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The more consciously democratic Americans became, however, the less they were satisfied with a conception of the Promised Land, which went no farther than a pervasive economic prosperity guaranteed by free institutions.

Herbert Croly

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Herbert Croly
Age: 61 †
Born: 1869
Born: January 23
Died: 1930
Died: May 17
Journalist
Political Scientist
Trade Unionist
Writer
New York City
New York
Herbert David Croly
However
Consciously
Americans
Promised
Went
Conception
Land
Prosperity
Economic
Satisfied
Literature
Institutions
Pervasive
Free
Democratic
Guaranteed
Less
Became
Farther

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The combination of Federalism and Republicanism which formed the substance of the system, did not constitute a progressive and formative political principle, but it pointed in the direction of a constructive formula.
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The Constitution was the expression not only of a political faith, but also of political fears. It was wrought both as the organ of the national interest and as the bulwark of certain individual and local rights.
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Democracy may mean something more than a theoretically absolute popular government, but it assuredly cannot mean anything less.
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If it be true that democracy is based upon the assumption that every man shall serve his fellow man, the organization of democracy should be gradually adapted to that assumption.
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Let it be immediately added, however, that this economic independence and prosperity has always been absolutely associated in the American mind with free political institutions.
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Women ... are completely alone, though they were born and bred upon this soil, as if they belonged to another class in creation.
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Of course, Americans have no monopoly of patriotic enthusiasm and good faith.
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Unless the great majority of Americans not only have, but believe they have, a fair chance, the better American future will be dangerously compromised.
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The adoption by Jefferson and the Republicans of the political structure of their opponents is of an importance hardly inferior to that of the adoption of the Constitution by the states.
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I am not concerned with dodging the odium of the word. The proposed definition of democracy is socialistic . . . (democracy) should be characterized not so much socialistic, as unscrupulously and loyally nationalistic.
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So far I, at least, have no fault to find with implications of Hamilton's Federalism, but unfortunately his policy was in certain other respects tainted with a more doubtful tendency.
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When Jefferson and the Republicans rallied to the Union and to the existing Federalist organization, the fabric of traditional American democracy was almost completely woven.
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In the long run men inevitably become the victims of their wealth. They adapt their lives and habits to their money, not their money to their lives. It preoccupies their thoughts, creates artificial needs, and draws a curtain between them and the world.
Herbert Croly
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In Jefferson's mind democracy was tantamount to extreme individualism.
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Had it not been for the Atlantic Ocean and the virgin wilderness, the United States would never have been the Land of Promise.
Herbert Croly
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To the European immigrant - that is, to the aliens who have been converted into Americans by the advantages of American life - the Promise of America has consisted largely in the opportunity which it offered of economic independence and prosperity.
Herbert Croly
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The essential nature of a democracy compels it to insist that individual power of all kinds, political, economic, or intellectual, shall not be perversely and irresponsibly exercised.
Herbert Croly
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The interest which lay behind Federalism was that of well-to-do citizens in a stable political and social order, and this interest aroused them to favor and to seek some form of political organization which was capable of protecting their property and promoting its interest.
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The higher American patriotism, on the other hand, combines loyalty to historical tradition and precedent with the imaginative projection of an ideal national Promise.
Herbert Croly
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The moral and social aspiration proper to American life is, of course, the aspiration vaguely described by the word democratic and the actual achievement of the American nation points towards an adequate and fruitful definition of the democratic ideal.
Herbert Croly