Dan Robinson

Among Toqueville’s most discerning insights is the civic tension arising from the largely incompatible aims of freedom and equality.

“In contemplating the causes which may disturb our Union, it occurs as matter of serious concern that any ground should have been furnished for characterizing parties by geographical discriminations, Northern and Southern, Atlantic and Western…They tend to render alien to each other those who ought to be bound together by fraternal affection”. George Washington, Farewell Address.

The Constitution stands as the best one might expect of words that would guide a self-governing people.

No careful examination of those members of the Founding Generation will fail to record the broad and deep command they had of history and of the principles exemplified by successful and also failed republics. In his famous speech on Conciliation delivered on 22 Mar. 1775, Edmund Burke reflects on this: Permit me, Sir, to add another circumstance in our colonies, which contributes no mean part towards the growth and effect of this untractable spirit. I mean their education…This study renders men acute, inquisitive, dexterous, prompt in attack, ready in defense, full of resources. In other countries, the people, more simple, and of a less mercurial cast, judge of an ill principle in government only by an actual grievance; here they anticipate the evil, and judge of the pressure of the grievance by the badness of the principle.”