Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Part I The state-building problem in American political development
- Part II State building as patchwork, 1877–1900
- Part III State building as reconstitution, 1900–1920
- Epilogue: Beyond the state of courts and parties – American government in the twentieth century
- Notes
- Selected bibliography
- Index
Part III - State building as reconstitution, 1900–1920
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 May 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Part I The state-building problem in American political development
- Part II State building as patchwork, 1877–1900
- Part III State building as reconstitution, 1900–1920
- Epilogue: Beyond the state of courts and parties – American government in the twentieth century
- Notes
- Selected bibliography
- Index
Summary
The ideal of a constructive relation between American nationality and American democracy is in truth equivalent to a new Declaration of Independence … At the present time there is a strong, almost a dominant, tendency to regard the existing Constitution with superstitious awe, and to shrink with horror from modifying it even in the smallest detail; and it is this superstitious fear of changing the most trivial parts of the fundamental legal fabric which brings to pass the great bondage of the American spirit… There comes a time in the history of every nation when its independence of spirit vanishes, unless it emancipates itself in some measure from its traditional illusions; and that time is fast approaching the American people. They must either seize the chance for a better future, or else become a nation which is satisfied in spirit merely to repeat indefinitely the monotonous measures of its own past.
Herbert Croly, The Promise of American Life, 1909- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Building a New American StateThe Expansion of National Administrative Capacities, 1877–1920, pp. 163 - 164Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1982