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  • Liberalism and Social Action

     |  Progressive Rejection of the Founding

    Liberalism and Social Action Liberalism and Social Action 1 John Dewey (1859-1952) As a leading Progressive scholar from the 1880s onward, Dewey, who taught mainly at Columbia University, devoted much of his life to redefining the idea of education. His thought was influenced by German philosopher G.W.F. Hegel, and central to it was a denial of objective truth and an embrace of historicism and moral relativism. As such he was critical of the American founding. 1935 1. The History of Liberalism ...The natural beginning of the inquiry in which we are engaged is consideration of the origin and past development of liberalism. It is to this topic that the present chapter is devoted. The conclusion reached from a brief survey of history, namely ...
  • The President of the United States

     |  Progressive Rejection of the Founding

    The President of the United States The President of the United States 1 Woodrow Wilson For Wilson, constitutional checks and balances and the separation of powers are indicative of the flawed thinking of America's Founders. They are means of limiting government, when the fact is that government alone can provide the people's needs. Wilson looks to the presidency—the singular voice of the people—as the best hope for overcoming the old order. 1908 It is difficult to describe any single part of a great governmental system without describing the whole of it. Governments are living things and operate as organic wholes. Moreover, governments have their natural evolution and are one thing in one age, another in another. The makers of the Constitution ...
  • Progressive Democracy

     |  Progressive Rejection of the Founding

    Progressive Democracy Progressive Democracy 1 Herbert Croly (1869-1930) In this book, Croly, a leading Progressive theorist and founder of The New Republic magazine, criticizes the Founders' fear of tyranny of the majority and rejects their idea that government exists to protect individual rights. 1915 Chapter XII: The Advent of Direct Government ...If economic, social, political and technical conditions had remained very much as they were at the end of the eighteenth century, the purely democratic political aspirations might never have obtained the chance of expression. Some form of essentially representative government was at that time apparently the only dependable kind of liberal political organization. It was imposed by the physical ...
  • Commonwealth Club Address

     |  New Deal and Great Society

    Commonwealth Club Address Commonwealth Club Address 1 Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945) Delivered by Roosevelt to California's Commonwealth Club during his first run for the White House, this speech was penned by Adolf Berle, a noted scholar and a member of Roosevelt's "Brain Trust" who drew deeply upon earlier Progressive thought, especially that of John Dewey. September 23, 1932 ...I want to speak not of politics but of Government. I want to speak not of parties, but of universal principles. They are not political, except in that larger sense in which a great American once expressed a definition of politics, that nothing in all of human life is foreign to the science of politics. I do want to give you, however, a recollection of a long ...
  • What Good's a Constitution?

     |  New Deal and Great Society

    What Good's a Constitution What Good's a Constitution? 1 Winston Churchill (1874-1965) Written soon after Franklin Roosevelt's Democratic Convention Address of 1936, this article by British statesman Winston Churchill points to the wide gulf between Churchill's and Roosevelt's economic views, even if five years later they would forge a close wartime alliance. Beyond their differences on economics, Churchill sees the American Constitution as an enduring source of strength for the American republic, not an obstacle to be overcome. August 22, 1936 No one can think clearly or sensibly about this vast and burning topic without in the first instance making up his mind upon the fundamental issue. Does he value the State above the citizen, or the citizen above the State ...
  • Annual Message to Congress

     |  New Deal and Great Society

    Annual Message to Congress Annual Message to Congress 1 Franklin D. Roosevelt As victory in the Second World War looked more and more likely, President Roosevelt turned his attention to postwar America. In this speech he proposes a "second Bill of Rights." January 11, 1944 ...It is our duty now to begin to lay the plans and determine the strategy for the winning of a lasting peace and the establishment of an American standard of living higher than ever before known. We cannot be content, no matter how high that general standard of living may be, if some fraction of our people—whether it be one-third or one-fifth or one-tenth—is ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill-housed, and insecure. This Republic had its beginning, and grew to its present strength ...
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