ABSTRACT
In the seventeenth century, wealthy Britons began the tradition of the Grand Tour of Europe and continued in the next century, to be followed by droves of Americans in the nineteenth century. So interesting and rich in history, culture, and cuisine did everyone find the old continent that not all the tourists returned home again. When James Fennimore Cooper, then America's most famous writer, was seen in the harbor with his steamer trunks and many children embarking for Europe a passerby on another ship recognized him and called out, “You will never come back.” It was an encounter Cooper would not forget. 1 In like manner, the republican project began its tour but in the other direction, from the European continent to England and thence America, the Atlantic tour, only unlike Cooper (who did return) the republic never came back, at least not in the form of its departure.
