Peter Dennis Bathory - Friends and Citizens

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Friends and Citizens

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Essays in Honor of Wilson Carey McWilliams

Edited by
Peter Dennis Bathory and Nancy L. Schwartz

ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC.

Lanham Boulder New York Oxford

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ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC.

Published in the United States of America

by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.

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Copyright 2001 by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.

All rights reserved . No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Friends and citizens: essays in honor of Wilson Carey McWilliams / edited by Peter Dennis Bathory and Nancy L. Schwartz.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 0-8476-9746-0 (cloth: alk. paper)

1. Political cultureUnited States. 2. FriendshipUnited States.

3. CitizenshipUnited States. 4. CommunitarianismUnited States.

5. DemocracyUnited States. I. McWilliams, Wilson C. II. Bathory, Peter

Dennis. III. Schwartz, Nancy Lynn, 1946.

JK1726.F685 2000

320dc21

00025893

Printed in the United States of America

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

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Peter Dennis Bathory and Nancy L. Schwartz

When we began this project with a letter to prospective authorscoleagues, teachers, students, and friends of Wilson Carey McWilliarnswe quoted from an essay in which he concluded, Democracy is for friends and citizens, not masters and slaves.1 As is so often the case with Carey, a commonplace assertion quickly becomes much more, as he reminds us that The ultimate ground for democratic ideas of equality and the highest limitation on democracy's excesses both derive from a universe in which humanity is at home, my dignity is guaranteed by the majesty of the law I obey, and perhaps even by those who have no memorial who do not pass from memory (101). Fittingly, that essay was published in 1980 during the American bicentennial celebrations, in a volume entitled How Democratic Is the Constitution? Most Americans, he had begun, would agree that the Constitution has become more democratic with time. Ever the contrarian, Carey argued that the Constitution has not necessarily become more democratic; the extension of the franchise, the direct election of senators, and other procedural measures are democratic in only limited ways. Democracy is not defined solely by voting by majority rule. He relied, he said, on an older, more comprehensive understanding that makes citizenship, rather than voting, the defining quality of democracy(79).

The essays in the present volume remind us of this important observation. The lessons we have all learned from our friend through his writing (from The Idea of Fraternity in America [1973] to Beyond the Politics of Disappointment? [2000]), through his speaking (formal lectures, public speeches, and long conversations), and through his constancy and loyalty are all reflected in Friends and Citizens .