ABSTRACT
Conservative social movements in the United Statesdefy easy categorization. Dozens of different conservative groups have struggled for myriad causes, ranging from the expulsion of Chinese immigrants to the elimination of federal taxation to the establishment of a Christian Republic. These groups have adopted various forms of organization, including mobs, paramilitary cells, and political parties, and they have used numerous tactics, including violence, political mobilization, and civil disobedience, to forward their causes. Making generalization about conservative social movements more difficult is the tension running through conservatism between its libertarian and normative forms. Some conservatives have sought to drastically reduce the roles of federal and state governments in the economic and social lives of Americans, while other conservatives have insisted that the state not only guarantee law and order but also regulate many important aspects of social life, including religion, leisure, sexuality, reproduction, and morality. Ultimately, however, conservatives have, with a few notable exceptions, found common ground in the promotion of individualism, property rights, free enterprise, law and order, and some form of nationalism. Opposition to socialism, communism, environmentalism, unions, and taxation has also brought conservatives together, as have racism and nativism, again with important exceptions.
