This is hardly an accurate representation. The changes brought about as a result of the progressives are
no return to abandoned of lost first principles. Whether or not liberalism made it through the second
framing, branding the social policy of the progressive era, New Deal, and Great Society as liberal is, as
argued earlier, especially a problem. As regards resuscitating lost civic virtue, it has been contended here
that it has not been lost. Indeed, the degree to which it has been inhibited is in direct relationship to the
institution of such policies. If the system of checks and balances has 'frustrated the popular will,' for every
progressive reform to counter that -- and not only can women's suffrage and direct elections of Senators
just as readily be traced to a gradual expansion of the franchise  throughout U. S. history, not especially
the Progressives -- the emphasis on 'depoliticalization' and 'professionalism' from the Fed across the
bureaucratic spectrum, together with the institutionalization of Jim Crow and related disenfranchisement
of the 'Progressive Era' has not been intended ever toward popular expression. It can be argued that the
very qualities of the capitalist republic so repulsive to Progressives, to the extent that they have been 
impaired by it, have actually undermined the economic development that the constitutional order sought
to promote for the general good.  The graduated income tax has been one of the most intrusive
mechanisms in our history and has been used to fuel governmental growth at the expense of cultivation of
the general will, and the indictment of corporate power has only forced things in that direction. In fact, in
his VISIBLE HAND, Chandler argues quite persuasively that one of the benchmarks of corporate culture
has been the empowerment of middle management (the tactics behind Demmings' strategies are neither
divergent from that analysis nor in great variance from the American System in very many respects).

     Yet, more dubious even than the effort in Diggins to portray progressivism in this manner is his design
to formulate it on such as Melville and Lincoln. Perhaps for Henry Adams this is workable, but it is no
more so for these two than for Cooper. He would like to reach through them to establish progressivism
and contemporary liberalism as representative, even the embodiment of, his "Return to the Sacred in
Political Thought." (38) Even though the language of his writings is of a type to make it conducive to the
sort of effort this examination has been about, beyond the form it has very little to contribute. It is one
thing to suggest that both Melville and Lincoln "absorbed the power of America's ancestral religion," (39)
but it is quite another to purport that as foundational to Progressivism. As exemplary of the multitude of
problems involved by such an effort is their, and Progressivism's, relation to Calvinism. It is as difficult to
connect the gloom of that orientation to the spirit of America as it is to emerge from the gloom which
shadows much in Melville without a sense of having survived if not overcome it. The contradictions in
this regard are replete in Progressivism, as well. Whether it involves a faith in the capacity of man to run
his own affairs is not clear, either in the philosophical underpinnings or the policy initiatives. As has been
suggested, the 'democratic' manifestations of Progressivism seem to indicate one thing while the policy
implementation, something altogether different. It is possible from Diggins to see how governmental
'empowerment' through entitlement can be constructed, but this is not only a contradiction in the
familiarity with Rousseau he lends to Melville, it is an abject reversal, even a negation, of the philosophy
of the Declaration which he appears to desire reaching to connect with Progressive 'return of the sacred.'
Rights in the Declaration come to man from the Creator, not from government. The objection would
probably be entered that the argument runs to government guarantee of rights through affirmative acts of
empowerment, but in actuality that does not sit well with Rousseau and the relationship between
governance and the General Will. Diggins does suggest that virtue can be taught, and he apparently does
think that government can engender it. (40) In that argument, he contrasts Melville and Machiavelli. To
the extent, however, that such may be the case, government's role in the process must be carefully
scrutinized. The expansion of institutional control is certainly not going to achieve it, and indeed, must
undermine it, and Melville says as much in the selection Diggins references from WHITE JACKET:

	" ... when Virtue is crowned in the cabin of a commodore, when Virtue
	rules by compulsion, and domineers over Vice as a slave, then Virtue,
	though her mandates be outwardly observed, bears little interior sway.
	To be effacious, Virtue must come down from aloft, even as our blessed
	Redeemer came down to redeem our whole man-of-war world; ..." (41)

and that is the antithesis of the authority sought by Diggins.

     It is also possible to concur with Diggins on his assertion that:

	"In Lincoln American political thought ascended, and, ascending, resolved
	spiritual ecstasy," (42)

That, after all, was central to the earlier notion of Lincoln's apotheosis. But the continuation of Whig
'promotionalism' by Lincoln, even carried to the extent which exigencies forced, is by no means of the
same species of the control and planned character of Progressive liberal democracy. Such an interpretation
can only be held valid at the most superficial and unsophisticated level. And the religious character of
Lincoln, though in part a "fusing politics and piety by returning to the spirit of '76," (43) was more an
elaboration of the Constitution as the social contract, and is not comparable to the purging of corruption,
'periodic renewal,' or return to pristine first principles which progressivism purports. 

     Diggins faults Progressive historians with the dilemna of liberal America, out of their assumption that
Lockeanism "and Calvinism triumphed after the Civil War in capitalism and Social Darwinism." (44)
Although he proceeds to an indictment of the welfare state as it robs recipients of dignity and self-
reliance, he cannot see in this the failure of that vision of America. Rather amazingly, he would place our
condition at the feet of capitalism and its mentors, in whose hands the:

	"... liberal ideological of work and production ... [has been] ... transformed into                                          
               a conservative ideology of power and possession."(45)

The patent absurdity of this is then further compounded as he sinks into a variant form of liberal
absolutism ala Hartz to trumpet that "conservatism's" dispelling of America:

	" ... with the rise of the 'moral majority,' the omnipresent fundamentalist 
	tendencies in American religion has again arisen, fueling passionate 
	resentment toward change and modernity. In some cases these tendencies
	verge on a bigotry and racism ..." (46)

     But while the positive and negative aspects of such fundamentalism can be debated, they have, in fact,
been a key factor in not only the drive for progress but against the forces of its undoing. The opposition
they or other pose to what he terms 'change and modernity' may be thusly 'conservative,' but the desire to
stop and even roll-back the change which progressive liberalism has burdened us with is hardly evil. And
it is the very forces he promotes which have begun to 'verge on bigotry and racism.' The 'welfare' system
has been able to destroy not just the black family in a way even slavery could never do, but the family
structure in America well beyond the black community, and 'affirmative action' which arguably may have
helped some has done far more harm. Overall, it has been a dismal failure. Nor is it the drive for prayer in
school that has risen to subvert the First Amendment, but instead progressive liberalism which has skewed
the meaning of establishment to an active endorsement of secular humanism and an active sabotage of
established religion and civil religion. Whatever the merits of such initiatives as school prayer, and the 
may be outweighed by negatives, it in no manner represents 'establishment' and the separation doctrine
should not be construed into disestablishment as active policy.

     For Diggins, there was a 'Christian social justice' that played an important role in the effort "to
challenge the new industrial ideology" of the nineteenth century, one that leads him to endorsement of
Rauschenbausch's argument that capitalism weakens religion and encourages 'sins of the flesh.' (47) The
attempt to 'spin' the doctrines of Christianity which spawned in good measure capitalism ethics into such
as indictment of capitalism is unconscionable as it is erroneous. His diatribe runs to the tired questioning
of wealth held as justifiable, but it is of a more insidious character than 'ill-gotten gainsmanship' for it
tracks along the path of undermining the very capital accumulation which is the fuel of economic
development and higher living standards. His harshest comments on Gilden (48) are more of an attack on
capitalism itself than anything else and turn into a condemnation which infers that technology represents
"man's desire to flee the pains of labor and seek the pleasures of life without hard work." (49)

     The rhetoric in which he couches this attack on the theory of labor power in favor of the labor theory of
value actually sounds more Marxist than progressive, but then there may not be all that much difference.
Diggins wants, it seems, to accept Dewey's questioning of Kant's categorical imperative but has trouble
accepting his case that "there is no essential conflict between virtue and interest." (50) There can be, of
course, and hence the fear of factions, but they are not mutually exclusive categories, as he would read the
Framers to intimate. And yet, the perhaps most incredible commentary Diggins offers relates to foreign
policy he sees grown out of self-righteousness which frees America 'from the burden of sin' like slavery --
a useful enough, though misspecified point -- but also Hiroshima and Vietnam! (51) He adamantly argues
that "Moral judgment should never endanger the pursuit of peace" (52) never apparently realizing that
only by way of labor power advancement attained by capitalism can peace be promoted. This he brands 'a
superhuman goal' that is 'a kind of spiritual sickness.'(53) This act of delimiting 'moral  judgment' to suit
his categories of acceptable standards is actually the kind of subjective treatment which Diggins has
utilized throughout his tract to cordon off the territory he desires to stake a claim to, but his standard is
one determined by his conceptualization of liberalism. His apparent affinity for Jefferson as representative
of the lost soul of liberalism in need of resuscitation is even more disturbing. Such a liberal democracy, for
example, would resound with Jefferson's position on slavery as acceptable if only out of a tyranny of the
majority. (54) The very safeguards against that in the constitutional order (55)  which Diggins decries for
rendering us incapable of virtue (56) as are what decapitated liberal democracy, but the Enlightenment
philosophy which he would reach back to as grounds for his progressive liberal agenda by his own
admission out of Jefferson renders us impotent before nature as "the human mind was therefore powerless
to dictate to the universe how things 'ought' to be." (57) But he has already 'admitted' that the 'virtue' of
the Revolution against authority was inadequate for re-establishing authority.(58) Diggins' lost soul is
hence trapped in purgatory. The relationship between 'interest' and 'virtue,' seemingly rejected out of hand
by Diggins but so touted by Adam Smith, but moreover, the Framers, with checks against is abuse, and for
which in Henry Carey the Constitution becomes the essence of 'Association' resolves that dilemna.
Paradise can be regained, although not for Diggins. the approximation in Bellah of a 'good society' to
mend the 'Broken Covenant' with Diggins' lost soul and Progressive liberal resurrection defines much of
the problem with analysis, too. Diggins, like Hartz and Bellah, pose an anti-Geist to the Geist of
American civil religion. But alas, the negation of  virtue in the anti-Geist is itself negated by the spirit of
the faith -- the negation of the negation. There are differences, but they may be allusory. Diggins wants to
go home where for Hartz we cannot go back (like Dion's lonely teenager).

     What has been done here is to attempt to illuminate that large table in the center of Almond's Cafe.
Ironically, even incredibly, there is within the construct of our civic faith some contradictory signaling.
Without dismissing out of hand any positive role for Jefferson in the 'theology' or pantheon, there is much
of his thinking and public record some considerable antithetical character. To a lesser extent, there is as
well, a cult around such personages as Andrew Jackson and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. While their
positions in the pantheon may represent, in part, a certain dedication to the process which elevated them
to the 'pinnacle' they hold, much of what they represent is in basic antinomy to the spirit of the faith as it
has been delineated here. It may be difficult to sort out the 'good' and 'bad' of such elements of the
'religion,' and perhaps that would itself be antithetical to the belief structure, but they do serve as a source
of some of the divisive characteristics which ferment within the invention. Removing the Jefferson
Memorial or the figures of Jefferson and TR from Mount Rushmore is hardly to be anticipated or
suggested, but there is a real sense in which such exhibition does work to undermine the civic faith, the
'contemporary' version of liberalism being in basic opposition to much of that philosophy. Current
discussion of moving the statues of some women from the Capitol basement to display to make manifest
the contributions of women to our history suggests the problem, too, in that those thus conferred with
'saintly' stature could be of that 'alternative' faith -- and the liberal social democratic theology does possess
a rather 'counter' religiousity all its own, with its own theology and supportive structures.




XX   THE CONSTRUCT AS ANALYTIC INSTRUMENT

     The recently popularized film version of Mozart's life, AMADEUS, has it that the Austrian Emperor
had outlawed the play The Marriage of Figaro because it stirred up class animosities. Nevertheless, the
irrepressible Wolfgang managed to complete and win approval for performance of his operatic version of
Figaro. Considerable commentary by Hartz and Diggins as to the degree of transference of Old World
class divisions to the New World should be informed by what this case of  Mozart's Figaro illustrates.
Their consensus would appear to be that, unlike in the view of John Adams, the transference was very
slight. And yet, the class antagonisms reflected in Figaro are of a nature which reflects the time, but are
not the sort of class conflict we might infer from such usage today, after the industrial revolution. It was
the aristocracy which was fretting over the content of the libretto. In this respect, while the entire
American movement toward independence could be construed to be of such a character, the fact made so
much of by Hartz and Diggins of an absence of feudalism here might render the issue moot. By no stretch
of the imagination should the natural aristocracy of Hamilton have been looked upon in such a manner,
although it certainly came to be with the de facto allegiance of Genet and Jefferson, and even moreso by
the time of Jackson. Actually, there may be much in Mozart which should be looked to in the challenge of
piecing together the puzzle of America's genesis. Many of his operas tap the same historical and classical
sources which pervade that beginning. In addition to Figaro, the Magic Flute is filled with Masonic
symbolism, including three doors which may be somewhat akin to the three branches of government,
besides apparently of 'secret' meaning in lodge circles. It was through Masonic related forces that Franklin
established some liaison with Mozart. Other operatic scores reflect the Roman and Greek symbolism
which played not a small role in the Founding and Framing. If nothing else, such patterns may lend
themselves to the consideration of the genuine religiousity of what developed into our civil religion
construct. 

     It is this myth of origin which serves as the springboard for Robert Bellah's reappraisal of the civil
religion  concept in his collection of lectures on the subject published under the title BROKEN
COVENANT. Reference to what that means in relation to Diggins and Hartz has been made. There is a
common substantive focus in the work of the three. At the same time, there are some important
differences, too. Bellah appears to place a good deal more emphasis on the importance of republican virtue
(1) than do either Hartz or Diggins, Bellah portraying a continuing role for such 'willed initiative'
throughout our history whereas the other two treat it virtually as a dead letter, though one with some
potentially valuable service given its reinvigoration.

     Additionally, where Diggins' and Hartz' liberalism would treat pursuit of individual self-interest as
somewhat of an enigma, Bellah mentions such as Montesquieu's concern that the survival of a republic
required a measure of public spirited mind that could "make possible that renunciation of self," (2) but he
quickly turns this about and firmly plants at least a modicum of the origin in:

	"The idea that society could be based on a mere coagulation of individual
	interests, that the pursuit of private vice could result in public virtue ..,"(3)

although somehow Adam Smith is largely missing from Bellah's entire scheme. His utilization of the term
vice may betray something of a hidden agenda that appears in Bellah much as it does in the other two
analysts. Of importance, as well, is the source out of which Bellah locates this idea which he attributes to
Locke as a 'true disciple' of Hobbes. (4) The establishment of the compact to contain the belllum omnium
is a simple matter of interest:

	" ... social concord is still based not on divine justice, not even on a shadow
	of caritas, but on self-interest, on cupidas alone." (5)

     But he is not very clear whether this analysis looks to the individual or the aggregate self-interest, even
in his dedication of the cupidas concept to Augustine. That connection brings Bellah to a further
divergence from the analysis of Hartz and Diggins:

	"But essential to Augustine's political thought is the idea that even fallen men 
	retain some 'image' or 'impression' of divine faith and justice, without which 
	there could be no political order." (6)

      This, indeed, was one of the problems this analysis offered by way of critique of the others' liberalism,
which seems struck by human frailty beyond reconstruction. It also gives rise to a critical point which
would appear to be absent in the discussion of the Framers by any of this trio of analysts. Man's nature as
'fallen' or 'saved' is important. Although here Bellah infers a potentiality (7), it is not exactly the free will
choice potential spoken of earlier here, and yet neither is it the almost totally constrained vision of man in
Hartz and Diggins as having 'fallen and can't get up.' This also directs contemplation toward a further
important point. Perhaps out of this rather frail vision of man's nature, especially in the former two, but
even in Bellah, it just doesn't appear to occur to them that the delimitation character of the Constitution
was not primarily, if at all, directed at individuals, but rather its entire objective and function was to limit
government. All the discussion of human nature and even the consideration of the checking of interests by
institutional constraints had that one myopic quest. This simply cannot be over-emphasized. In spite of the
fact that Bellah early in the tract lent an ear to the possibility of some correspondence between interest and
virtue, he rather quickly and abruptly qualifies that view, suggesting that a tension soon appeared between
such views and those held by others of a more self-denying, even self-effacing form of virtue (8). This
later he attributes to the likes of Sam Adams and Washington in his Farewell Address (9), as well as John
Adams. The interest as virtue viewpoint is one which Gordon Wood has articulated:

	"But by the 1790's, as Gordon S. Wood has shown, quite other views were 
	beginning to prevail. Instead of lamenting the fact that Americans seemed
	to be more intent on individual happiness than upon public good, some began
	to argue that just such a principle was the basis of the new American system. 
	The new Constitution, it was felt, harnessed individual acquisitiveness to 
	public order." (10)

According to James Wilson, the controls built into the new system of government actually "made it
advantageous for bad men to act for the public good." (11) Wood contends that:

	"America would remain free not because of any quality in its citizens of spartan
	self-sacrifice to some nebulous public good, but in the last analysis because of the
	concern each individual would have in his own self-interest and individual freedom." (12)

     Due to the frankly dim view and natural fear held of the ordinary citizen by the Framers on this
conviction, Bellah argues that the Constitution was a kind of "'external covenant' uniting convinced
republicans with the lukewarm." (13) He goes as far as to suggest that the idea that America was a chosen
people, a new Israel in the Promised Land, a shining city on a hill, had been altered, so that with
Jefferson, the Constitution became "a shell for the pursuit of self interest rather than a space for the
exercise of free initiative in the public interest." (14)

     There are obvious glaring faults in the city on a hill, not the least of which was the position accorded
Indians and Africans in the new order of the ages. That Bellah fails to see the new system as a dynamic
process which would contain the seeds of the resolution or potential resolution of such internal
inconsistencies is also quite apparent. After all, what kind of 'faith' would permit slavery? The American
civil religion didn't. It is did not see a way to eliminate it, there was a real conviction that the development
of labor power and the value of labor would make slavery nonviable. Hamilton, Franklin, and Lincoln
were all quite clear on this, but none argued it as forcefully as Carey. 


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