A new book by Boston College history professor Heather Cox Richardson, published by Viking, covers the United States’ evolving democratic republic in the easily readable format honed through four years of writing “Letters From An American” — a Substack newsletter that places modern political issues in their historical context.
Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America overcomes her personal political biases by providing a factual context for the events that shaped the United States.
In the concluding chapter, “Reclaiming Our Country”, she quotes from former president Jimmy Carter’s farewell address.
President Jimmy Carter noted that the undermining of faith in the government’s ability to deal with problems meant that Americans were turning increasingly to “single-issue groups and special interest organizations to ensure that whatever else happens, our own personal views and our own private interests are protected.” This, he warned, distorts the nation’s purpose because “the national interest is not always the sum of all our single or special interests. We are all Americans together, and we must not forget that the common good is our common interest and our individual responsibility.”
Richardson’s vision of what constitutes the common good coincides with the principles of the Republican Party under Abraham Lincoln, when Republicans supported national taxation in order to build schools, hospitals, and railroads that would advance the fortunes of poor men as well as the wealthy. Their actions were in keeping with Thomas Jefferson’s vision affirming citizens’ “unalienable” rights. Lincoln wrote, “The legitimate object of government, is to do for a community of people, whatever they need to have done, but can not do, at all, or can not, so well do, for themselves — in their separate, and individual capacities.”
Because many Americans are not even aware of Lincoln’s efforts beyond seeking the elimination of slavery, Richardson’s book has an important place in promoting an understanding of what is happening today. The history of the United States is filled with twists and turns as various factions fought against the expansion of the freedoms that democracy brings.
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