By Rich Lowry's telling, the last great American statesman to make a philosophical case for nationalism was Theodore Roosevelt. Roosevelt plays a distinct starring role in Lowry's narrative of American nationalism for both his words and deeds, announcing a peculiar moment for American conservatism. For several generations, Progressives like Teddy Roosevelt have marked the dividing line between the good Founding and the ill-fated late 19th-century turn toward historicism and relativism, along with all of their attendant ills into the 20th century. Yet the effort to forge a new conservative argument in favor of a form of nationalism, one that is not merely based on the philosophical commitments of the American founding, suddenly makes it possible to appreciate Progressives like Roosevelt. America, he writes, is not reducible to an idea.
Lowry thus finds himself attracted to certain Progressive strands that opposed the premise of America as a philosophical “project,” the same strands that led figures like Roosevelt to laud the historically-grounded nationalism of Burke, Hamilton, and Lincoln. While 19th-century Progressives rejected the philosophical Lockeanism of the Founding generation, they embraced Hamilton's vision of a great and unified nation, one informed by a common history, shared ideals, and collective destiny. A hallmark of this Progressive national vision was at once to enlarge and shrink America's devotions: Americans were no longer to identify primarily with local, state, or regional commitments, nor with the traditions and even religions they might have brought with them from foreign shores, but rather with the American nation.
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