This chapter addresses the second tenet undergirding the call for revisioning Emerson as a reading theorist: reading as engaged democratic citizenship. Reading for Emerson was not solely an individualistic act. Rather, it was an opportunity for engaged citizenship in a democracy. This chapter consults work in the field of American pragmatism as well as instances in which Emerson himself writes about the idea of reading as a pragmatic act. Reading pragmatically emphasizes the complementary acts of thinking and acting during reading transactions, and, as a result, it encourages readers to maintain a healthy level of inquiry while they read. Engaged citizenship represents an opportunity for readers to see not only their own lives as revisable works in progress but to see activism, both thinking and doing, as avenues for reforming society and with it this extraordinary American experiment.