Liberalism in the United States is based on classical liberal concepts of unalienable rights of the individual. The fundamental liberal ideals of consent of the governed, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, the separation of church and state, the right to bear arms, the right to due process, and equality before the law are widely accepted as a common foundation of liberalism. It differs from liberalism worldwide because the United States never had a resident hereditary aristocracy,Louis Hartz, The Liberal Tradition in America, (1991) p. 4. and avoided much of the class warfare that characterized Europe.Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. (1962). "Liberalism in America: A Note for Europeans". In The Politics of Hope. According to American philosopher Ian Adams, "all US parties are liberal and always have been", they generally promote classical liberalism, which is "a form of democratized Whig constitutionalism plus the free market", and the "point of difference comes with the influence of social liberalism" and principled disagreements about the proper role of government.
Since the 1930s, liberalism is usually used without a qualifier in the United States to refer to modern liberalism, a variety of liberalism that accepts a government role to prevent market failures and promotes expansion of civil and political rights, with the common good considered as compatible with or superior to the absolute freedom of the individual.De Ruggiero, Guido (1959). The History of European Liberalism. pp. 155–157. This political philosophy was exemplified by Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal policies and later Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society. Other accomplishments include the Works Progress Administration and the Social Security Act in 1935, as well as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. This variety of liberalism is also known as modern liberalism to distinguish it from classical liberalism, from which it sprang out along with modern American conservatism.Pease, Donald E.; Wiegman, Robyn (eds.) (2002). The Futures of American Studies. Duke University Press. p. 518.
Modern American liberalism includes issues such as civil rights, voting rights for all adult citizens, reproductive rights and other women's rights, the abolition of capital punishment, environmental justice, same-sex marriage, transgender rights, and government protection of the right to an adequate standard of living. National social services, such as equal educational opportunities, access to health care, and transportation infrastructure are intended to meet the responsibility to promote the general welfare of all citizens as established by the United States Constitution. Some liberals, who call themselves classical liberals, fiscal conservatives, or libertarians, endorse fundamental liberal ideals but diverge from modern liberal thought on the grounds that economic freedom is more important than social equality.Pena, David S. (2001). Economic Barbarism and Managerialism. p. 35.
History 18th and 19th century
The origins of American liberalism are in the political ideals of the Age of Enlightenment. The Constitution of the United States of 1787 established the first modern republic, with sovereignty in the people (not in a monarch) and no hereditary ruling aristocracy; however, the Constitution limited liberty, in particular by accepting slavery. The Founding Fathers recognized the contradiction but believed they needed a nation unified enough to survive in the world.William W. Freehling, "The Founding Fathers and Slavery." American Historical Review 77.1 (1972): 81–93. online . During the late 18th and 19th centuries, the United States extended liberty to ever broader classes of people. The states abolished many restrictions on voting for white males during the early 19th century. The Constitution was amended in 1865 to abolish slavery and in 1870 to extend the vote to black men.Alfred Fernbach and Charles Julian Bishko, Charting Democracy in America (1995).
Progressive Era
As the United States economy began shifting to manufacturing and services during the 19th century, liberals started to consider corruption and concentrations of economic power (called trusts at the time) as threats to liberty.Michael J. Sandel, Democracy's Discontent: America in Search of a Public Philosophy (1996) p. 157.Sean Wilentz, The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln (2006). During the Progressive Era beginning in the late 19th century, laws were passed restricting monopolies and regulating railroad rates.John D. Buenker, John C. Burnham, and Robert M. Crunden, Progressivism (1986).Richard Jensen, "Democracy, Republicanism and Efficiency: The Values of American Politics, 1885–1930," in Byron Shafer and Anthony Badger, eds, Contesting Democracy: Substance and Structure in American Political History, 1775–2000 (2001) pp. 149–180.
20th century
According to James Reichley, liberalism took on its current meaning in the United States during the 1920s. In the 19th century and the early 20th century, the term had usually described classical liberalism, which emphasizes limited government, religious freedom, and support for the free market. The term "progressivism" had been used to describe individuals like Theodore Roosevelt, who favored a limited amount of government activism. During the 1920s, the term progressive became associated with politicians such as Robert M. La Follette, who called for government ownership of railroads and utilities in his 1924 third-party presidential bid. Progressivism thus gained an association with radicalism that advocates of more moderate reforms sought to avoid. The term was also unattractive to certain groups because of its longstanding association with the Republican Party and the Social Gospel movement. In 1920, the franchise was extended to women with another Amendment. In the late 1920s and 1930s, political figures such as Franklin D. Roosevelt increasingly adopted the term liberal to describe an individual who favored some government activism but was opposed to more radical reforms.
New Deal
In the 1930s, liberalism came to describe a pragmatic ideology that called for a moderate amount of government regulation of the economy, progressive taxation, and increased exercise of federal government power in relation to the states. It also came to signify support for organized labor and a degree of hostility, or at least suspicion, of big business. Liberalism did retain some aspects of the term's usage prior to the 1930s, including support for civil liberties and secularism. What was once called classical liberalism came to be described as libertarianism, or a combination of fiscal conservatism and social liberalism. These positions were contrasted with those to their political left, who favored greater changes, and with conservatives, who opposed these changes.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt came to office in 1933, amid the economic calamity of the Great Depression, offering the nation a New Deal intended to alleviate economic want and unemployment, provide greater opportunities and restore prosperity. The presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933–1945), the longest in United States history, was marked by an increased role the federal government had in addressing the nation's economic and other problems.John Kenneth Galbraith, A History of Economics, "The first broad line of Roosevelt's policy addressed the problem of prices, the second sought to aid the problems of the unemployed by providing them with jobs, the third attempted to mitigate the problems of the vulnerable." p. 196, Penguin Books, 1991, Work relief programs provided jobs, ambitious projects such as the Tennessee Valley Authority promoted economic development and a social-security system laid the groundwork for the nation's modern welfare system. The Great Depression dragged on through the 1930s despite the New Deal programs, which were met with mixed success in solving the nation's economic problems.Nicholas Wapshott, Keynes Hayek, "In June, 1937, Roosevelt re-embraced orthodoxy with spending cuts, a credit squeeze, and an increase in taxes. ... Soon after, America was heading back into recession.", p. 188, Norton, 2011,
Religious and ethnic minorities had been hard hit and were helped by the relief programs and the patronage policy. Catholics and Jews gave strong support to the New Deal coalition.Anthony J. Badger, The New Deal: Depression Years, 1933-40 (1987) p. 249.George J. Marlin, American Catholic Voter: Two Hundred Years Of Political Impact (2004) pp. 192–216. Beth S. Wenger, New York Jews and the Great Depression (Yale UP, 1996) p. 133. Blacks were included in New Deal programs, especially in the North, with a lesser role in the South.Nancy J. Weiss, Farewell to the Party of Lincoln: Black Politics in the Age of FDR (Princeton UP, 1983) p. 196. Sociologist Gunnar Myrdal concluded:Gunnar Myrdal, An American Dilemma (1944) 1:74.
The Negro's share may be meagre in all this state activity, but he has been given a share. He has been given a broader and more variegated front to defend and from which to push forward. This is the great import of the New Deal to the Negro. For almost the first time in history of the nation the state has done something substantial and a social way without excluding the Negro.
The New Deal provided direct relief for minorities in the 1930s through the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), Public Works Administration (PWA), the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and other agencies and during World War II executive orders and the Fair Employment Practices Commission opened millions of new jobs to minorities and forbade discrimination in companies with government contracts.B. R. Brazeal, "The Present Status and Programs of Fair Employment Practices Commissions–Federal, State, and Municipal" Journal of Negro Education 20#3 (1951), pp. 378–97. online The 1.5 million black veterans in 1945 were fully entitled to generous veteran benefits from the GI Bill on the same basis as everyone else.Conrad Black, Franklin Delano Roosevelt: Champion of Freedom (2005)
The New Deal consisted of three types of programs designed to produce "Relief, Recovery and Reform".Harvard Sitkoff, ed. Fifty Years Later: The New Deal Evaluated (1985) Relief was the immediate effort to help the one-third of the population that was hardest hit by the depression. Roosevelt expanded Herbert Hoover's Emergency Relief and Construction program (ERCA) and added the CCC, the PWA and the WPA, the latter replacing in 1935 the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA). Also in 1935, the Social Security Act and unemployment insurance programs were added. The Social Security Act provided retirement and disability income for Americans unable to work or unable to find jobs.Sidney M. Milkis and Jerome M. Mileur, The New Deal and the Triumph of Liberalism (2002) Separate programs were set up for relief in rural areas such as the Resettlement Administration and Farm Security Administration. Recovery programs sought to restore the economy to pre-depression levels. It involved deficit spending, dropping the gold standard, efforts to re-inflate farm prices that were too low and efforts to increase foreign trade. New Deal efforts to help the United States recuperate were in part through a much expanded Hoover program, the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC).Herman, Arthur. Freedom's Forge: How American Business Produced Victory in World War II (NY: Random House, 2012) pp. 73–4..