ation
of the substance of the national life in obedience to a democratic
interest.

Let us seek for this complicated formula a specific application. How can
it be translated into terms of contemporary American conditions? Well,
in the first place, Americans are tied together by certain political,
social, and economic habits, institutions, and traditions. From the
political point of view these forms of association are at once
constitutional, Federal, and democratic. They are accustomed to some
measure of political centralization, to a larger measure of local
governmental responsibility, to a still larger measure of individual
economic freedom. This group of political institutions and habits has
been gradually pieced together under the influence of varying political
ideas and conditions. It contains many contradictory ingredients, and
not a few that are positively dangerous to the public health. Such as it
is, however, the American people are attached to this national
tradition; and no part of it could be suddenly or violently transformed
or mutilated without wounding large and important classes among the
American people, both in their interests and feelings. They have been
accustomed to associate under certain conditions and on certain terms;
and to alter in any important way those conditions and terms of
association without fair notice, full discussion, a demonstrable need
and a sufficient consent of public opinion, would be to drive a wedge
into the substance of American national cohesion. The American nation,
no matter how much (or how little) it may be devoted to democratic
political and social ideas, cannot uproot any essential element in its
national tradition without severe penalties--as the American people
discovered when they decided to cut negro slavery out of their national
composition.

On the other hand, their national health and consistency were in the
long run very much benefited by the surgical operation of the Civil War;
and it was benefited because the War eradicated the most flagrant
existing contradiction among the various parts of the American national
tradition. This instance sufficiently showed, consequently, that
although nationality has its traditional basis, it is far from being
merely a conservative principle. At any one time the current of national
public opinion embodies a temporary accommodation among the different
traditional ideas, interests, conditions, and institutions. This balance
o