Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Following the work of Hartz and Hofstadter, the study of American political thought has generally emphasized the role of consensus, particularly with respect to the liberal tradition in American history. But merely emphasizing the liberal consensus does not, in itself, enable us to account for the parallel experience of great conflict in American history—conflict that cannot be explained, if we accept the Hartz thesis, simply in terms of a grand struggle between “liberalism and its challengers.” To understand the nature of American political conflict, we must look beyond the consensus approach—and, to the extent that we accept Hartz, we must also look beyond the liberal tradition to an alternative theoretical perspective.
My paper argues for a new approach to the study of American political history—one that emphasizes, not the role of liberalism, but the role of cosmopolitanism in the shaping of American political institutions and thought. I contend that the history of American conflict is best understood as a larger struggle between the cosmopolitan vision of the Enlightenment and the competing visions of ‘America’ that challenge it: pre-Madisonian republicanism; modern nationalism; and messianic, interventionist universalism. I conclude by sketching the ways in which this approach might manifest itself in the study of American political history, emphasizing the conflicts surrounding Constitutional ratification and the crises leading up to the Civil War.