As a subject for serious investigation, constitutionalism in faraway places seems finally to have come of age. To appropriate the famous metaphor from the First Amendment arena that is the concern of this paper, it is as if, until relatively recently, a “wall of separation” had shielded both scholarly and judicial analysis of American constitutional issues from the experience of other polities. As a result, too often constitutional inquiry has been denied the illumination and insights of comparative research. My specific aim in this article is to explore the concept and practice of the secular constitution within three nations that are committed, albeit in different ways, to the principle of religious liberty.

A constitution is a set of rules written by current political actors designed to bind future political actors. As fundamental law, it stipulates basic rights and duties, defines collective goals, establishes institutions and procedures, and makes claims regarding both identity and allegiance. In their effort to control the future, constitutional founders usually include special provisions regarding change. Alterations to the fundamental law are more difficult to accomplish than alterations to more ordinary laws. Founders often require super-majorities, even special, repetitive, or con-current super-majorities, as a condition for amendment. In this sense, even democratic constitutions impose conscious constraints on the exercise of democratic will. The intention is to limit the pace of adaptation and also to bias the pattern of outcomes.

Whether secession movements in Europe draw support from the disintegration of the Soviet Union into multiple units based on separate national identities or whether there are also independent centrifugal forces, the “right to secession” has emerged as a pressing question of democratic theory, one which is intertwined in complex ways with the current debate over the foundations of modern democratic society. This essay seeks to clarify the issue of right to secession through a critical examination of a single modern statesman: Abraham Lincoln.

No ceremonies marked the fiftieth anniversary of the wartime riots in New York, Los Angeles, Beaumont, Detroit, and Mobile. American political culture, if not recent historical analysis, continues to associate “the Good War” with national unity rather than unrest. But race tension was palpable to contemporaries. For example, ten months prior to Pearl Harbor and six months before a deadly shoot-out between black soldiers and white military policemen occurred in Fayetteville, North Carolina, that town had already earned the nickname “Uncle Sam's Powder Keg.” Less than ten miles from the city lay Fort Bragg, the nation's largest army camp, and visitors sensed a “seething undercurrent” of race friction coursing through the camp and the city. Thousands of black artillery trainees visited the downtown area each week, drinking and milling about in the streets. Because very few establishments welcomed their business, there was little else for them to do. A cab driver, asked about the city's hostile mood, replied that “the trouble is not ‘Is there trouble,’ but ‘What kind of trouble is it going to be and when is it going to pop?’” Similar questions animate this research, which explores the relationship between the Second World War mobilization and War Department practices and policies, on the one hand, and racial confrontations and violence involving soldiers, on the other.

[Author's note: Excising large chunks from book manuscripts is a common practice and rarely a loss to scholarly literature. Originally appended to various parts of my book manuscript on the intellectual origins of American Progressivism were seven stories to which I had become quite attached. I was surprised, therefore, when early readers suggested that I drop them because they interrupted the narrative flow of the text. I resisted this advice until their judgment was seconded by later readers and editors. Cut them I did. But to cut is not necessarily to run. They are offered separately here because they capture some of the main themes of The Lost Promise of Progressivism and indirectly call into question some major interpretive frameworks of American Progressivism, both as a system of ideas and as a defining moment in American political culture. They were to me something like minor Epiphanies, suddenly shifting my gaze and clarifying my views.]