American Revolution

Americans are divided today over questions of immigration, welfare, race and sexual morality. These disputes are not new. They involve the principles and ideas on which our country was built. Unfortunately, too many Americans today are unfamiliar with the principles that shape American politics or the institutions of our government. A survey recently conducted by the National Constitution Center shows that 40% of Americans do not know that there are three branches of the federal government.

Two hundred years ago today a Parisian mob stormed the fortress-jail known as the Bastille, seized the cache of gunpowder stored inside and set free the handful of prisoners--two lunatics, four forgers and a sexually disturbed nobleman--who were its inmates. At other times the Bastille had held larger numbers of captives, many of whom had been arbitrarily locked up by command of the king; it was this that made the building the archetype of despotism.

Aristocratic by temperament, but democratic by conviction; instinctually conservative, but intellectually audacious. The attributes so frequently applied to the American republic's founders might be used with equal justice to describe the Huntington Library, the understated powerhouse among contemporary Los Angeles' significant cultural institutions.

John F. Kerry is hardly the first politician to be rejected by religious Americans for failing to measure up to their standards. There was Thomas Paine, for instance, the pamphleteering superstar of 1776, whose "Common Sense" -- published in January of that year -- lighted the fuse that became the American Revolution. By December, the brash optimism with which the war had started was facing the chilling reality of Valley Forge. Paine came through again with "The Crisis," which Gen.

The following are highlights of President Clinton's State of the Union address: Never before has our nation enjoyed, at once, so much prosperity and social progress with so little internal crisis or so few external threats. Never before have we had such a blessed opportunity--and, therefore, such a profound obligation--to build the more perfect union of our founders' dreams. America again has the confidence to dream big dreams. But we must not let our renewed confidence grow into complacency.

WHEN you stop to think about it, how many novels about the American Revolution are there, other than Esther Forbes' "Johnny Tremain"? According to the Wikipedia entry "American Revolutionary War Novels," there are five, and I bet you haven't read them. I certainly haven't, and as I was reading "Johnny One-Eye," I began to wonder why there are so few. We know all the names -- Washington, Jefferson, Hamilton, Cornwallis, Betsy Ross.

Has Patrick J. Buchanan already shot his wad? It's a mistake to assume George Bush will retire or lose in November just because that happened to previous postwar Presidents whose New Hampshire primary challengers drew at least 37% of the vote.

As the United States of America -- like the Roman republic before it -- makes the slippery transition to Empire, it is understandable that its citizens have lost their identity. Those old enough to remember the republic are old enough to care; the younger, ignorant of our origins, blandly trade in their citizenship for attention-challenged consumerism or religion.

Although it has a faintly melancholy milestone significance for me, 1926 does not appear to have been one of history's really big years. I'm told the wines were undistinguished; the stock market did not crash and Charles Lindbergh was not yet ready to fly to Paris. Still, it is fascinating to get an occasional glimpse at the ongoing life of 1926.