ABSTRACT
Americans are "descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government, very similar in their manners and customs," John Jay wrote in The Federalist No. 2, in defense of the new Constitution. 1 At least he got the politics right: All the basic political institutions of the United States had been created by the end of the eighteenth century, and none since then. But the Framers could scarcely have imagined how the culture would keep shifting into new configurations. Regional and ethnic customs would vary widely, new languages would get injected (at least for one or two generations) and religious pluralism would become legitimated, largely because Americans increasingly did not have the same ancestors.
