Policy restraint in the United States is both a cause and a consequence of key cultural
and historic features that have made the United States one of the most politically
stable nations in the world. Consider the sweep of American history compared with
that of our Asian and European allies. The United States ratified its Constitution
in 1789 and the forty-eighth state was admitted into the union in 1912. Two more
were admitted in 1959. The United States’ gravest national crisis—culturally and
politically, involving nothing less than the survival of the United States—was the
Civil War, fought between 1861 and 1865, and followed by a lengthy period of
reconstruction. But at the same time, the rhythms of national political life have
changed relatively slowly, even as the details were altered by policy changes such
as the popular election of senators starting in 1913, the extension of voting rights
to more people, and the number of states in the union.