In many ways, I regard this as my best recording of a chapter from “The American Yawp” yet.  I have deleted nothing from the text edited by its editors, Joseph Locke and Ben Wright.  I have added passages of my own where I think additions were needed to clarify what the original authors were trying to say. I have also added passages that connect the era of “The New Nation” with the trials and tensions America is experiencing today.  For example I connect the majesty of America’s example in displaying the peaceful transition of power in the “revolution of 1800” which saw the Democratic-Republican Party receive power in 1800 from the Federalist Party without violence, and the more than 200 years of like examples to follow, with the disgrace of January 6, 2021, when President Donald Trump despoiled this legacy and broke that legacy so important not only to the United States but the whole world.  These allusions between past and present are mine, and they are also true.