Compromise and the American Founding: The Quest for the People's Two Bodies

ISBN-13: 9781108415873 / Angielski / Twarda / 2019 / 266 str.

Alin Fumurescu

Opis

Fumurescu reveals the connection between different understandings of the 'people' and attitudes toward compromise, offering valuable lessons on today's worrisome polarization of politics. This book will appeal to students and researchers of political theory, American political development, the American founding, and modern intellectual history.

Recenzje

'Meticulously researched, this work expands literature connecting Puritanical influences and the American founding to modern politics.' K. Casey, Choice

Spis treści

1. Introduction: 'one political being called a people …'; 1.1. One people, two bodies; 1.2. Compromise and the challenge of realism; 1.3. E Pluribus Unum; the people's two bodies – then and now; 2. The uncompromising Puritans: 'If the whole conclave of hell can so compromise …'; 2.1. '… Puritanism was in the eye of the beholder'; 2.2. '… As the entrails of a creature cut down the back'; 2.3. '… They look backward as well as forward'; 2.4. '… They don't weigh the intellectual furniture …'; 2.5. '… Until a better light will be available to guide them'; 3. The uncompromising patriots: 'friends, brethren, enemies will prove …'; 3.1. '… We are breaking to pieces in our churches'; 3.2. In the wake of the awakening; 3.3. 'How then do we new Englandermen derive our laws?'; 3.4. The king 'unkings himself'; 4. The compromising confederates: '… mounting a body of mermaids on alligators'; 4.1. '… A rope of sand'; 4.2. 'We are the state'; 4.3. '… Mutual sacrifices should be made to effect a compromise …'; 5. The constitution: '… that greatest of all compromises'; 5.1. 'The states must see the rod …'; 5.2. '… To smoke the calumet of union and love'; 5.3. 'The house on fire must be extinguished …'; 5.4. 'It will wait upon the ladies at their toilett …'; 6. 'This is essentially a people's contest': 'Shall we compromise?'; 6.1. '… Fresh from the loins of the people …'; 6.2. 'Party spirit … only ask to lick the sores of the body politic'; 6.3. 'The day of compromise has passed'; 7. Conclusions: resuscitating the people's two bodies; 7.1. Parties without partisanship?; 7.2. Purged Individualism and Facebook; 7.3. “We, the people …'.