The Constitution was the expression not only of a political faith, but also of political fears. It was wrought both as the organ of the national interest and as the bulwark of certain individual and local rights.
From Herbert Croly
In Jefferson's mind democracy was tantamount to extreme individualism.
The American economic, political, and social organization has given to its citizens the benefits of material prosperity, political liberty, and a wholesome natural equality; and this achievement is a gain, not only to Americans, but to the world and to civilization.
The popular will cannot be taken for granted, it must be created.
I am not a prophet in any sense of the word, and I entertain an active and intense dislike of the foregoing mixture of optimism, fatalism, and conservatism.
So far I, at least, have no fault to find with implications of Hamilton's Federalism, but unfortunately his policy was in certain other respects tainted with a more doubtful tendency.
Democracy may mean something more than a theoretically absolute popular government, but it assuredly cannot mean anything less.
The higher American patriotism, on the other hand, combines loyalty to historical tradition and precedent with the imaginative projection of an ideal national Promise.
The only fruitful promise of which the life of any individual or any nation can be possessed, is a promise determined by an ideal.
Had it not been for the Atlantic Ocean and the virgin wilderness, the United States would never have been the Land of Promise.
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