Behind the tradition of national
irresponsibility is the still deeper tradition of intellectual
insincerity in political matters. Americans are almost as much afraid of
consistent and radical political thinking as are the English, and with
nothing like as much justification. Jefferson offered them a seductive
example of triumphant intellectual dishonesty, and of the sacrifice of
theory to practice, whenever such a sacrifice was convenient.
Jefferson's example has been warmly approved by many subsequent
intellectual leaders. Before Emerson and after, mere consistency has
been stigmatized as the preoccupation of petty minds; and our American
superiority to the necessity of making ideas square with practice, or
one idea with another, has been considered as an exhibition of
remarkable political common sense. The light-headed Frenchmen really
believed in their ideas, and fell thereby into a shocking abyss of
anarchy and fratricidal bloodshed, whereas we have avoided any similar
fate by preaching a "noble national theory" and then practicing it just
as far as it suited our interests or was not too costly in time and
money.
Pages:
862
863
864
865
866
867
868
869
870
871
872
873
874
875
876
877
878
879
880
881
882
883
884
885
886