The dictionary definition is enlightening. “Radical--Going to the root or origin; touching or acting upon what is essential or fundamental; thorough.... _Radical reform_, a thorough reform.... Hence Radical Reformer equals Radical” (New English Dictionary). In this sense radicalism is an historic American tradition. The revolt of the Colonies against England and the formation of the Republic were, indeed, far from the complete break with the past which the schoolboy assumes them to have been, but what lives in the minds of the American people is, nevertheless, not the series of counterchecks which men like Hamilton and Madison wrote into the Constitution, but rather the daring affirmations of Jefferson which have a real kinship with the radical spirit of the French Revolution. Talk of “inalienable rights” such as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness was genuine radical talk; it searched out the bases of human relationship, proclaimed them against authority, and sought to found on them a system of government. So strongly has this conception seized the imagination of Americans that it largely accounts for their almost instinctive hostility to new kinds of political change. The roots of politics have been uncovered, the change has in fact been made once for all--so they reason. To admit that any new fundamental alteration is necessary is to be disloyal to the historical liberation. Because the conservative American believes himself a complete democrat, because for him the “new order” was achieved in 1776, he is intolerant of modern radicals. Suggestions of new revolution touch him closely on his pride. In this sense Jefferson has been less a spur to future generations than an obstacle. If his fine frenzy about rights had been less eloquently expressed, if it had not obscured in a cloud of glory the true nature of the foundation of our government--a highly practical compromise which embodied a few moderate advances and many hesitancies--we should have a different temper about change to-day. We should not assume that all desirable fundamental modification of social and political structure had been completed nearly a century and a half ago.