The Rise of American Democracy
I just finished re-reading Sean Wilentz’s The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln, which is a thoroughly enjoyable read and an excellent reminder that democracy is not destiny and should never be taken for granted.
Wilentz writes:
“Democracy appears when some large numbers of previously excluded, ordinary persons-what the eighteenth century called “the mob”-secure the power not simply to select their governors but to oversee the institutions of government, as office holders and as citizens free to assemble and criticize those in office. Democracy is never a gift bestowed by benevolent, farseeing rulers who seek to reinforce their own legitimacy. It must always be fought for, by political coalitions that cut across distinctions ow wealth, power, and interests. It succeeds and survives only when it is rooted in the lives and expectations of its citizens, and continually reinvigorated in each generation. Democratic successes are never irreversible.” (xix)
Wilentz identifies five major themes characterizing the growth of democracy and politics in the United States through the end of the Civil War:
- From the nation’s inception, democracy has been highly contested and has developed “piecemeal by ‘fits and starts’ at the state and local as well as at the national level;”
- The unforeseen growth of free labor in the North and plantation slavery in the South had a deep impact on how democracy advanced, and, after 1815, retreated;
- Americans saw these social changes primarily as political struggles over contending views of democracy;
- Democracy in American has been a constant “spectacle of Americans arguing over democracy”;
- The many-sided conflicts over American democracy came to focus in the 1840s and 1850s on one issue: the fate of American slavery; and
- The idea of democracy has never been sufficient by itself, but has had to be “refreshed, fought over, and redefined continually.” (xxi-xxiii)
Chants by protestors that “this is what democracy looks like” and the refrain from Wall street 1% that “corporations are people too” are clear reminders that the battle for democracy is never finish. There will always be those who believe that the wealth and privilege of the few should confirm their role as a naturally, even divinely, selected aristocracy to rule over the many.
Money versus people. It has always been so.