Beacon of Freedom

The faith of a people in their greater destiny has been a propelling force of considerable power in the history of the world. In it s more perfect form, this ideal has spurred on the American people to their own higher good and, at the same time, been an inspiration for good on the efforts of others as well. By the end of the eighteenth century, Americans were firmly committed to the belief that the fate of freedom here was to determine the fate of freedom everywhere. And in the nineteenth century, the American destiny to lead the world out of ignorance and misery and onto the high plateaus of human happiness was not only accepted in American but was welcomed with hosannas by innumerable Europeans.

This volume studies the impact of American destiny on Great Britain in the middle years of the nineteenth century—a period during which an uneasy struggle for power and place was engulfing the masses of the people, the new industrial middle class, and the conservative defenders of the old landed regime. This book seeks to trace American influence by determining what English people of varied station and opinion thought about the American democracy and how their ideas about American became drawn into and influenced their own experiences. Here is the real American destiny.