C. The Evolution of American Political Ideas
We identify eight major ideas that have driven American politics for centuries and that still drive American politics today:
I. liberty (or freedom)
The idea that human beings are free, that they are not owned (whether by other human beings or by society at large), that they have freedom to live their own lives and to decide what shape those lives ought to take is at the heart of the American political tradition and is what peoples in other lands focus on first in their understanding of American history. This theme pervades such notable documents as the Declaration of Independence (1776), Lincoln's Gettysburg Address (1863) and Second Inaugural Address (1865){1}, and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech (1963).
ii. individual rights
In a way a subset of the general concept of liberty or freedom, individual rights define limits on how government may interfere in the individual's life. For example, freedom of religion means that government may not tell us whether or how to practice our religious faith; freedoms of speech and press mean that government may not dictate or limit the views we express; criminal procedure rights are conditions that the government must satisfy before it can bring its weight down on us to punish us; and so forth. In the twentieth century, individual rights have expanded to include affirmative rights -- defined and protected by statute and by the constitutional doctrine of equal protection of the laws -- to such things as unemployment insurance and social security.
iii. equality
Explicit in the Declaration of Independence and implicit in the original Constitution, but first given explicit constitutional authority by the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection clause, equality (the right to equal treatment) also has been a powerful American political idea -- as an actual condition of American life, as a goal toward which Americans aspired, or both. And yet the nature of American equality as an actual condition of life and as a national aspiration has always been subject to controversy. One vital question that students should confront in considering the theme of equality in American history is, "How sincere is the American aspirations to achieve equality for all the American people -- including those who differ in race, sex, ethnicity, religion, culture, or economic status from those Americans with political power?" This question is posed most starkly by the history of African-Americans' struggle for legal, political, and social equality, but it is equally challenging when applied to the historical experiences of such groups as women, non-Christian Americans, or Hispanic-Americans.
iv. the rule of law
The rule of law always has been a fundamental principle of American politics; it is also the basis for constitutional government (discussed immediately below). Although Americans' understandings of the nature of the rule of law have changed over time, Thomas Paine's proud boast that "in America the law is king" has been a centerpiece of American political ideology. The rule of law connects with equality, for anyone from the richest to the poorest expects the law to bind or protect him or her equally. The rule of law also is closely linked to individual rights, for rights are to be protected by such institutions as courts, which embody and defend the ideal of rule of law. And, of course, in the Anglo-American common-law tradition, the rule of law is generally regarded as the basic safeguard of the general concepts of liberty and freedom.
v. constitutional government
As the Harvard sociologist Daniel Bell has argued,{2} American contributions to the theory and practice of constitutional government may well be the most enduring American contributions to politics, and to human civilization. These contributions include the idea of a written constitution; the development of the constitutional convention as a means for writing constitutions; the invention of the ratifying convention or popular referendum as a means for the whole political population to decide whether to approve or reject constitutions; and the specific features of the Constitution of 1787 as amended -- separation of powers, checks and balances, constitutional protection of liberties and rights, limited government, effective government, constitutional change, and judicial review.
vi. the democratic republic
This phrase stands for the complex, evolving American model of a democratic republic, one based on the people, who elect (directly or indirectly) those to whom they entrust the power of government for limited periods. It also encompasses the development of the American political system, including the problematic growth of democracy (see Section B), the creative development of democratic politics, and the evolution of the federal system (see below).
vii. federalism
As noted in Section A, federalism was a consequence of American geography and the complex spectrum of interests and differences among the peoples of the several states. The task of dividing and balancing powers between the states and the federal government cannot achieve a final, permanently stable form; it must always remain in a delicate tension, responsive to the specific challenges of each period. The idea of federalism long has fascinated political theorists as a possible way to preserve the unity of political populations divided by religion, ethnicity, or culture; the American variant has become increasingly influential precisely because it seems over time to have accomplished those goals for the American people (see also Section F).
viii. judicial review
In some ways, judicial review -- the entrusting, to an unelected body of judges, of the power to interpret the Constitution to regulate the actions of the democratically-elected parts of the political system -- is the most remarkable American political invention. What most Americans do not understand is that three constraints hedge about the courts' authority to engage in judicial review -- (a) the requirement that judges explain and justify every assertion of this power; (b) the scrutiny of judges' exercises of this power by the rest of the government, the legal profession, and the people as a whole; and © the prospect, via the amending process, that the people (through their elected representatives at the national and state levels of government) might overturn a decision of the United States Supreme Court purporting to hand down an authoritative interpretation of the Constitution as reason for striking down action by the democratically-elected components of government.
These word-portraits of basic American political ideas are designed to convey their essences over time and suggest some of the ways they have changed over time. That their meaning subtly changes, and their relative importance shifts, over time are truisms of American history.