| Summary/Abstract |
AMONG THE commanding symbols of American civilization, none are more important than empire and liberty. From George Washington’s journey to the Monongahela River in 1754 to George W. Bush’s conquests in Mesopotamia in 2003, observers have puzzled over the relationship between our thirst for dominion and our attachment to freedom. When Patrick Henry argued in 1788 against the “great and splendid empire” he espied in the vision of the Constitution’s architects, he set that in opposition to the liberty that was America’s original resolution:
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