
Conflict and Consensus - mathoff
https://thepointmag.com/2017/politics/conflict-and-consensus
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mathoff
"Americans relied on the organic growth of institutions to fit circumstances
and experience. The true “genius” of American politics, he said, was that
Americans had no political philosophy. Instead, they shared the common
assumption “that institutions are not and should not be the grand creations of
men toward large ends and outspoken values; rather they are organisms which
grow out of the soil in which they are rooted and out of the tradition from
which they have sprung.” The American Revolution was simply an attempt to
preserve political institutions and practices inherited from Britain and
adapted to the circumstances of American life. Even the Civil War “did not
represent a quest for a general redefinition of political values” because it
was an essentially conservative struggle between differences of
“constitutional emphasis,” not different political theories."

