blic certain large ideas--Liberty, Freedom of Conscience,
Equality--have somehow been made to seem very real things to the
American mind. Whether the Englishman does not in his heart prize just
as dearly as the American the things which these words signify, is
another matter; it is not the Englishman's habit to formulate them even
to himself, much less to talk about them to others. Most Englishmen have
large sympathy with Captain Gamble who, bewailing the unrest in Canada
at the outbreak of the Revolutionary War, complained that the Colonials
talked too much about "that damned absurd word Liberty."[10:1]

It is rarely that an English political campaign is fought for a
principle or for an abstract idea, and equally rarely that in America
the watchword on one side or the other is not some such high-sounding
phrase as Englishmen rather shrink from using. It is true that behind
that phrase may be clustered a cowering crowd of petty individual
interests; the fact remains that it is the phrase itself--the large
Idea--on which orators and party managers rely to secure their hold on
the imaginations of the mass of the people. It does not necessarily
imply any superior morality on the part of the Americans; but is an
accident of the different conditions prevailing in the two countries.

British politics are infinitely more complex than American, and foreign
affairs play a much larger part in public controversies. The people of
the United States have been throughout their history able to confine
their attention almost wholly to their home affairs, and in those home
affairs, the mere vastness of the country, with the diverse and
conflicting interests of the various parts, has made it as a rule
impossible to frame any appeal to the minds of the voters as a whole
except in terms of some abstract idea. An appeal to the self-interests
of the people in the aggregate in any matter of domestic policy is
almost unformulable, because the interest of each section conflicts with
the interest of others; whence it has necessarily followed that the
American people has grown accustomed to be led by large
phrases--disciplined to follow the flag of an ideal.

Not all the early colonists who emigrated, even to New England, went
solely for conscience' sake. Under the cloak of the lofty principle for
which the Revolutionary War was fought there were, again, concealed all
manner of personal ambitions, sectional jealousies, and partisan
intrigues. It