The Influence Of Liberalism To The Modernization Of The United States In The Nineteenth Century

America successfully achieved the transformation from an agricultural society to an industrialized, modernized one within one hundred years or so. Though researchers have probed modernization from different perspectives, only a few did it from the angle of ideological studies. This thesis is a diachronic study of the influence of liberalism, one of the most influential social thoughts, to the modernization of the United States in the nineteenth century.The thesis traces the evolution of liberalism - from John Locke's classical liberalism to Adam Smith's laissez faire or economic liberalism to John Stuart Mill and Thomas Hill Green's social liberalism - before and after the end of American Civil War respectively. These liberal ideas, which can be summarized in four tenets - respecting the dignity and freedom of the individual, believing in the democratic system, advocating equality and optimism, are the deepest values held by Americans. Then the thesis analyses how the important resolutions made by the decision-makers - presidents, chief justices, influenced by these values, enhanced the development of modernization in a direct or indirect way. Cases and acts are cited to reinforce the shift of government's stance in administering economic affairs and the influence of the liberal ideas to the modernizing process.In the end, the thesis concludes that in addition to economic, technical, and resource factors, ideological factor - liberalism played a role of catalyzer to the modernization of the United States in the nineteenth century.