Jefferson's Empire: The Language of American NationhoodUniversity of Virginia Press, 2000 - Počet stran: 250 Thomas Jefferson believed that the American revolution was atransformative moment in the history of political civilization. He hoped that hisown efforts as a founding statesman and theorist would help construct a progressiveand enlightened order for the new American nation that would be a model andinspiration for the world. Peter S. Onuf's new book traces Jefferson's vision of theAmerican future to its roots in his idealized notions of nationhood and empire.Onuf's unsettling recognition that Jefferson's famed egalitarianism was elaboratedin an imperial context yields strikingly original interpretations of our nationalidentity and our ideas of race, of westward expansion and the Civil War, and ofAmerican global dominance in the twentiethcentury. Jefferson's vision of an American "empirefor liberty" was modeled on a British prototype. But as a consensual union ofself-governing republics without a metropolis, Jefferson's American empire would befree of exploitation by a corrupt imperial ruling class. It would avoid the cycle ofwar and destruction that had characterized the European balance ofpower. The Civil War cast in high relief thetragic limitations of Jefferson's political vision. After the Union victory, as thereconstructed nation-state developed into a world power, dreams of the United Statesas an ever-expanding empire of peacefully coexisting states quickly faded frommemory. Yet even as the antebellum federal union disintegrated, a Jeffersoniannationalism, proudly conscious of America's historic revolution against imperialdomination, grew up in its place. In Onuf's view, Jefferson's quest to define a new American identity also shaped his ambivalentconceptions of slavery and Native American rights. His revolutionary fervor led himto see Indians as "merciless savages" who ravaged the frontiers at the Britishking's direction, but when those frontiers were pacified, a more benevolentJefferson encouraged these same Indians to embrace republican values. AfricanAmerican slaves, by contrast, constituted an unassimilable captive nation, unjustlywrenched from its African homeland. His great panacea: colonization. Jefferson's ideas about race revealthe limitations of his conception of American nationhood. Yet, as Onuf strikinglydocuments, Jefferson's vision of a republican empire--a regime of peace, prosperity, and union without coercion--continues to define and expand the boundaries ofAmerican national identity. |
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... peace , prosperity , and progress that the British imperial connection had once promised . Americans sought to ... peaceful and progressive alter- native to the European balance of power could be treated with the his- torian's customary ...
... great step to- ward the republican millennium , when self - governing peoples across the world would join in peaceful , prosperous , harmonious union . Enslaved Africans had to be repatriated to their own country , Jefferson's Empire 15.
... peace in an expanding republican empire was mere delusion , the archaic fantasy of another age . Can we conclude that Jefferson's great invention , his conception of American nationhood , ultimately subverted his great hope , his vision ...
... peace and friendship between their peoples . Three years earlier George Rogers Clark had seized the old French settlement at Kaskaskia , effectively extending Virginia's jurisdiction through the Illinois country . An aggressive British ...
... peace and harmony in " lawless " Indian commu- nities constituted an attractive alternative to coercive state power . It might well be asked " whether no law , as among the savage Americans , or too much law , as among the civilized ...
Obsah
1 | |
18 | |
Republican Empire | 53 |
The Revolution of 1800 | 80 |
Federal Union | 109 |
To Declare Them a Free and Independant People | 147 |
4 July 1826 | 189 |
Notes | 193 |
Bibliography | 229 |
Index | 243 |
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Jefferson's Empire: The Language of American Nationhood Peter S. Onuf Náhled není k dispozici. - 2001 |
Jefferson's Empire: The Language of American Nationhood Peter S. Onuf Náhled není k dispozici. - 2000 |