"Republicanism did not die away. They remain to temper the scramble for private wealth and happiness and they continue to underlie for many of our ideals and aspirations: for our belief in equality and our dislike of pretension and privilege; our deep yearning for individual autonomy and freedom from all ties of dependency; our periodic hopes, expressed, for example, in the election of military heroes and in the mugwump and progressive movements, that some political leaders might rise above parties and become truly disinterested umpires and deliberative representatives; our long-held conviction that farming is morally healthier and freer of selfish marketplace concerns than other activities; our preoccupation with the fragility of the republic and its liability to corruption; and, finally, our remarkable obsession with our own national virtue-an obsession that still bewilders the rest of the world."