Referring to Emerson, discuss the basic principles of American Transcendentalism.

Emerson's primary contribution to the Transcendental
movement was the assertion of individual voice in all circumstances.  Emerson's belief
in human "transcendence," the ability to perceive and experience reality that is beyond
the contingent (and the basis of the movement's name) became his primary distinctive
qualities and the principles of the movement.  When Emerson articulates early on in his
thought that “the law of all nature, … the whole of Reason” resides in the self, it
becomes the very essence of the movement.  Transcendentalism owes this notion of "know
thyself" to Emerson, who was seeking to give the individual voice at a time when
conformity and homogeneity in the form of expanded industrialization in America began to
grip the nation.  It is in this very idea that Emerson argued that individuals should
feel the need to transform, to change, their own identities and the identity of the
social order, stressing that part of the Transcendental identity was to see what is and
envision what can be.