Volume 41, Number 16 · October 6, 1994
Pioneers of Paranoia
By Edmund S. Morgan
Peter Porcupine in America: Pamphlets on Republicanism and Revolution
by William Cobbett
Cornell University Press, 288 pp., $24.95
The Key of Liberty: The Life and Democratic Writings of William Manning, 'A Laborer,' 1747-1814 Wilentz.
edited by Michael Merrill, edited by Sean Wilentz
Harvard University Press, 240 pp., $14.95 (paper)
The distinguishing mark of American politics has been the absence of irreconcilable differences between the two parties that successively dominate the national government. Each party rests on a coalition of interests so diverse and inclusive as to prevent the formulation of any program that the other party will find intolerable. The one issue that eventually erupted into civil war was kept out of politics for half a century and more before any party dared take it into the open. And after the resulting war was over and won, the logical consequence of victory (racial equality) was quickly banished from politics for another hundred years, when both parties agreed to bring the subject gingerly forward.
Review, 2550 words
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