ABSTRACT
The word "Americanism" is no exception, and its character involves this inter-penetration to a very high degree. The great American Civil War, solved by force the contradiction between Liberty and Union. The meaning of liberty changed its character, and this change was itself effected by the development of a rival ideal-the ideal of Union. The ideal of Union, in changing from a sentiment to a fact, gained its spiritual force in terms of the ideal of Democracy, and Democracy is the last element in the trinity of Americanism to emerge. Americanism as a social ideal could be identified with the ideal of culture. The ideal of Liberty which motivates the Revolution is a political and local, not a spiritual thing. It defines a reaction against conditions felt at the time to be oppressive, and unites, for the sole purpose of abolishing these conditions, thirteen sovereign and independent states. It does not regard their internal organization.
