But they believed that a government directed by the people could prosper if citizenship encouraged a common civic enterprise that kept those conflicts civil. Today, the concord's well-tuned phrases still inspire wrenching discord over what kind of nation the United States should be. Freedoms of speech and press, protections against arbitrary arrest and imprisonment, the right to consent and the obligation to help defend one's community were drawn from daily 18th-century American life. In some form, these guarantees have survived two centuries. But the roles they play in American life have changed - and the shape of citizenship has been recast.
History provides no tidy, scientific laws to understand the changes in citizenship.
But a few themes can be drawn. Modern society has abolished mandatory national service - and seen in the Constitution a right to abortion. The practice of freedom has come to refer more to the preferences of private life than to the obligations of shared civic life. In the 19th century, political parties succeeded town meetings as instruments for government by the people. Those who cared to got together at local party gatherings to decide what policies they preferred, and party leaders selected candidates to carry them out.