In the early nineteenth century, with Enlightenment optimism soured by years of war and revolution, critics were skeptical of America's naive faith that it had reinvented politics.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
These days I wonder more and more why people are pessimistic when American history actually supports optimism.
Skepticism has never founded empires, established principals, or changed the world's heart. The great doers in history have always been people of faith.
Then you get to the last half of the 20th century, Americans are getting very skeptical about their leaders and their institutions, and another place that is affected is parties and conventions.
Emerson then incarnated the moral optimism, the progress, and the energy of the American spirit.
Beyond any question, the way the American founders consistently linked faith and freedom, republicanism and religion, was not only deliberate and thoughtful, it was also surprising and anything but routine.
If any imagine from the literary tone of the preceding remarks that we are indifferent to the radical movement for the benefit of the masses which is the crowning glory of the nineteenth century, they will soon discover their egregious mistake.
Today, most Americans are too cynical, or tired, or both, to even approximate our Founders' courageous repudiation of injustice.
The American Revolution was, in fact, a battle against the philosophy of Locke and the English utilitarians.
The American Revolution and Declaration of Independence, it has often been argued, were fueled by the most radical of all American political ideas.
American fundamentalist thought connected strongly to reactionary political ideology as nervous Christians pushed back against liberal reforms on many fronts.
No opposing quotes found.