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.
The political leaders of the "era of good feeling" who began to use with
some degree of conviction certain comely phrases about the eternal and
inseparable alliance between "liberty and union" were looking towards
the promised land of American democratic fulfillment. As we shall see,
the kind of liberty and the kind of union which they had in mind were by
no means indissolubly and inseparably united; and both of these words
had to be transformed from a negative and legal into a positive moral
and social meaning before the boasted alliance could be anything but
precarious and sterile. But if for liberty we substitute the word
democracy, which means something more than liberty, and if for union, we
substitute the phrase American nationality, which means so much more
than a legal union, we shall be looking in the direction of a fruitful
alliance between two supplementary principles.
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