Binding free people: Democratic patriotism in the American political tradition

Does the nation-state stand in the way of progress towards democratic ideals? Many theorists drawn to cosmopolitan ideals of democracy suggest that it does. The nation-state, it has been said, has become an unsatisfactory vehicle for the further spread of democratic principles. I suspect that the move that takes democracy out of the context of the nation-state, and which seeks to undermine the particularistic allegiances felt toward the nation-state, may paradoxically do more to undermine democracy than help its cause.;The American statesmen-thinkers examined in this dissertation offer a set of timely reminders about the democratic potentialities within the framework of a bounded national community. A properly cultivated democratic patriotism ensures an active and vibrant political life on the part of citizens; it counters the various chauvinistic and jingoistic excesses of particularistic attachments; it deepens and multiplies our attachments to fellow citizens, even in a diverse and pluralistic community; and it mobilizes our most elevated democratic and reformist instincts by appealing to the shared stock of our triumphs and tribulations.;The kind of patriotism espoused and promoted by Abraham Lincoln, the linchpin of this dissertation, shows how patriotic attachments can continue to serve a number of important purposes for contemporary democracy. Lincoln's vision of expansive democratic patriotism couples the particular and partial attachments associated with loving our own land with principled moral purposes embodied in the universalist document that is the Declaration of Independence. Lincoln binds the progress of universal ideals to the uniqueness and greatness of the American experiment. The key insight here is that democratic citizens require a notion of a kind of grandness or elevation of their own worth in order to bring about universal democratic ends. Lincoln realized that the ideals of "liberty and equality for all" have to be made special and attractive if they are going to inspire the commitment and sacrifices from American citizens. It was Lincoln's use of the patriotic tradition of the Americans that supplied the magnetism essential to activating a robust pursuit of democratic ends.