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During the era of the Revolution, Americans often denounced the Scots. In his 1776 play, The Patriots, Virginia author Robert Mumford named characters "M’Flint," "M’Gripe," and "M’Squeeze." Local pressure either evicted Scots from certain regions (such as Chesapeake) or forced them to return to Scotland on their own. Flora MacDonald, Scotland’s most famous heroine, left North Carolina for her native South Uist under these circumstances. Perhaps as many as five thousand Scots Tories later migrated to Canada due to their loyalty to the British crown. In the process they became the spiritual founders of Canada. In 1782 the lower house of Georgia passed a resolution declaring that the people of Scotland possessed "a decided inimicality to the Civil Liberties of America." Any Scot found in the region after three days would be "committed to Gaol."

But citizens of the new Republic had short memories and this antagonism quickly passed. Paisley-born naturalist Alexander Wilson observed that he received great cooperation on his southward journey from Philadelphia to gather material for his famed American Ornithology (1807—18). An 1810 traveler to Charleston also noted that the ruling Tory aristocracy of South Carolina consisted of "chiefly Scotchmen." After the Peace of Paris in 1783, one finds little criticism of Scottish people.

From c. 1790 to c. 1860 the Scots and Scotch-Irish immigrants generally split their destinations between Canada and the new American republic. Figures are, unfortunately, inexact, but the majority probably sailed for Montreal and Ontario rather than Philadelphia or New York. Even so, a small but significant number found their way to the various "British colonies" established in Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, and elsewhere. When the American Civil War broke out in 1861, many a Confederate soldier bore a Scotch-Irish surname. On the other side, Chicago and New York each raised a Scottish-American regiment that fought for the Union. New York’s 79th, which modeled its uniforms after the famed Black Watch, remains the most celebrated of these Scots Union military contingents. In 1893 the city of Edinburgh erected a statue of President Abraham Lincoln in the Old Calton Hill Burial Ground, the first Lincoln statue outside the United States. In an impressive ceremony the provost of Edinburgh and the American consul dedicated the ground as a burial place for five Scots soldiers who had died fighting for the Northern cause.

By the middle of the nineteenth century a number of Scots had risen to prominence in American life. By the 1840s Aberdonian George Smith had become the most famous banker of the upper Midwest. Indeed, "George Smith’s money," as it was termed, often proved more sound than state or federal currency. When Smith died in 1899, he left a fortune that approached one hundred million dollars. Fellow Aberdonian Alexander Mitchell, once termed "the best known Scot in Milwaukee," also gained wealth as a banker and, later, served two terms in Congress. Clydeside emigré John Stewart Kennedy played a crucial role in financing the western railroad boom, especially the Northern Pacific line. A native of Glasgow, Allan Pinkerton rose to prominence during the Civil War as a purveyor of information to Abraham Lincoln; his name is still virtually synonymous with "detective agency." Other successes included Michael Donahoe, who established the largest foundry in Iowa, and Davis Nicholson and Dugald Crawford, who became prominent mercantile figures in St. Louis.