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Tocqueville And The American Amalgam, Andrew C. Spiropoulos

Andrew C. Spiropoulos

Any serious attempt to understand the original meaning of the Constitution requires an inquiry into what was, if any, the dominant political theory that guided the founding of the American regime. Recent decades have witnessed a lively scholarly debate between the partisans of the liberal interpretation of the Founding, which posits that liberal political theory is the intellectual foundation of our regime, and those of classical republicanism. The classical republicans argue that the influence of liberal theory on the Founding has been exaggerated, and that the Founders cared more about securing the authority to govern their communities in the name …