American Experiment

Home > Other > American Experiment > Page 1
American Experiment Page 1

by James Macgregor Burns




  The American Experiment

  James MacGregor Burns

  Contents

  The Vineyard of Liberty

  PROLOGUE The Vineyard

  PART I • Liberty and Union

  CHAPTER 1 The Strategy of Liberty

  THE GREAT FEAR

  A RAGE FOR LIBERTY

  PHILADELPHIA: THE CONTINENTAL CAUCUS

  CHAPTER 2 The Third Cadre

  THE ANTI-FEDERALISTS

  THE COURSE IS SET

  VICE AND VIRTUE

  CHAPTER 3 The Experiment Begins

  THE FEDERALISTS TAKE COMMAND

  THE NEW YORKERS

  THE FEDERALIST THRUST

  THE DEADLY PATTERN

  DIVISIONS ABROAD AND AT HOME

  CHAPTER 4 The Trial of Liberty

  PHILADELPHIANS: THE EXPERIMENTERS

  QUASI-WAR ABROAD

  SEMI-REPRESSION AT HOME

  THE VENTURES OF THE FIRST DECADE

  SHOWDOWN: THE ELECTION OF 1800

  PART II • Liberty in Arcadia

  CHAPTER 5 Jeffersonian Leadership

  “THE EYES OF HUMANITY ARE FIXED ON US”

  TO LOUISIANA AND BEYOND

  CHECKMATE: THE FEDERALIST BASTION STANDS

  CHAPTER 6 The American Way of War

  “THE HURRICANE …NOW BLASTING THE WORLD”

  THE IRRESISTIBLE WAR

  WATERSIDE YANKEES: THE FEDERALISTS AT EBB TIDE

  FEDERALISTS: THE TIDE RUNS OUT

  CHAPTER 7 The American Way of Peace

  GOOD FEELINGS AND ILL

  ADAMS’ DIPLOMACY AND MONROE’S DICTUM

  VIRGINIANS: THE LAST OF THE GENTLEMEN POLITICIANS

  THE CHECKING AND BALANCING OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS

  JUBILEE l826: THE PASSING OF THE HEROES

  CHAPTER 8 The Birth of the Machines

  FARMS: THE JACKS-OF-ALL-TRADES

  FACTORIES: THE LOOMS OF LOWELL

  FREIGHT: THE BIG DITCHES

  THE INNOVATING LEADERS

  PART III • Liberty and Equality

  CHAPTER 9 The Wind from the West

  THE REVOLT OF THE OUTS

  THE DANCE OF THE FACTIONS

  JACKSONIAN LEADERSHIP

  CHAPTER 10 Parties: The People’s Constitution

  EQUALITY: THE JACKSONIAN DEMOS

  STATE POLITICS: SEEDBED OF PARTY

  MAJORITIES: THE FLOWERING OF THE PARTIES

  CHAPTER 11 The Majority That Never Was

  BLACKS IN BONDAGE

  WOMEN IN NEED

  MIGRANTS IN POVERTY

  LEADERS WITHOUT FOLLOWERS

  PART IV • The Empire of Liberty

  CHAPTER 12 Whigs: The Business of Politics

  THE WHIG WAY OF GOVERNMENT

  THE ECONOMICS OF WHIGGERY

  EXPERIMENTS IN ESCAPE

  CHAPTER 13 The Empire of Liberty

  TRAILS OF TEARS AND HOPE

  ANNEXATION: POLITICS AND WAR

  THE GEOMETRY OF BALANCE

  CHAPTER 14 The Culture of Liberty

  THE ENGINE IN THE VINEYARD

  RELIGION: FREE EXERCISE

  SCHOOLS: THE “TEMPLES OF FREEDOM”

  LEADERS OF THE PENNY PRESS

  ABOLITIONISTS: BY TONGUE AND PEN

  PART V • Neither Liberty Nor Union

  CHAPTER 15 The Ripening Vineyard

  THE CORNUCOPIA

  THE CORNUCOPIA OVERFLOWS

  “IT WILL RAISE A HELL OF A STORM”

  THE ILLINOIS REPUBLICANS

  CHAPTER 16 The Grapes of Wrath

  SOUTH CAROLINIANS: THE POWER ELITE

  THE GRAND DEBATES

  THE POLITICS OF SLAVERY

  CHAPTER 17 The Blood-Red Wine

  THE FLAG THAT BORE A SINGLE STAR

  MEN IN BLUE AND GRAY

  THE BATTLE CRIES OF FREEDOM

  NOTES

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  INDEX

  The Workshop of Democracy

  PART I • The Crisis of Democracy

  CHAPTER 1 The War of Liberation

  MANNING THE FRONT

  FORGING THE SWORD

  THE SOCIETY OF THE BATTLEFIELD

  “LET US DIE TO MAKE MEN FREE”

  CHAPTER 2 The Reconstruction of Slavery

  BOUND FOR FREEDOM

  A REVOLUTIONARY EXPERIMENT

  “I’SE FREE. AIN’T WUF NUFFIN”

  PART II • The Business of Democracy

  CHAPTER 3 The Forces of Production

  INNOVATORS: THE INGENIOUS YANKEES

  INVESTORS: EASTERN DOLLARS AND WESTERN RISKS

  ENTREPRENEURS: THE CALIFORNIANS

  INDUSTRIALISTS: CARNEGIE, ROCKEFELLER, AND THE TWO CAPITALISMS

  PHILADELPHIA 1876: THE PROUD EXHIBITORS

  CHAPTER 4 The Structure of Classes

  UPPER CLASSES: THE NEW RICH AND THE OLD

  THE MIDDLE CLASSES: A WOMAN’S WORK

  THE FARMER’S LOT

  WORKING CLASSES: THE CONDITIONS OF EXISTENCE

  SOCIAL CLASS AND SOCIAL OUTCAST

  CHAPTER 5 The Power of Ideas

  DINNER AT DELMONICO’S

  THE BITCH-GODDESS SUCCESS

  “TOILING MILLIONS NOW ARE WAKING”

  THE ALLIANCE: A DEMOCRACY OF LEADERS

  CHAPTER 6 The Brokers of Politics

  THE OHIOANS: LEADERS AS BROKERS

  POLITICS: THE DANCE OF THE ROPEWALKERS

  THE POVERTY OF POLICY

  SHOWDOWN 1896

  TRIUMPHANT REPUBLICANISM

  PART III • Progressive Democracy?

  CHAPTER 7 The Urban Progressives

  THE SHAPE OF THE CITY

  THE LIFE OF THE CITY

  THE LEADERS OF THE CITY

  THE REFORMATION OF THE CITIES

  WOMEN: THE PROGRESSIVE CADRE

  CHAPTER 8 The Modernizing Mind

  THE PULSE OF THE MACHINE

  THE CRITICS: IDEAS VS. INTERESTS?

  ART: “ALL THAT IS HOLY IS PROFANED”

  WRITING: “VENERABLE IDEAS ARE SWEPT AWAY”

  “ALL THAT IS SOLID MELTS INTO AIR”

  CHAPTER 9 The Reformation of Economic Power

  THE PERSONAL USES OF POWER

  FOREIGN POLICY WITH THE TR BRAND

  REFORM: LEADERSHIP AND POWER

  CHAPTER 10 The Cauldron of Leadership

  TAFT, TR, AND THE TWO REPUBLICAN PARTIES

  WILSON AND THE THREE DEMOCRATIC PARTIES

  ARMAGEDDON

  PART IV • Democracy on Trial

  CHAPTER 11 The New Freedom

  THE ENGINE OF DEMOCRACY

  THE ANATOMY OF PROTEST

  MARKETS, MORALITY, AND THE “STAR OF EMPIRE”

  CHAPTER 12 Over There

  WILSON AND THE ROAD TO WAR

  MOBILIZING THE WORKSHOP

  “NOUS VOILÀ, LAFAYETTE!”

  OVER HERE: LIBERTY AND DEMOCRACY

  CHAPTER 13 The Fight for the League

  THE MIRRORED HALLS OF VERSAILLES

  THE BATTLE FOR THE TREATY

  1920: THE GREAT AND SOLEMN REJECTION

  PART V • The Culture of Democracy

  CHAPTER 14 The Age of Mellon

  “THE BUSINESS OF AMERICA …”

  BANKERS AND BATTLESHIPS

  THE VOICES OF PROTEST

  CHAPTER 15 The Commercialized Culture

  THE WORKSHOP OF EDUCATION

  THE PRESS AS ENTERTAINMENT

  ENTERTAINMENT AS SPECTATORSHIP

  THE WORKSHOP AND THE DEMOS

  CHAPTER 16 The Vacant Workshop

  LIFE IN THE DEPRESSION

  THE CRISIS OF IDEAS

  “ONCE I BUILT A RAILROAD, MADE IT RUN”

  NOTES

  INDEX

>   ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  The Crosswinds of Freedom

  PART I • What Kind of Freedom?

  CHAPTER 1 The Crisis of Leadership

  THE DIVIDED LEGACY

  THE “HUNDRED DAYS” OF ACTION

  “DISCIPLINE AND DIRECTION UNDER LEADERSHIP”?

  CHAPTER 2 The Arc of Conflict

  CLASS WAR IN AMERICA

  “LENIN OR CHRIST” OR A PATH BETWEEN?

  THE POLITICS OF TUMULT

  APPEAL TO THE PEOPLE

  CHAPTER 3 The Crisis of Majority Rule

  COURT-PACKING: THE SWITCH IN TIME

  CONGRESS-PURGING: THE BROKEN SPELL

  DEADLOCK AT THE CENTER

  THE FISSION OF IDEAS

  THE PEOPLE’S ART

  PART II • Strategies of Freedom

  CHAPTER 4 Freedom Under Siege

  THE ZIGZAG ROAD TO WAR

  THE WAR OF TWO WORLDS

  THE PRODUCTION OF WAR

  THE RAINBOW COALITION EMBATTLED

  CHAPTER 5 Cold War: The Fearful Giants

  THE DEATH AND LIFE OF FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT

  THE LONG TELEGRAM

  THE SPIRAL OF FEAR

  THE PRICE OF SUSPICION

  CHAPTER 6 The Imperium of Freedom

  THE TECHNOLOGY OF FREEDOM

  THE LANGUAGE OF FREEDOM

  DILEMMAS OF FREEDOM

  CHAPTER 7 The Free and the Unfree

  THE BOSTON IRISH

  THE SOUTHERN POOR

  THE INVISIBLE LATINS

  THE REVOLUTIONARY ASIANS

  PART III • Liberation Struggles

  CHAPTER 8 Striding Toward Freedom

  ONWARD, CHRISTIAN SOLDIERS

  MARCHING TO WAR

  WE SHALL OVERCOME

  CHAPTER 9 The World Turned Upside Down

  PEOPLE OF THIS GENERATION

  ROLLING THUNDER

  INTO THE QUICKSAND

  SONGS OF THE SIXTIES

  CHAPTER 10 Liberty, Equality, Sisterhood

  BREAKING THROUGH THE SILKEN CURTAIN

  THE LIBERATION OF WOMEN

  THE PERSONAL IS POLITICAL

  PART IV • The Crosswinds of Freedom

  CHAPTER 11 Prime Time: Peking and Moscow

  FINDING CHINA

  PEACE WITHOUT PEACE

  FOREIGN POLICY: THE FALTERING EXPERIMENTS

  CHAPTER 12 Vice and Virtue

  WATERGATE: A MORALITY TALE

  CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

  CARTER: THE ARC OF MORALITY

  GUN AND BIBLE

  CHAPTER 13 The Culture of the Workshop

  THE DICING GAME OF SCIENCE

  THE RICH AND THE POOR

  CROSSWAYS, LAND AND SKY

  PART V • The Rebirth of Freedom?

  CHAPTER 14 The Kaleidoscope of Thought

  HABITS OF INDIVIDUALISM

  KINESIS: THE SOUTHERN CALIFORNIANS

  SUPERSPECTATORSHIP

  THE NEW YORKERS

  THE CONSERVATIVE MALL

  CHAPTER 15 The Decline of Leadership

  REPUBLICANS: WAITING FOR MR. RIGHT

  THE STRUCTURE OF DISARRAY

  REALIGNMENT? WAITING FOR LEFTY

  A REBIRTH OF LEADERSHIP?

  MEMORIES OF THE FUTURE: A PERSONAL EPILOGUE

  NOTES

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  INDEX

  The American Experiment

  The Vineyard of Liberty

  James MacGregor Burns

  To the vital cadres of history—the archivists, librarians, research assistants, and secretaries—who make possible the writing of history

  I sought in my heart to give myself unto wine; I made me great works; I builded me houses; I planted me vineyards; I made me gardens and orchards, and pools to water them; I got me servants and maidens, and great possessions of cattle; I gathered me also silver and gold, and men singers and women singers, and the delights of the sons of men, and musical instruments of all sorts, and whatsoever mine eyes desired I kept not from them; I withheld not my heart from any joy. Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and behold! all was vanity and vexation of spirit! I saw that wisdom excelleth folly, as light excelleth darkness.

  From Ecclesiastes, as quoted by Thomas Jefferson, 1816

  Contents

  PROLOGUE The Vineyard

  PART I • Liberty and Union

  CHAPTER 1 The Strategy of Liberty

  THE GREAT FEAR

  A RAGE FOR LIBERTY

  PHILADELPHIA: THE CONTINENTAL CAUCUS

  CHAPTER 2 The Third Cadre

  THE ANTI-FEDERALISTS

  THE COURSE IS SET

  VICE AND VIRTUE

  CHAPTER 3 The Experiment Begins

  THE FEDERALISTS TAKE COMMAND

  THE NEW YORKERS

  THE FEDERALIST THRUST

  THE DEADLY PATTERN

  DIVISIONS ABROAD AND AT HOME

  CHAPTER 4 The Trial of Liberty

  PHILADELPHIANS: THE EXPERIMENTERS

  QUASI-WAR ABROAD

  SEMI-REPRESSION AT HOME

  THE VENTURES OF THE FIRST DECADE

  SHOWDOWN: THE ELECTION OF 1800

  PART II • Liberty in Arcadia

  CHAPTER 5 Jeffersonian Leadership

  “THE EYES OF HUMANITY ARE FIXED ON US”

  TO LOUISIANA AND BEYOND

  CHECKMATE: THE FEDERALIST BASTION STANDS

  CHAPTER 6 The American Way of War

  “THE HURRICANE …NOW BLASTING THE WORLD”

  THE IRRESISTIBLE WAR

  WATERSIDE YANKEES: THE FEDERALISTS AT EBB TIDE

  FEDERALISTS: THE TIDE RUNS OUT

  CHAPTER 7 The American Way of Peace

  GOOD FEELINGS AND ILL

  ADAMS’ DIPLOMACY AND MONROE’S DICTUM

  VIRGINIANS: THE LAST OF THE GENTLEMEN POLITICIANS

  THE CHECKING AND BALANCING OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS

  JUBILEE l826: THE PASSING OF THE HEROES

  CHAPTER 8 The Birth of the Machines

  FARMS: THE JACKS-OF-ALL-TRADES

  FACTORIES: THE LOOMS OF LOWELL

  FREIGHT: THE BIG DITCHES

  THE INNOVATING LEADERS

  PART III • Liberty and Equality

  CHAPTER 9 The Wind from the West

  THE REVOLT OF THE OUTS

  THE DANCE OF THE FACTIONS

  JACKSONIAN LEADERSHIP

  CHAPTER 10 Parties: The People’s Constitution

  EQUALITY: THE JACKSONIAN DEMOS

  STATE POLITICS: SEEDBED OF PARTY

  MAJORITIES: THE FLOWERING OF THE PARTIES

  CHAPTER 11 The Majority That Never Was

  BLACKS IN BONDAGE

  WOMEN IN NEED

  MIGRANTS IN POVERTY

  LEADERS WITHOUT FOLLOWERS

  PART IV • The Empire of Liberty

  CHAPTER 12 Whigs: The Business of Politics

  THE WHIG WAY OF GOVERNMENT

  THE ECONOMICS OF WHIGGERY

  EXPERIMENTS IN ESCAPE

  CHAPTER 13 The Empire of Liberty

  TRAILS OF TEARS AND HOPE

  ANNEXATION: POLITICS AND WAR

  THE GEOMETRY OF BALANCE

  CHAPTER 14 The Culture of Liberty

  THE ENGINE IN THE VINEYARD

  RELIGION: FREE EXERCISE

  SCHOOLS: THE “TEMPLES OF FREEDOM”

  LEADERS OF THE PENNY PRESS

  ABOLITIONISTS: BY TONGUE AND PEN

  PART V • Neither Liberty Nor Union

  CHAPTER 15 The Ripening Vineyard

  THE CORNUCOPIA

  THE CORNUCOPIA OVERFLOWS

  “IT WILL RAISE A HELL OF A STORM”

  THE ILLINOIS REPUBLICANS

  CHAPTER 16 The Grapes of Wrath

  SOUTH CAROLINIANS: THE POWER ELITE

  THE GRAND DEBATES

  THE POLITICS OF SLAVERY

  CHAPTER 17 The Blood-Red Wine

  THE FLAG THAT BORE A SINGLE STAR

  MEN IN BLUE AND GRAY

  THE BATTLE CRIES OF FREEDOM
<
br />   NOTES

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  INDEX

  PROLOGUE

  The Vineyard

  AS AMERICANS GAINED THEIR liberty from Britain in the 1780s, they had only the most general idea of the great lands stretching to the west. But the scattered reports from explorers had indicated abundance and diversity: a huge central plain and valley drained by a river four thousand miles long; beyond that, an endless series of mountain ranges rising to rocky peaks and interspersed with burning deserts; and then a final mountain range sloping down to a green coastal fringe on the Pacific. There were stories of boundless physical riches in the bottomlands of the rivers, the herds of buffalo stretching for hundreds of miles, primeval forests so thick that migrating geese could fly over them for a thousand miles and never see a flash of sunlight on the ground below.

  People living in the thirteen states in the east savored these reports, but they savored even more the diversity and abundance of their own regions. They too could boast of lush valleys and lofty mountain ranges, ample farmlands and invigorating climate. New Hampshire farmers could still be battling blizzards while Virginians saw their first tobacco plants breaking through the red soil. And their own explorers spoke of the matchless beauties of the east. One of these was Thomas Pownall, an eminently practical young Englishman who had helped plan the war against the French and Indians, and in the 1750s had been rewarded with the governorship of Massachusetts.

  A tireless traveler along the seaboard and into the mountains, Pownall set about making a map of the “middle British colonies.” A no-nonsense type, he ended his map at the Mississippi and dismissed most of the topography of central Pennsylvania as “Endless Mountains.” But Pownall, in doing his work, was constantly distracted by the charm and luxuriance of the land he charted—the wild vines and cherries and pears and prunes; the “flaunting Blush of Spring, when the Woods glow with a thousand Tints that the flowering Trees and Shrubs throw out”; the wild rye that sprouted in winter and appeared green through the snow; above all, by the autumn leaves: the “Red, the Scarlet, the bright and the deep Yellow, the warm Brown,” so flamboyant that the eye could hardly bear them.

  Pownall was eager for Americans to learn from European experience with the cultivation of crops. But he was cautious about trying to transplant European vines to the American climate, with its extremes of dry and wet, its thunderous showers followed by “Gleams of excessive Heat,” when the skins of “Exotic grapes” might burst. Better, he said, that Americans try to cultivate and meliorate their native vines, small and sour and thick-skinned though the grapes be. Given time and patience, even these vines could grow luxuriant and their grapes delicious.

  Some ten thousand years ago or more, big-game hunters from Siberia crossed over the Bering Strait and pushed down along an ice-free corridor through Canada to the grasslands below. These were the first Americans. As they fanned out to the south and east they hunted down and killed countless bison, mastodons, mammoths, and other game with their grooved spears. It took the descendants of these onetime Mongols about a hundred and fifty years to reach the present-day Mexican border and the Atlantic coast, and another six hundred to cross the Isthmus into South America. By that time, they had killed off almost all the big game and had mainly turned to growing maize and other grains.

 

‹ Prev