CALIFORNIA THE ESSENTIAL PART ONE: INTRODUCTION CHAPTER ONE SOME OF THE CHARACTERISTIC AMERICAN POLITICAL IDEAS, THE UNIQUE AMERICAN ENVIRONMENT, AND THE INTERRELATIONS OF IDEAS AND ENVIRONMENT. Something of lasting importance to mankind happened when the United States of America came into being.* The American adventure is closely associated with-may almost be said to represent-the historic overthrow of many doctrines and institutions which once retarded human prog ress. That progress-stimulated by the American adventurecontinues. Already the world sees before it wide new prospects far in advance of what America achieved. The great contribution of America is undeniable. The better we understand that contribution the longer its influence will last, the less likelihood there will be of diminution of its influence. To think the contribution too definite or too simple a thing is not only to lose its real significance but to endanger its permanency. What was the real contribution of America, not only in such terms as the men of 1776 or of 1787 may have thought but as we of today-in a greatly changed world-may see? What is the essential American idea, the essential American tradition? We know today that great mass movements affecting whole generations of men cannot be summarised in a few words. *The words "America" and "American" will, for convenience, be used throughout this book as referring to the United States of America. The American adventure-the colonising of America and the establishment of the United States-was a great mass movement involving millions of men and resulting from the interplay of an almost infinite number of events, conditions, impulses and motives. It had many unique, unprecedented aspects. Particularly it subjected civilised men to very primitive conditions and, later, permitted them to attempt to found, by the use of reason, a civilised society based on the thought they sought to extract from all the records and experiences of earlier societies and to crystallise out of their own experiences, needs and aspirations. At every stage of the movement men sought to put into words what they believed to be its distinctive and characteristic aspects. By rendering this great mass movement articulate they hoped to direct and speed its progress. No simple formula could, however, actually express a phenomenon so involved. At the time of the Revolutionary War considerable unanimity of opinion prevailed concerning the ideas and ideals believed to actuate this movement of millions of men and women over many generations. Some of these ideas and ideals were put into words which won wide acceptance and were written into the Declaration of Independence. The distinctive character of the American people and the distinctive institutions developed by the American people have been very greatly influenced and shaped by these words used to express ideas and ideals affecting hundreds of thousands or millions of individuals. But other influences have since served even more potently to shape the character and institutions of the people of the United States and, sometimes, to find expression in ideas so phrased as to be either apparently or actually in conflict with the ideas upon which the nation was originally founded. The rapid progress of civilisation during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries has, moreover, changed the conditions of human life everywhere on earth. In changing the conditions it has inevitably changed the thought. In America the developments and changes brought by recent generations have inevitably affected the individualistic philosophy which-however variously expressed-did unmistakably mark the beginnings of the country. The collectivist ideas inexorably resulting from modern ways of life begin to find expression in new nations, new institutions, new philosophies clearly opposed to what have been proclaimed as the characteristic American ideas. Within the nation, moreover, these collectivist tendencies, together with the obvious anti-social extremes to which some individualistic tendencies have at times gone, have served so to affect or confuse an increasing number of minds that the early American ideals and aspirations sometimes appear to them either at one extreme-unstable, undesirable, or unrealisable, or at the other extreme-so mystically sacrosanct that no criticism or examination of them should be tolerated. It must be admitted that, as expressed by many of the early Americans, some of these ideals of individualism and social organisation will not survive the critical examination of the present age. But these early ideals-however expressed-were shared by millions of men. They were vitalised by the conditions of American life and had been engendered by influences which had shaped European life and thought for thousands of years. These instinctive ideals-when expressed in the deceptively simple terms accepted by earlier generations—are open to corrosive criticism. Yet deep-rooted impulses and ideals which have affected millions of men over thousands of years can not be easily dismissed. It is often the mode of expression and of application rather than the deep-rooted reality which permits destructive criticism. The ideas and ideals shaping America were not so simple as we have believed. Some of them occasionally found faulty expression which carried them into blind alleys. But there was in most of them a greater degree of enduring truth and value than the world appears now to believe. If the errors of expression can be seen and understood, and the deep underlying impulse continuously rephrased in language acceptable to developing political thought, it is obvious that the progress and well-being of the nation will be beneficially affected. The excerpts given in this book have been chosen to show the diversity of expression of the essential American tradition, to indicate that it is more intricate and complex than many formulas we have heretofore accepted would lead us to believe. Particularly they have been chosen to indicate that the aspirations of early America cannot be reduced to the slogans or combinations of slogans which are too often used as expressing the American spirit and the American ideals. In recent years we have watched the crystallisation of these slogans and observed the uncritical acceptation of them, the unreasoning loyalty to them which has often been demanded. Two Contributions by America-New Ideas and New Organs of Government. America made two contributions to political science—one in the realm of ideas and principles; the other in the realm of organs of government designed to perfect the functioning of representative democracy. We will deal first with the contribution in the realm of ideas and principles. In comparison with all large civilised states previously existing, the individual-at least in theory-has, in America, occupied a relatively more important place. In comparison with all large civilised states previously existing there has been in America a greater conscious effort to found a government by the consent of all the governed. There has been an attempt to free the individual from the authority of men as individuals and to subject him only to the authority of laws administered by men selected by a majority and held— at least in theory-rigorously in check by those laws. These facts emerge from all the history of the country. The phrases "Rights of Man," "Natural Law," "Natural Rights," "Social Compact" were among others used to express the impulses motivating great masses of men in this general direction. The phrases "The greatest good of the greatest number," "Government of the people, by the people, for the people," "Government by laws not men" were among others used to describe the dim goal to be reached. Let us, however, temporarily dismiss phrases from our minds and seek to envisage the characteristic conditions which shaped early America; seek to trace the origin of some of the more important ideas which-phrased in many different ways-were potent in influencing the development, the activities, and the institutions of America. The Unique Environmental Conditions of Early America. The contribution made by America to the political develop |