American Political Ideas Viewed from the Standpoint of Universal History

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American Political Ideas Viewed
from the Standpoint of Universal
History

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From The
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Title: American Political Ideas Viewed From The Standpoint Of
Universal History
Author: John Fiske
Release Date: November 17, 2003 [EBook #10112]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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POLITICAL IDEAS ***

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AMERICAN POLITICAL IDEAS
VIEWED FROM THE STANDPOINT OF UNIVERSAL HISTORY
Three Lectures
DELIVERED AT THE ROYAL INSTITUTION OF GREAT
BRITAIN IN MAY 1880
BY JOHN FISKE
_Voici un fait entièrement nouveau dans le monde, et dont
l'imagination elle-même ne saurait saisir la portée._
TOCQUEVILLE
TO
EDWARD LIVINGSTON YOUMANS
NOBLEST OF MEN AND DEAREST OF FRIENDS
WHOSE UNSELFISH AND UNTIRING WORK IN EDUCATING
THE AMERICAN PEOPLE IN THE PRINCIPLES OF SOUND
PHILOSOPHY DESERVES THE GRATITUDE OF ALL MEN
I dedicate this Book

PREFACE.
In the spring of 1879 I gave at the Old South Meeting-house in Boston
a course of lectures on the discovery and colonization of America, and
presently, through the kindness of my friend Professor Huxley, the

course was repeated at University College in London. The lectures
there were attended by very large audiences, and awakened such an
interest in American history that I was invited to return to England in
the following year and treat of some of the philosophical aspects of my
subject in a course of lectures at the Royal Institution.
In the three lectures which were written in response to this invitation,
and which are now published in this little volume, I have endeavoured
to illustrate some of the fundamental ideas of American politics by
setting forth their relations to the general history of mankind. It is
impossible thoroughly to grasp the meaning of any group of facts, in
any department of study, until we have duly compared them with allied
groups of facts; and the political history of the American people can be
rightly understood only when it is studied in connection with that
general process of political evolution which has been going on from the
earliest times, and of which it is itself one of the most important and
remarkable phases. The government of the United States is not the
result of special creation, but of evolution. As the town-meetings of
New England are lineally descended from the village assemblies of the
early Aryans; as our huge federal union was long ago foreshadowed in
the little leagues of Greek cities and Swiss cantons; so the great
political problem which we are (thus far successfully) solving is the
very same problem upon which all civilized peoples have been working
ever since civilization began. How to insure peaceful concerted action
throughout the Whole, without infringing upon local and individual
freedom in the Parts,--this has ever been the chief aim of civilization,
viewed on its political side; and we rate the failure or success of nations
politically according to their failure or success in attaining this supreme
end. When thus considered in the light of the comparative method, our
American history acquires added dignity and interest, and a broad and
rational basis is secured for the detailed treatment of political questions.
When viewed in this light, moreover, not only does American history
become especially interesting to Englishmen, but English history is
clothed with fresh interest for Americans. Mr. Freeman has done well
in insisting upon the fact that the history of the English people does not
begin with the Norman Conquest. In the deepest and widest sense, our

American history does not begin with the Declaration of Independence,
or even with the settlements of Jamestown and Plymouth; but it
descends in unbroken continuity from the days when stout Arminius in
the forests of northern Germany successfully defied the might of
imperial Rome. In a more restricted sense, the statesmanship of
Washington and Lincoln appears in the noblest light when regarded as
the fruition of the various work of De Montfort and Cromwell and
Chatham. The good fight begun at Lewes and continued at Naseby and
Quebec was fitly crowned at Yorktown and at Appomattox. When we
duly realize this, and further come to see how the two great branches of
the English race have the common mission of establishing throughout
the larger part of the earth a higher civilization and more permanent
political order than any that has gone before, we shall