An
American, on the other hand, has it quite within his power to accept a
conception of democracy which provides for the substantial integrity of
his country, not only as a nation with an exclusively democratic
mission, but as a democracy with an essentially national career.
II
NATIONALITY AND CENTRALIZATION
The Federal political organization has always tended to confuse to the
American mind the relation between democracy and nationality. The nation
as a legal body was, of course, created by the Constitution, which
granted to the central government certain specific powers and
responsibilities, and which almost to the same extent diminished the
powers and the responsibilities of the separate states. Consequently, to
the great majority of Americans, the process of increasing
nationalization has a tendency to mean merely an increase in the
functions of the central government. For the same reason the affirmation
of a constructive relation between the national and the democratic
principles is likely to be interpreted merely as an attempt on the
grounds of an abstract theory to limit state government and to disparage
states rights.
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