This article reexamines texts published during the period of the initial formation of the nation, from 1783 to 1815, or from the end of the American Revolution through the War of 1812. This examination of thirty-one textbooks (sixteen geographies and history texts, and fifteen readers and grammar books), most written by New Englanders but also sold widely in the South, reveals little consistency of principle beyond that of the insistent and strongly worded demands for virtue and piety. It also raises questions about the meaning of nationalism and patriotism in the early republic, and about the ways in which local and regional values were part of the larger project of nation building. (Contains 130 footnotes.)