Independence In America Research Articles

The Voyage of Human Reason in and beyond Kant's The Critique of Pure Reason

The Copernican Revolution had meant for modern Europe surer navigation, bolder voyages and wilder discoveries. With the declaration of independence of America in 1781 and the publication of The Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant in the same year, the age of Enlightenment defined itself as an age of coming of age and of daring to know. This essay tries to draw out the peculiar enlightenment ethos of a youth against youth through Kant’s depiction of the voyage of human reason in the First Critique. It will do so by examining the four-fold sense of objects, the island of truth surrounded by illusion, amphibolic insularity, the mirror of schema and the “No Further!” of the Pillars of Hercules. Interrogating the dual sense of “limit” as both infinitizing, transgressively de-territorializing and yet at the same time self-delimiting, self-critiquingly re-territorializing, this essay argues for a hermeneutic vantage point to comprehend Kant as the unwilling mariner who by way of the transcendental as-if attempted to gain a certain spectatorship, a particular possibility of seeing - at a shore already and increasingly lost to the European and global humanity of centuries to come.

The People's Courts: Pursuing Judicial Independence in America

The People's Courts: Pursuing Judicial Independence in America

The people's courts: pursuing judicial independence in America

In the United States, almost 90 percent of state judges have to run in popular elections to remain on the bench. In the past decade, this peculiarly American institution has produced vicious multi-million-dollar political election campaigns and high-profile allegations of judicial bias and misconduct. The People's Courts traces the history of judicial elections and Americans' quest for an independent judiciary--one that would ensure fairness for all before the law--from the colonial era to the present. In the aftermath of economic disaster, nineteenth-century reformers embraced popular elections as a way to make politically appointed judges less susceptible to partisan patronage and more independent of the legislative and executive branches of government. This effort to reinforce the separation of powers and limit government succeeded in many ways, but it created new threats to judicial independence and provoked further calls for reform. Merit selection emerged as the most promising means of reducing partisan and financial influence from judicial selection. It too, however, proved vulnerable to pressure from party politics and special interest groups. Yet, as Shugerman concludes, it still has more potential for protecting judicial independence than either political appointment or popular election. The People's Courts shows how Americans have been deeply committed to judicial independence, but that commitment has also been manipulated by special interests. By understanding our history of judicial selection, we can better protect and preserve the independence of judges from political and partisan influence.

A NOT SO HAPPY BIRTHDAY: THE FOSTER YOUTH TRANSITION FROM ADOLESCENCE INTO ADULTHOOD

Every year close to 25,000 youth age out of our foster care system; without the anchor of a family, former foster youth disproportionately join the ranks of the homeless, incarcerated, and unemployed. While the average age of financial independence in America is twenty‐six years of age, we presume that foster youth can somehow attain financial and emotional independence by age eighteen. Instead, these adolescents are woefully unprepared for independent adult life, and when they falter, too often no one is there to provide support or guidance. As a result, former foster youth are ten times more likely to be arrested than youth of the same age, race, and sex and one in four youth who age out of foster care will end up in jail within the first two years after leaving care. This article will discuss strategies for changing these disheartening outcomes for transitioning foster youth, including breaking down our silos and collectively taking charge of the lives of children in our care; keeping a watchful eye on data and outcomes and using that information to guide our actions; ensuring that the voices of youth are an ever‐present part of decisions and processes that will chart their future; and educating ourselves about best practices and new approaches. This article also discusses new opportunities that now exist to support foster youth as they move into adulthood, including new federal legislation that—for the first time—will allow states to support foster youth beyond age eighteen. Finally, this article provides a backdrop for this Special Issue and summarizes the insightful articles and innovative thinking contained herein.

Political independence in America, III: In search of closet partisans

This study uses the 1980 NES questions on partisanship to investigate the question of the attributes of “closet partisans,” using a typology of partisans and independents developed from an alternative (PST) set of survey items to the usual ones. The study explores the application of four criteria to those learners most suspected of being undercover partisans. What is found is that those learners who are most like strong partisans on the criteria of political involvement and partisan commitment are nonetheless least like strong partisans on two further criteria: independence attitudes and affective response to the substantive content of elections. Thus, theAmerican Voter analysis, which assumes leaners are Independents, and the Wolfinger et al. critique ofThe American Voter, which concludes that leaners are partisans, both turn out to be oversimplifications of political reality.

Political Independence in America, Part II: Towards a Theory

This second article asks what it means to be independent in the contemporary United States. Four different meanings are hypothesized: (1) negative feelings about major political parties and partisanship; (2) positive identification with ideals of independence, especially individualistic autonomy; (3) neutrality or indifference because of no detectable party differences of significance; (4) a self-perceived pattern of variability in partisan behaviour. These four attitudinal dimensions are supported empirically via principal components analysis using both national and Wisconsin data. The four dimensions of independence attitudes show varied patterns of association with general indices of Independence self-classification, relevant political attitudes and behaviours, and various antecedents such as age and education.

Political Independence in America, Part I: On Being an Independent Partisan Supporter

With the decline in popular attachment to the two major parties in the United States since the mid-1960s, collective political independence has risen. Using new survey questions introduced in 1980, this article employs alternative measures of independence to reassess the phenomenon of independence in America. These new measures give us fresh insights beyond what we had using only the traditional measures. One casualty of this new approach is the portrait of the Independent given byThe American Voter. This portrait appears seriously misleading, given that it is those who deny beingeitherpartisan or Independent who fit that portrait – not Independentsper se. And the most politically involved voters turn out to be Independent Partisan Supporters; not simple partisans.

America's Second Declaration of Independence - Larzer Ziff: Literary Democracy: The Declaration of Cultural Independence in America. (New York: The Viking Press, 1981, Pp. 333. $20.00.)

America's Second Declaration of Independence - Larzer Ziff: Literary Democracy: The Declaration of Cultural Independence in America. (New York: The Viking Press, 1981, Pp. 333. $20.00.)

Literary Democracy: The Declaration of Cultural Independence in America by Larzer Ziff (review)

Literary Democracy: The Declaration of Cultural Independence in America by Larzer Ziff (review)

Literary Democracy: The Declaration of Cultural Independence in America

Literary Democracy: The Declaration of Cultural Independence in America

Literary Democracy: The Declaration of Cultural Independence in America

Literary Democracy: The Declaration of Cultural Independence in America

Literary Democracy: The Declaration of Cultural Independence in America

Literary Democracy: The Declaration of Cultural Independence in America

Literary Democracy: The Declaration of Cultural Independence in America

Literary Democracy: The Declaration of Cultural Independence in America

Spain and the Breakdown of the Imperial Ethos: The Problem of Equality

S PAIN'S dominion in the New World was supported more by ideas than by force of arms. Though based initially on the right of conquest-an a priori right that few Spaniards, even in the late colonial period, disputed-other concepts arose during three centuries to legitimize further Spain's rule of so many vast lands. This nexus of ideas was complex and can barely be touched upon here. What interests us is the process of the collapse of the imperial ethos. Though ultimately encrusted with centuries of complex ramifications, the concepts of empire were always simple, for they had to be understood by ordinary subjects. The essential simplicity, and, nonetheless, the strength, of these ideas are impressive, as is the way in which Spain, in a period of extreme stress, debunked and disproved them. The three fundamental concepts of empire in the late colonial era, particularly as they appear in documents that demonstrate Spain's resistance to independence in America, are: (1) the father king; (2) the ties that bind; and (3) the equality of citizens and of territorial units within the empire. The last concept, which emerged very late in the era and as a direct consequence of the crisis of 1808, is the focus of this article. The overarching idea was of the empire as a family united under the father king, the rey padre, as he was frequently called in loyalist propaganda. Originating during the Hapsburg era, the idea was based on the legal view that the American territories were the patrimonial property of the king. The modern Bourbons had resisted this traditional role, but those living in the colonies clung to the Hapsburg image of the patriarchal state and resisted the Bourbons' political philosophy.1 The king was senior, or lord, to whom, according to Spanish political philosophy, the nation at some time in the remote past had transferred au-

Literary Democracy: The Declaration of Cultural Independence in America.

Literary Democracy: The Declaration of Cultural Independence in America.

Institutional and Political Impediments to Spain's Settlement of the American Rebellions

Spain's imperial government, in facing the political and military threat posed by the Wars of Independence in America, could be no stronger than the sum of its parts. Among the important questions not previously detailed concerning Spanish American independence, a significant one is why metropolitan Spain itself responded so weakly and indecisively to the danger. There were, of course, severe constraints on resources as well as limitations in terms of the leadership. These two elements, however, while they were certainly real, need not have been automatically decisive. After all, despite incredible hardship and difficulty, the Spanish Comisión de Reemplazos—the Cádiz-based supply committee made up of merchants—alone and by its own tally between 1811 and 1820 dispatched thirty expeditions of peninsular troops to America involving more than 47,000 men and a cost of 350 million reales. The Morillo expedition in 1815involved 12,254 men. The so-called “Great Expedition” that gathered at Cádiz for use in Buenos Aires consisted of 14,000 men before it revolted in January 1820. In July 1820 the minister of War told the Cortes that Spain had sent a total of 27,342 troops to America since the king's restoration in 1814. Thus there was a military response from the metropolis, to say nothing, of course, of the more critical military mobilization of the American viceregal governments. One could also argue that, despite the undoubted failings of individual Spanish leaders under both the Cortes and the absolutist regimes, the political chaos at least brought a number of differing political persuasions to power. After all, Spain experienced in these years six major transformations of its political system. The leadership ran the gamut of political ideology, from extreme conservatives to extreme liberals. Pintos Vieites, in an attempt to revise Ferdinand VII favorably, even argues that the king in the first restoration purposely appointed moderates in order to hear their advice. While the parliamentarians of 1812 and 1820 tended to be young and relatively inexperienced, most of the ministers had served in the previous reign or had substantial experience.

Institutional and Political Impediments to Spain's Settlement of the American Rebellions

Spain's imperial government, in facing the political and military threat posed by the Wars of Independence in America, could be no stronger than the sum of its parts. Among the important questions not previously detailed concerning Spanish American independence, a significant one is why metropolitan Spain itself responded so weakly and indecisively to the danger. There were, of course, severe constraints on resources as well as limitations in terms of the leadership. These two elements, however, while they were certainly real, need not have been automatically decisive. After all, despite incredible hardship and difficulty, the Spanish Comisión de Reemplazos—the Cádiz-based supply committee made up of merchants—alone and by its own tally between 1811 and 1820 dispatched thirty expeditions of peninsular troops to America involving more than 47,000 men and a cost of 350 million reales. The Morillo expedition in 1815involved 12,254 men. The so-called “Great Expedition” that gathered at Cádiz for use in Buenos Aires consisted of 14,000 men before it revolted in January 1820. In July 1820 the minister of War told the Cortes that Spain had sent a total of 27,342 troops to America since the king's restoration in 1814. Thus there was a military response from the metropolis, to say nothing, of course, of the more critical military mobilization of the American viceregal governments. One could also argue that, despite the undoubted failings of individual Spanish leaders under both the Cortes and the absolutist regimes, the political chaos at least brought a number of differing political persuasions to power. After all, Spain experienced in these years six major transformations of its political system. The leadership ran the gamut of political ideology, from extreme conservatives to extreme liberals. Pintos Vieites, in an attempt to revise Ferdinand VII favorably, even argues that the king in the first restoration purposely appointed moderates in order to hear their advice. While the parliamentarians of 1812 and 1820 tended to be young and relatively inexperienced, most of the ministers had served in the previous reign or had substantial experience.

Review: Literary Democracy: The Declaration of Cultural Independence in America., by Larzer Ziff

Book Review| March 01 1982 Review: Literary Democracy: The Declaration of Cultural Independence in America., by Larzer Ziff Literary Democracy: The Declaration of Cultural Independence in America.Larzer Ziff Henry Nash Smith Henry Nash Smith Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Nineteenth-Century Fiction (1982) 36 (4): 484–487. https://doi.org/10.2307/3044777 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Twitter LinkedIn Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Henry Nash Smith; Review: Literary Democracy: The Declaration of Cultural Independence in America., by Larzer Ziff. Nineteenth-Century Fiction 1 March 1982; 36 (4): 484–487. doi: https://doi.org/10.2307/3044777 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentNineteenth-Century Literature Search This content is only available via PDF. Copyright 1982 Regents of the University of California Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

: Literary Democracy: The Declaration of Cultural Independence in America. . Larzer Ziff.

: Literary Democracy: The Declaration of Cultural Independence in America. . Larzer Ziff.

The Independence of America: Six Unpublished Items on the Treaty in 1782-83

HE RECOGNITION of the independence of the United States is I one of the most interesting and imnportant events in the annals of diplomacy. Naturally, scholars have studied the negotiations of the diplomatic representatives and the instructions they received from their respective governments so fully that discoveries of new documents are becoming rarer. The Huntington Library has a collection of the papers of Thomas Townshend, created Lord Sydney in I783, Secretary of State in Shelburne's government. The gem of the collection, the original letter in which George III authorized Townshend to send to Paris the draft of the preliminary articles of peace, was reproduced in The Huntington Library Bulletin, Number i (93I, Pp. 202-4. The following six items come from the same source. They have their own introductory notes, so it is unnecessary to do more here than to suggest that the many changes in the cabinet minutes seem to show the extraordinary difficulty the members encountered in reaching a conclusion and finding the right words to express it. GODFREY DAVIES MARION TINLING