ABSTRACT
The Federalists' and the Democratic-Republicans' views represented two poles of an ambivalence toward the Mother Country that is characteristic of all new nations. In the new states of the twentieth century, the intellectuals have been the innovators, the agents of social change. In attempting to establish a national identity, nationalist intellectuals feel they need to play up those elements that make their nation unique. This chapter explores ways in which these problems were confronted in the early history of the United States. National identity was formed under the aegis, first of a charismatic authority figure, and later under the leadership of a dominant "left wing" or revolutionary party led successively by three Founding Fathers. The political scientist Clinton Rossiter has described the effects of the revolution on the political ideologies of the nation in explaining why conservatism as a doctrine is weak in America.
