the Revolution. The lack of transformative short-term effects reflected the intrinsic dichotomy of the rich coastal elite against the poor interior farmers; there was no revolutionary change that followed the Revolution.