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Full-Text Articles in History
The American Dream, Equal Opportunity, And Obtaining The Vote, Benjamin Wyman
The American Dream, Equal Opportunity, And Obtaining The Vote, Benjamin Wyman
The Cohen Journal
The United States was founded on the principles of inalienable and natural rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Out of those ideals arose the ideas of an American Creed and American Dream, which have provided aspirations for millions of Americans to pursue their dreams, and, with hard work, the chance to improve their situation in life. The fundamental values of the new American Creed became “liberty, equality, individualism, populism, laissez-faire, and the rule of law under a constitution” (Jillson 2004, 4) while the idea of an American Dream which was first instilled upon the citizens of the …
The Project Of Democracy, Alexander Keyssar
The Project Of Democracy, Alexander Keyssar
Maine Policy Review
This article is an address given at the May 2002 Maine Town Meeting sponsored by the Margaret Chase Smith Library in Skowhegan. Alexander Keyssar chronicles the advances and contractions of democratic political rights in American history. While on balance, this is a story of progress, it is not, Keyssar argues, unilinear, nor one that is completed. Although arguably late for the world’s “greatest democracy,” by the 1970s the United States had achieved universal suffrage. Today, however, the tug between democratic and anti-democratic forces continues. The contest is no longer over voting rights but over the procedures and rules governing elections …