America the tolerant

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Dinesh ^club

In the seventeenth century the American Puritans began with an encompassing, we might say a “totalitarian,” concept of community. Nowadays, fortunately, we only seldom require people to subscribe formally to explicit beliefs; but we still expect people to act and feel as if they believed the same thing. To pass for a religious person in the United States, it is less important than you be able to define sharply what you believe than that you be able, however vaguely, to share the equally vague religiosity of others. Our political faith is much the same. It is less important for an American public man to have clearly defined political principle than for him to share the vague political beliefs of as many as possible of his fellow citizens. Thus, although we proclaim ourselves to be religious nation by the word “God” on our coins and (by Act of Congress) in our Pledge of Allegiance, it is unlawful to express or avow in our public schools any specific religious sentiments to which everybody else could not agree. Our political parties must have platforms; but no party would get far less its platform was much as possible like that of the other party. ~ Page 199

3 years ago. Edited 6 months ago.

Dinesh ^club

America became a more imaginable destination as information about it spread. In the early eighteenth century many Germans still thought Pennsylvania and Carolina were islands; not many did so after 1730. Literature about the fabled opportunities in America reached into the villages, there were even local songs about it. Of course, what people read about America were often enthusiastic accounts circulated by recruiting agents for Dutch shipperss, American landowners, or other advocates of colonization projects. The German states tried hard to keep these promoters out of their territories, with limited success. Word of the opportunities that awaited emigrants across the Atlantic was also spread by “newlanders,” peasants, artisans, or traders who had already migrated, then returned to collect property and settle their affairs. For most, returning was a one-time or occasional event, but some became professional go-betweens, shuttling back and forth across the Atlantic on behalf of others, delivering letters, collecting debts, and perhaps earning a premium from a shipping agent by recruiting new emigrants. By the middle of the eighteenth century this had become (like the shipping of emigrants) an established business. There were hundreds of these go-betweens, who advertised in colonial newspapers and operated with the power of attorney from third parties. Like the letters they carried, the newlanders wee also prime source of information about America as well as advice about such basic matters as when to leave – spring was best, in order to arrive before the winter storms in the Atlantic. ~ Page 116

6 months ago. Edited 6 months ago.

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