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contents
Preface xix
Acknowledgments xxi
PART I Foundations
1  American Political Culture 2
What Americans Think about Government 5
Trust in Government 6
Political Efficacy 8
Citizenship: Knowledge and Participation 9
 AMERICA SIDE BY SIDE Political Knowledge and Trust in Government 10
The Necessity of Political Knowledge 11
Digital Citizenship 12
Government 13
Is Government Needed? 13
Forms of Government 14
Limiting Government 15
Access to Government: The Expansion of Participation 16
Influencing the Government through Participation: Politics 16
Who Are Americans? 17
Immigration and Ethnic Diversity 18
 WHO ARE AMERICANS? An Increasingly Diverse Nation 19
Immigration and Race 20
Twenty-First-Century Americans 21
American Political Culture 24
Liberty 26
Equality 27
Democracy 30
American Political Cultue and Your Future 31
vii
 PLUG IN 33
Study Guide 34
For Further Reading 36
Recommended Websites 37
2  The Founding and the Constitution 38

The First Founding: Interests and Conflicts 41
British Taxes and Colonial Interests 41
Political Strife and the Radicalizing of the Colonists 42
The Declaration of Independence 43
The Articles of Confederation 44
The Second Founding: From Compromise to Constitution 45
The Annapolis Convention 46
Shays’s Rebellion 46
The Constitutional Convention 47
 WHO ARE AMERICANS? Who Benefits from the Great Compromise? 49
The Constitution 51
The Legislative Branch 52
The Executive Branch 54
The Judicial Branch 55
National Unity and Power 55
 AMERICA SIDE BY SIDE Comparing Systems of Government 56
Amending the Constitution 57
Ratifying the Constitution 57
Constitutional Limits on the National Government’s Power 57
The Fight for Ratification 60
Federalists versus Antifederalists 60
Reflections on the Founding 63
The Citizen’s Role and the Changing Constitution 64
Amendments: Many Are Called; Few Are Chosen 64
Which Were Chosen? An Analysis of the Twenty-Seven 65
The Supreme Court and Constitutional Amendment 68
The Constitution and Your Future 69
 PLUG IN 71
Study Guide 72
viii CONTENTS
3  Federalism 76
Federalism in the Constitution 79
The Powers of the National Government 79
The Powers of State Government 81
States’ Obligations to One Another 81
Local Government and the Constitution 84
The Changing Relationship between the Federal Government
and the States 85
Restraining National Power with Dual Federalism 85
Federalism and the Slow Growth of the National Government’s
Power 88
The Changing Role of the States 90
Who Does What? Public Spending and the Expanding Federal Framework 92
The New Deal 92
Federal Grants 93
Cooperative Federalism 94
Regulated Federalism and National Standards 96
 AMERICA SIDE BY SIDE Government Spending in Federal and Unitary Systems 98
New Federalism and State Control 99

Devolution: For Whose Benefit? 101
Federalism since 2000 103
 WHO ARE AMERICANS? Who Benefits from Federal Spending? 105
Federalism and Your Future 108

 PLUG IN 109
Study Guide 110
4  Civil Liberties 114

A Brief History of the Bill of Rights 117
Nationalizing the Bill of Rights 118
The First Amendment and Freedom of Religion 122

Separation between Church and State 122
Free Exercise of Religion 124
The First Amendment and Freedom of Speech and
of the Press 125
Political Speech 126
Fighting Words and Hate Speech 128
Student Speech 128
Commercial Speech 129
Symbolic Speech, Speech Plus, and the Rights of Assembly and Petition 130
Freedom of the Press 131
The Second Amendment and the Right to Bear Arms 134
CONTENTS ix
Rights of the Criminally Accused 137
The Fourth Amendment and Searches and Seizures 137
The Fifth Amendment 140
The Sixth Amendment and the Right to Counsel 142
The Eighth Amendment and Cruel and Unusual Punishment 143
The Right to Privacy 144

 WHO ARE AMERICANS? Who Is in Prison? 145
Birth Control 146
Abortion 146
Homosexuality 147
 AMERICA SIDE BY SIDE Civil Liberties around the World 148
The Right to Die 149
Civil Liberties and Your Future 149
 PLUG IN 151
Study Guide 152
5  Civil Rights 156

The Struggle for Civil Rights 159
Slavery and the Abolitionist Movement 160
The Link to the Women’s Rights Movement 160
The Civil War Amendments to the Constitution 161
Civil Rights and the Supreme Court: “Separate but Equal” 162
Organizing for Equality 163
Litigating for Equality after World War II 165
Civil Rights after Brown v. Board of Education 167
The Civil Rights Acts 169
Extending Civil Rights 178
Levels of Scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause 179
Women and Gender Discrimination 180
 WHO ARE AMERICANS? Have Women Achieved Equal Rights? 183
Latinos 184
 AMERICA SIDE BY SIDE Race, Immigration, and Poverty 188
Asian Americans 189
Native Americans 190
Disabled Americans 191
Gay Men and Lesbians 191
Do the Poor Have Civil Rights? 195
Affirmative Action 195
The Supreme Court and the Burden of Proof 196
Referenda on Affirmative Action 198
Civil Rights and Your Future 199
 PLUG IN 201
x CONTENTS
Study Guide 202
PART II Politics
6  Public Opinion 206
Defining Public Opinion 209
Political Values 210
Political Ideology 212
Trust in Government 216
How We Form Political Opinions 217
Political Socialization and Public Opinion 217
Stability of Opinion and Political Knowledge 225

Political Knowledge and Public Opinion 227
The Media, Government, and Public Opinion 232
Government and the Shaping of Public Opinion 232
 WHO ARE AMERICANS? Who Thinks Economic Inequality Is a Problem? 233
Interest Groups and the Shaping of Public Opinion 234
The News Media and the Shaping of Public Opinion 235
Public Opinion and Government Policy 236
Government Responsiveness to Public Opinion 236
Does Everyone’s Opinion Count Equally? 237
 AMERICA SIDE BY SIDE Opinion on the Economy and
the Environment 239
Measuring Public Opinion 240
Measuring Public Opinion from Surveys 240
Framing Experiments within Surveys 244
When Polls Are Wrong 245
Public Opinion, Democracy, and Your Future 249
 PLUG IN 251
Study Guide 252
CONTENTS xi
7  The Media 256
Traditional Media 259
Print Media 259
Broadcast Media 262
Mass Media Ownership 264
New Media and Online News 267

 WHO ARE AMERICANS? Where Do Americans Get Their News? 269
Niche Journalism 270
Citizen Journalism and Blogs 270
Nonprofit Journalism 272
Social Media 272
Benefits of Online News 273
 AMERICA SIDE BY SIDE Internet Use and Political News 276
Concerns about Online News 277
Media Influence 279
How the Media Influence Politics 280
Media and Public Knowledge 283
News Coverage 284
Press Releases 284
Media Leaks 285
Adversarial Journalism 287
Regulation of the Media 289
The Media, Democracy, and Your Future 291

 PLUG IN 293
Study Guide 294
8  Political Participation and Voting 298

Forms of Political Participation 301
Traditional Political Participation 301
Online Political Participation 305
Who Participates 310
Socioeconomic Status 311
Age and Participation 313
African Americans 314
Latinos 315
Asian Americans 316
 WHO ARE AMERICANS? Who Voted in 2012? 317
Gender and Participation 318
Religious Identity 319
Political Environment and Participation 321
Mobilization 321
Electoral Competition 323
Ballot Measures 326
xii CONTENTS
State Electoral Laws and Participation 327
Registration Requirements 327
Other Formal Barriers 330
Voting and Registration Reforms 330
 AMERICA SIDE BY SIDE Voter Turnout in Comparison 331
Political Participation and Your Future 333

 PLUG IN 335
Study Guide 336
9  Political Parties 340

What Are Political Parties? 343
How Do Political Parties Form? 345
The Two-Party System in America 345
 AMERICA SIDE BY SIDE Two-Party Systems and Multi-Party Systems 346
Functions of Political Parties 347
Parties, Voter Mobilization, and Elections 347
Recruiting Candidates 348
Nominations 348
Mobilizing Voters and the Ground Game 349
Parties as Organizations 350

National Convention 350
National Committee 351
Congressional Campaign Committees 352
State and Local Party Organizations 352
Parties in Government 353
Parties and Policy 353
Parties in Congress 355
President and Party 355
Party Identification 356
Group Affiliations 357
Recent Trends in Party Affiliation 361
Party Systems 362

 WHO ARE AMERICANS? Who Identifies with Which Party? 363
The First Party System: Federalists and Jeffersonian Republicans 364
The Second Party System: Democrats and Whigs 364
The Civil War and Post–Civil War Party System: Republicans
and Democrats 365
The System of 1896: Republicans and Democrats 366
The New Deal Party System: Reversal of Fortune 366
The Contemporary American Party System 367
Electoral Alignments and Realignments 370
Party Polarization 371
Third Parties 373
CONTENTS xiii
Political Parties and Your Future 377
 PLUG IN 379
Study Guide 380
10  Campaigns and Elections 384

Elections in America 387
What It Takes to Win 388
The Ballot 389
Legislative Elections and Electoral Districts 390
Presidential Elections 391
Direct-Democracy Elections 396
Election Campaigns 398
Advisers 398
Fund-Raising 399
Polling 400
Campaign Strategy 400
Money and Politics 407
The Courts and Campaign Spending 408
Sources of Campaign Funds 410
 AMERICA SIDE BY SIDE Campaign Laws in Comparison 411
 WHO ARE AMERICANS? Who Donates to Political Campaigns? 413
How Voters Decide 415

Partisan Loyalty 415
Issues and Policy Preferences 416
Candidate Characteristics 417
The 2012 and 2014 Elections 418
The Republican Nomination Process in 2012 419
The 2012 General Election 420
The 2014 Midterm Elections 423
Campaigns, Elections, and Your Future 426
 PLUG IN 427
Study Guide 428
xiv CONTENTS
11  Groups and Interests 432
Defining Interest Groups 435
Common Types of Interest Groups 437
What Interests Are Not Represented? 439
 AMERICA SIDE BY SIDE Interest Group Membership 440
How Groups Organize 442

The Internet and Interest Groups 445
The Growth of Interest and Advocacy Groups 448
The Expansion of Government 448
Growth of Public Interest Groups in the 1960s and ’70 449
Interest Group Strategies 449

Direct Lobbying 451
Regulating Lobbying 455
Using the Courts 456
Mobilizing Public Opinion 457
Using Electoral Politics 459
 WHO ARE AMERICANS? Who Is Represented by PACs? 461
Interest Groups and Your Future 463

 PLUG IN 465
Study Guide 466
PART III Institutions

12  Congress 470
Congress: Representing the American People 473
House and Senate: Differences in Representation 473
Trustee versus Delegate Representation 474
Sociological versus Agency Representation 475
 WHO ARE AMERICANS? Who Are the Members of Congress? 477
The Electoral Connection 479
Direct Patronage 484
The Organization of Congress 486
Party Leadership in the House 486
Party Leadership in the Senate 486
The Committee System 487
The Staff System: Staffers and Agencies 491
Informal Organization: The Caucuses 492
Rules of Lawmaking: How a Bill Becomes a Law 492
Committee Deliberation 492
Debate 494
CONTENTS xv
Conference Committee: Reconciling House and Senate Versions of
Legislation 496
Presidential Action 497
How Congress Decides 497
Constituency 498
Interest Groups 499
Party 500
When Congress Can’t Decide 504
 AMERICA SIDE BY SIDE Public Opinion of the Legislature 505
Beyond Legislation: Other Congressional Powers 507

Oversight 507
Advice and Consent: Special Senate Powers 509
Impeachment 510
Congress and Your Future 511
 PLUG IN 513
Study Guide 514
13  The Presidency 518

Establishing the Presidency 521
The Constitutional Powers of the Presidency 523

Expressed Powers 523
Delegated Powers 530
 AMERICA SIDE BY SIDE Presidential Powers 531
 WHO ARE AMERICANS? Who Are America’s Presidents? 533
Inherent Powers 534
The Presidency as an Institution 535
The Cabinet 535
The White House Staff 537
The Executive Office of the President 537
The Vice Presidency 538
The First Spouse 539
The Contemporary Bases of Presidential Power 540
Going Public 541
The Administrative Strategy 543
The Limits of Presidential Power 549
Presidential Power and Your Future 551
 PLUG IN 553
Study Guide 554
xvi CONTENTS
14  Bureaucracy in a Democracy 558
Bureaucracy and Bureaucrats 561
What Bureaucrats Do 561
The Size of the Federal Service 564
The Organization of the Executive Branch 567
 AMERICA SIDE BY SIDE Bureaucracy in Comparison 568
Goals of the Federal Bureaucracy 569

Promoting the Public Welfare 570
Providing National Security 573
Maintaining a Strong Economy 578
Can the Bureaucracy Be Reformed? 580
 WHO ARE AMERICANS? Who Are “Bureaucrats”? 581
Termination 583
Devolution 583
Privatization 584
Managing the Bureaucracy 587
The President as Chief Executive 588
Congressional Oversight 589
Bureaucracy and Your Future 592
 PLUG IN 593
Study Guide 594
15  The Federal Courts 598

The Legal System 601
Cases and the Law 601
Types of Courts 602
Federal Courts 606
Federal Trial Courts 606
Federal Appellate Courts 606
The Supreme Court 608
How Judges Are Appointed 609
 WHO ARE AMERICANS? Who Are Federal Judges? 611
The Power of the Supreme Court: Judicial Review 612

Judicial Review of Acts of Congress 612
Judicial Review of State Actions 613
 AMERICA SIDE BY SIDE Judicial Review across the Globe 614
Judicial Review of Federal Agency Actions 616
Judicial Review and Presidential Power 617
Judicial Review and Lawmaking 618
The Supreme Court in Action 620
Controlling the Flow of Cases 622
Lobbying for Access: Interests and the Court 624
The Supreme Court’s Procedures 625
CONTENTS xvii
Explaining Supreme Court Decisions 628
Influences on Supreme Court Decision Making 628
Judicial Power and Politics 631
The Federal Judiciary and Your Future 634
 PLUG IN 635
Study Guide 636
 Appendix
The Declaration of Independence A1
The Articles of Confederation A4
The Constitution of the United States of America A8
Amendments to the Constitution A14
The Federalist Papers A20
The Anti-Federalist Papers A25
Presidents and Vice Presidents A30
Glossary A33
Endnotes A43
Answer Key A77
Photo Credits A79
Index A81
xviii CONTENTS
preface
T
his book has been and continues to be dedicated to developing a satisfactory
response to the question more and more Americans are asking: Why should
we be engaged with government and politics? Through the first nine edi-
tions, we sought to answer this question by making the text directly relevant
to the lives of the students who would be reading it. As a result, we tried to make
politics interesting by demonstrating that students’ interests are at stake and that
they therefore need to take a personal, even selfish, interest in the outcomes of
government. At the same time, we realized that students needed guidance in how
to become politically engaged. Beyond providing students with a core of political
knowledge, we needed to show them how they could apply that knowledge as
participants in the political process. The “Plug In” sections in each chapter help
achieve that goal.
As events from the last several years have reminded us, “what government does”
can be a matter of life and death. Recent events have reinforced the centrality of
government in citizens’ lives. The U.S. government has fought two wars abroad,
while claiming sweeping new powers at home that could compromise the liberties
of its citizens. America’s role in the world is discussed daily both inside and outside
the classroom. Moreover, the Internet has opened up new avenues to participation
and mobilization. Reflecting all of these trends, this new Tenth Edition shows more
than any other book on the market (1) how students are connected to government;
(2) how digital media are changing (or not changing) the way Americans experi-
ence politics; and (3) why students should think critically about government and
politics. These themes are incorporated in the following ways:
• New “Politics and Your Future” chapter conclusions give students direct,
personal reasons to care about politics. These sections focus on the
political opportunities and challenges that students will face in their lives
as a result of emerging social, political, demographic, and technological
change. The conclusions reprise the important point made in the chapter
introductions that government matters and prompt students to consider how
political change will impact their futures.
• New “Plug In” sections show students how to make a difference in politics.
These boxes replace the older “Get Involved” sections with succinct,
xix
realistic steps today’s students can take—online and off—to to inform
themselves, express themselves, connect with others, and act in politically
meaningful ways.
• New content on how digital media are changing politics is now incorporated
throughout the text. With the Ninth Edition, we added “Digital Citizens”
boxes to explore the ways that new information technologies are shaping
how we experience politics. In this Tenth Edition, the coverage of digital
politics has been integrated into the body of the text, in recognition of the
fact that digital media have become an integral part of American politics.
• New “America Side by Side” boxes use data figures and tables to provide
a comparative perspective. These one-page boxes appear in every chapter
and replace the older “America in the World” text boxes with a more visual
presentation of comparative data. By comparing political institutions and
behavior across countries, students gain a better understanding of how
specific features of the American system shape politics.
• “Who Are Americans?” infographics ask students to think critically about
how Americans from different backgrounds experience politics. These
sections use bold, engaging graphics to present a statistical snapshot of the
nation related to each chapter’s topic. Critical-thinking questions in each
unit and related exercises on the StudySpace website give students a
chance to compare their own views and experiences and consider the
political implications. The “Who Are Americans?” PowerPoint slides
include enhanced versions of the graphics for use in lectures.
• Chapter introductions focus on “What Government Does and Why It
Matters.” In recent decades, cynicism about “big government” has domi-
nated the political zeitgeist. But critics of government often forget that
governments do a great deal for citizens. Every year, Americans are the
beneficiaries of billions of dollars of goods and services from government
programs. Government “does” a lot, and what it does matters a great deal
to everyone, including college students. At the start of each chapter, this
theme is introduced and applied to the chapter’s topic. The goal is to show
students that government and politics mean something to their daily lives.
• “For Critical Analysis” questions are incorporated throughout the text. “For
Critical Analysis” questions in the margins of every chapter prompt students’
own critical thinking about the material in the chapter, encouraging them
to engage with the topic. And the questions that accompany each “Who
Are Americans?” unit ask students to consider how Americans from various
backgrounds experience politics.
We continue to hope that our book will itself be accepted as a form of enlight-
ened political action. This Tenth Edition is another chance. It is an advancement
toward our goal. We promise to keep trying.
xx P R E FA C E
acknowledgments
W
e are pleased to acknowledge the many colleagues who had an active role
in criticism and preparation of the manuscript. Our thanks go to:
First Edition Reviewers Grant Reeher, Syracuse University

Richard Rich, Virginia Polytechnic
Sarah Binder, Brookings Institution
Bartholomew Sparrow, University of Texas at Austin
Kathleen Gille, Office of Representative David Bonior
Rodney Hero, University of Colorado at Boulder
Robert Katzmann, Brookings Institution Third Edition Reviewers
Kathleen Knight, University of Houston
Bruce R. Drury, Lamar University
Robin Kolodny, Temple University
Andrew I. E. Ewoh, Prairie View A&M University
Nancy Kral, Tomball College
Amy Jasperson, University of Texas at San Antonio
Robert C. Lieberman, Columbia University
Loch Johnson, University of Georgia
David A. Marcum, University of Wyoming
Mark Kann, University of Southern California
Laura R. Winsky Mattei, State University of New York at Buffalo
Robert L. Perry, University of Texas of the Permian Basin
Marilyn S. Mertens, Midwestern State University
Wayne Pryor, Brazosport College
Barbara Suhay, Henry Ford Community College
Elizabeth A. Rexford, Wharton County Junior College
Carolyn Wong, Stanford University
Andrea Simpson, University of Washington
Julian Zelizer, State University of New York at Albany
Brian Smentkowski, Southeast Missouri State University
Nelson Wikstrom, Virginia Commonwealth University
Second Edition Reviewers
Lydia Andrade, University of North Texas Fourth Edition Reviewers
John Coleman, University of Wisconsin at Madison
M. E. Banks, Virginia Commonwealth University
Daphne Eastman, Odessa College
Lynn Brink, North Lake College
Otto Feinstein, Wayne State University
Mark Cichock, University of Texas at Arlington
Elizabeth Flores, Delmar College
Del Fields, St. Petersburg College
James Gimpel, University of Maryland at College Park
Nancy Kinney, Washtenaw Community College
Jill Glaathar, Southwest Missouri State University
William Klein, St. Petersburg College
Shaun Herness, University of Florida
Dana Morales, Montgomery College
William Lyons, University of Tennessee at Knoxville
Christopher Muste, Louisiana State University
Andrew Polsky, Hunter College, City University of New York
AC K N OW L E D G M E N T S xxi
Larry Norris, South Plains College Seventh Edition Reviewers
David Rankin, State University of New York at Fredonia
Molly Andolina, DePaul University
Paul Roesler, St. Charles Community College
Nancy Bednar, Antelope Valley College
J. Philip Rogers, San Antonio College
Paul Blakelock, Kingwood College
Greg Shaw, Illinois Wesleyan University
Amy Brandon, San Jacinto College
Tracy Skopek, Stephen F. Austin State University
Jim Cauthen, John Jay College
Don Smith, University of North Texas
Kevin Davis, North Central Texas College
Terri Wright, Cal State, Fullerton
Louis DeSipio, University of California–Irvine
Brandon Franke, Blinn College
Fifth Edition Reviewers Steve Garrison, Midwestern State University
Joseph Howard, University of Central Arkansas
Annie Benifield, Tomball College
Aaron Knight, Houston Community College
Denise Dutton, Southwest Missouri State University
Paul Labedz, Valencia Community College
Rick Kurtz, Central Michigan University
Elise Langan, John Jay College
Kelly McDaniel, Three Rivers Community College
Mark Logas, Valencia Community College
Eric Plutzer, Pennsylvania State University
Eric Miller, Blinn College
Daniel Smith, Northwest Missouri State University
Anthony O’Regan, Los Angeles Valley College
Dara Strolovitch, University of Minnesota
David Putz, Kingwood College
Dennis Toombs, San Jacinto College–North
Chis Soper, Pepperdine University
Stacy Ulbig, Southwest Missouri State University
Kevin Wagner, Florida Atlantic University
Laura Wood, Tarrant County College
Sixth Edition Reviewers
Janet Adamski, University of Mary Hardin–Baylor Eighth Edition Reviewers
Greg Andrews, St. Petersburg College
Andrea Aleman, University of Texas at San Antonio
Louis Bolce, Baruch College
Stephen Amberg, University of Texas at San Antonio
Darin Combs, Tulsa Community College
Steve Anthony, Georgia State University
Sean Conroy, University of New Orleans
Brian Arbour, John Jay College, CUNY
Paul Cooke, Cy Fair College
Greg Arey, Cape Fear Community College
Vida Davoudi, Kingwood College
Ellen Baik, University of Texas–Pan American
Robert DiClerico, West Virginia University
David Birch, Lone Star College–Tomball
Corey Ditslear, University of North Texas
Bill Carroll, Sam Houston State University
Kathy Dolan, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee
Ed Chervenak, University of New Orleans
Randy Glean, Midwestern State University
Gary Church, Mountain View College
Nancy Kral, Tomball College
Adrian Stefan Clark, Del Mar College
Mark Logas, Valencia Community College
Casey Clofstad, University of Miami
Scott MacDougall, Diablo Valley College
Annie Cole, Los Angeles City College
David Mann, College of Charleston
Greg Combs, University of Texas at Dallas
Christopher Muste, University of Montana
Cassandra Cookson, Lee College
Richard Pacelle, Georgia Southern University
Brian Cravens, Blinn College
Sarah Poggione, Florida International University
John Crosby, California State University–Chico
Richard Rich, Virginia Tech
Scott Crosby, Valencia Community College
Thomas Schmeling, Rhode Island College
Courtenay Daum, Colorado State University, Fort Collins
Scott Spitzer, California State University–Fullerton
Paul Davis, Truckee Meadows Community College
Dennis Toombs, San Jacinto College–North
Peter Doas, University of Texas–Pan American
John Vento, Antelope Valley College
Vida Davoudi, Lone Star College–Kingwood
Robert Wood, University of North Dakota
xxii AC K N OW L E D G M E N T S
John Domino, Sam Houston State University Mario Salas, Northwest Vista College
Doug Dow, University of Texas–Dallas Michael Sanchez, San Antonio College
Jeremy Duff, Midwestern State University Mary Schander, Pasadena City College
Heather Evans, Sam Houston State University Laura Schneider, Grand Valley State University
Hyacinth Ezeamii, Albany State University Ronee Schreiber, San Diego State University
Bob Fitrakis, Columbus State Community College Subash Shah, Winston-Salem State University
Brian Fletcher, Truckee Meadows Community College Mark Shomaker, Blinn College
Paul Foote, Eastern Kentucky University Roy Slater, St. Petersburg College
Frank Garrahan, Austin Community College Scott Spitzer, California State University–Fullerton
Jimmy Gleason, Purdue University Debra St. John, Collin College
Steven Greene, North Carolina State University John Vento, Antelope Valley College
Jeannie Grussendorf, Georgia State University Eric Whitaker, Western Washington University
M. Ahad Hayaud-Din, Brookhaven College Clay Wiegand, Cisco College
Virginia Haysley, Lone Star College–Tomball Walter Wilson, University of Texas at San Antonio
Alexander Hogan, Lone Star College–CyFair Kevan Yenerall, Clarion University
Glen Hunt, Austin Community College Rogerio Zapata, South Texas College
Mark Jendrysik, University of North Dakota
Krista Jenkins, Fairleigh Dickinson University
Ninth Edition Reviewers
Carlos Juárez, Hawaii Pacific University
Melinda Kovas, Sam Houston State University Amy Acord, Lone Star College–CyFair
Paul Labedz, Valencia Community College Milan Andrejevich, Ivy Tech Community College
Boyd Lanier, Lamar University Steve Anthony, Georgia State University
Jeff Lazarus, Georgia State University Phillip Ardoin, Appalachian State University
Jeffrey Lee, Blinn College Gregory Arey, Cape Fear Community College
Alan Lehmann, Blinn College Joan Babcock, Northwest Vista College
Julie Lester, Macon State College Evelyn Ballard, Houston Community College
Steven Lichtman, Shippensburg University Robert Ballinger, South Texas College
Mark Logas, Valencia Community College Mary Barnes-Tilley, Blinn College
Fred Lokken, Truckee Meadows Community College Robert Bartels, Evangel University
Shari MacLachlan, Palm Beach Community College Nancy Bednar, Antelope Valley College
Guy Martin, Winston-Salem State University Annie Benifield, Lone Star College–Tomball
Fred Monardi, College of Southern Nevada Donna Bennett, Trinity Valley Community College
Vincent Moscardelli, University of Connecticut Amy Brandon, El Paso Community College
Jason Mycoff, University of Delaware Mark Brewer, The University of Maine
Sugmaran Narayanan, Midwestern State University Gary Brown, Lone Star College–Montgomery
Adam Newmark, Appalachian State University Joe Campbell, Johnson County Community College
Larry Norris, South Plains College Dewey Clayton, University of Louisville
Anthony Nownes, University of Tennessee, Knoxville Jeff Colbert, Elon University
Elizabeth Oldmixon, University of North Texas Amanda Cook-Fesperman, Illinois Valley Community College
Anthony O’Regan, Los Angeles Valley College Kevin Corder, Western Michigan University
John Osterman, San Jacinto College–Central Kevin Davis, North Central Texas College
Mark Peplowski, College of Southern Nevada Paul Davis, Truckee Meadows Community College
Maria Victoria Perez-Rios, John Jay College, CUNY Terri Davis, Lamar University
Sara Rinfret, University of Wisconsin, Green Bay Jennifer De Maio, California State University, Northridge
Andre Robinson, Pulaski Technical College Christopher Durso, Valencia College
Paul Roesler, St. Charles Community College Ryan Emenaker, College of the Redwoods
Susan Roomberg, University of Texas at San Antonio Leslie Feldman, Hofstra University
Ryan Rynbrandt, Collin County Community College Glen Findley, Odessa College
AC K N OW L E D G M E N T S xxiii
Michael Gattis, Gulf Coast State College Tenth Edition Reviewers
Donna Godwin, Trinity Valley Community College
Stephen P. Amberg, University of Texas at San Antonio
Precious Hall, Truckee Meadows Community College
Juan F. Arzola, College of the Sequoias
Sally Hansen, Daytona State College
Thomas J. Baldino, Wilkes University
Tiffany Harper, Collin College
Christina Bejarano, University of Kansas
Todd Hartman, Appalachian State University
Paul T. Bellinger, Jr., University of Missouri
Virginia Haysley, Lone Star College–Tomball
Melanie J. Blumberg, California University of Pennsylvania
David Head, John Tyler Community College
Matthew T. Bradley, Indiana University Kokomo
Rick Henderson, Texas State University–San Marcos
Jeffrey W. Christiansen, Seminole State College
Richard Herrera, Arizona State University
McKinzie Craig, Marietta College
Thaddaus Hill, Blinn College
Christopher Cronin, Methodist University
Steven Holmes, Bakersfield College
Jenna Duke, Lehigh Carbon Community College
Kevin Holton, South Texas College
Francisco Durand, University of Texas at San Antonio
Robin Jacobson, University of Puget Sound
Carrie Eaves, Elon University
Joseph Jozwiak, Texas A & M–Corpus Christi
Paul M. Flor, El Camino College Compton Center
Casey Klofstad, University of Miami
Adam Fuller, Youngstown State University
Samuel Lingrosso, Los Angeles Valley College
Christi Gramling, Charleston Southern University
Mark Logas, Valencia College
Sally Hansen, Daytona State College
Christopher Marshall, South Texas College
Mary Jane Hatton, Hawai’i Pacific University
Larry McElvain, South Texas College
David Helpap, University of Wisconsin–Green Bay
Elizabeth McLane, Wharton County Junior College
Theresa L. Hutchins, Georgia Highlands College
Eddie Meaders, University of North Texas
Cryshanna A. Jackson Leftwich, Youngstown State University
Rob Mellen, Mississippi State University
Ashlyn Kuersten, Western Michigan University
Jalal Nejad, Northwest Vista College
Kara Lindaman, Winona State University
Adam Newmark, Appalachian State University
Timothy Lynch, University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee
Stephen Nicholson, University of California, Merced
Larry McElvain, South Texas College
Cissie Owen, Lamar University
Corinna R. McKoy, Ventura College
Suzanne Preston, St. Petersburg College
Eddie L. Meaders, University of North Texas
David Putz, Lone Star College–Kingwood
Don D. Mirjanian, College of Southern Nevada
Auksuole Rubavichute, Mountain View College
R. Shea Mize, Georgia Highlands College
Ronnee Schreiber, San Diego State University
Nicholas Morgan, Collin College
Ronald Schurin, University of Connecticut
Matthew Murray, Dutchess Community College
Jason Seitz, Georgia Perimeter College
Harold “Trey” Orndorff III, Daytona State College
Jennifer Seitz, Georgia Perimeter College
Randall Parish, University of North Georgia
Shannon Sinegal,The University of New Orleans
Michelle Pautz, University of Dayton
John Sides, George Washington University
Michael Pickering, University of New Orleans
Thomas Sowers, Lamar University
Donald Ranish, Antelope Valley College
Jim Startin, University of Texas at San Antonio
Glenn W. Richardson, Jr., Kutztown University
Robert Sterken, University of Texas at Tyler
of Pennsylvania
Bobby Summers, Harper College
Jason Robles, Colorado State University
John Theis, Lone Star College–Kingwood
Ionas Aurelian Rus, University of Cincinnati–Blue Ash
John Todd, University of North Texas
Robert Sahr, Oregon State University
Delaina Toothman, The University of Maine
Kelly B. Shaw, Iowa State University
David Trussell, Cisco College
Captain Michael Slattery, Campbell University
Ronald Vardy, University of Houston
Michael Smith, Sam Houston State University
Linda Veazey, Midwestern State University
Maryam T. Stevenson, University of Indianapolis
John Vento, Antelope Valley Community College
Elizabeth Trentanelli, Gulf Coast State College
Clif Wilkinson, Georgia College
Ronald W. Vardy, University of Houston
John Wood, Rose State College
Timothy Weaver, University of Louisville
Michael Young, Trinity Valley Community College
Christina Wolbrecht, University of Notre Dame
Tyler Young, Collin College
xxiv AC K N OW L E D G E M E N T S
We are also grateful to Holley Hansen, of Oklahoma State University, who con-
tributed to the “America Side by Side” boxes, and to Gabrielle Ellul for research
assistance.
Perhaps above all, we wish to thank those at W. W. Norton. For its first five edi-
tions, editor Steve Dunn helped us shape the book in countless ways. Ann Shin
carried on the Norton tradition of splendid editorial work on the Sixth through
Ninth Editions. Our current editor, Lisa McKay, has brought smart ideas and a
keen editorial eye to this Tenth Edition. For our Coursepack and other instruc-
tor resources for the book, Toni Magyar has been an energetic and visionary
editor. Nina Hnatov copyedited the manuscript, and our superb project editor
Christine D’Antonio devoted countless hours keeping on top of myriad details.
Ashley Horna has been dedicated in managing production. We thank Julie Tesser
for finding new photos. Finally, we wish to thank Roby Harrington, the head of
Norton’s college department.
Benjamin Ginsberg
Theodore J. Lowi
Margaret Weir
Caroline J. Tolbert
November 2014
AC K N OW L E D G M E N T S xxv
TENTH CORE EDITION
We the People
AN INTRODUCTION TO AMERICAN POLITICS
Most Americans share the core
political values of liberty, equality,
and democracy and want their
government and its policies to reflect
these values. However, people often
disagree on the meaning of these
values and what government should
do to protect them.
American
1
Political Culture
WHAT GOVERNMENT DOES AND WHY IT MATTERS Americans sometimes appear to believe
that the government is an institution that does things to them and from which they need protection.
Students may wonder why they have to fill in long, often complicated forms to apply for financial
assistance. They may frown when they see the payroll tax deducted from their small paycheck. Like
Americans of all ages, they may resent municipal “red-light” cameras designed to photograph traffic
violators—and send them tickets.
Although most people complain about something that government does to them, most everyone
wants the government to do a great deal for them. Some of the services that people expect from
government are big-ticket items, such as providing national security and keeping the nation safe from
terrorist attacks. We all know that government pays for and directs the military. Students attending a
state university know that state and federal public dollars help support their education.
Yet many of the other services that government provides are far less visible, and often it is not
even clear that government plays a role at all. For example, students grabbing a quick bite to eat
between classes take it for granted that their hamburger will not contain bacteria that might make
them sick. Without federal inspection of meat, however, chances of contracting food-borne illnesses
would be much higher and the everyday task of eating would be much riskier. Driving to school would
not be possible if not for the tens of billions of dollars spent each year on road construction and
maintenance by federal, state, and municipal authorities. Like most Americans, young people expect
to get reliable information about the weather for the week ahead and warnings about dangerous
3
events such as hurricanes. The National Weather Service and the National
Hurricane Center both provide reliable forecasts for such simple calculations
as whether to bring an umbrella to more significant calculations made by air-
lines and air traffic control to get travelers safely where they need to go. These
daily decisions don’t seem to involve government but in fact they do. Indeed,
most Americans would not be here at all if it were not for federal immigration
policies, which set the terms for entry into the United States and for obtaining
citizenship.
government institutions and Government is the term generally used to describe the formal institutions
procedures through which a
territory and its people are ruled
through which a land and its people are ruled. As the government seeks to
help and protect its citizens, it faces the challenge of doing so in ways that
are true to the key American political values of liberty, equality, and democ-
racy. Most Americans find it easy to affirm all three values in principle. In
practice, however, matters are not always so clear; these values mean differ-
ent things to different people, and they often seem to conflict. This is where
politics conflict over the politics comes in. Politics refers to conflicts and struggles over the leadership,
leadership, structure, and
policies of governments
structure, and policies of governments. As we will see in this chapter and
throughout this book, much political conflict concerns policies and practices
that seem to affirm one of the key American political values but may contradict
another.
chaptergoals
 Explore Americans’ attitudes toward government (pp. 5–9)
 Describe the role of the citizen in politics (pp. 9–13)
 Define government and forms of government (pp. 13–17)
 Show how the social composition of the American population has
changed over time (pp. 17–24)
 Analyze whether the U.S. system of government upholds American
political values (pp. 24–31)
4 CHAPTER 1 A M E R I C A N P O L I T I C A L C U LT U R E
 What Americans Think about Government
Since the United States was established as
Explore Americans’ a nation, Americans have been reluctant to
attitudes toward grant government too much power, and they
government have often been suspicious of politicians.
But over the course of the nation’s history,
Americans have also turned to government
for assistance in times of need and have strongly supported the government in pe-
riods of war. In 1933 the power of the government began to expand to meet the
crises created by the stock market crash of 1929, the Great Depression, and the run
on banks of 1933. Congress passed legislation that brought the government into the
businesses of home mortgages, farm mortgages, credit, and relief of personal distress.
More recently, when the economy threatened to fall into a deep recession in 2008
and 2009, the federal government stepped in to shore up the financial system, over-
see the restructuring of the ailing auto companies, and inject hundreds of billions of
dollars into the faltering economy. Today the national government is an enormous
institution with programs and policies reaching into every corner of American life.
It oversees the nation’s economy; it is the nation’s largest employer; it provides
citizens with a host of services; it controls the world’s most formidable military; and
it regulates a wide range of social and commercial activities.
Much of what citizens have come to depend on and take for granted as some-
how part of the natural environment is in fact created by government. Take the
example of a typical college student’s day, throughout which that student relies on
The federal government maintains a large number of websites that provide useful information
to citizens on such topics as loans for education, civil service job applications, the inflation rate,
and how the weather will affect farming. These sites are just one way in which the government
serves its citizens.
W H AT A M E R I C A N S T H I N K A B O U T G OV E R N M E N T 5
a host of services and activities organized by national, state, and local government
agencies. The extent of this dependence on government is illustrated by Table 1.1
on page 7.
Trust in Government
Ironically, even as popular dependence on the government has grown, the Ameri-
can public’s view of government has turned more sour. Public trust in government
has declined, and Americans are now more likely to feel that they can do little to
influence the government’s actions. The decline in public trust among Americans
is striking. In the early 1960s, three-quarters of Americans said they trusted gov-
ernment most of the time. By 2013, only 19 percent of Americans expressed trust
in government; 68 stated that they did not trust government most of the time1
(see Figure 1.1). Different groups vary somewhat in their levels of trust: African
Americans and Latinos express more confidence in the federal government than
do whites. But even among the most supportive groups, considerably more than
half do not trust the government.2 These developments are important because
politically engaged citizens and public confidence in government are vital for the
health of a democracy.
In the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, a number of
studies reported a substantial increase in popular trust in government.3 This view,
expressed during a period of national crisis, may have been indicative less of a re-
newed trust in government to do the right thing than of a fervent hope that it would.
PERCENTAGE RESPONDING
FIGURE 1.1 “MOST OF THE TIME” OR “ALWAYS”
Trust in 80
The government’s response to the
Government, September 11 terrorist attacks helped
lift popular trust above the 50 percent
1958–2013 70
By 1980, trust in
level for the first time in decades.
Participants in these polls were government had
asked if they trusted the gov- dropped to about the
60
25 percent level.
ernment to “do the right thing”
always, most of the time, only
some of the time, or never. 50
Since the 1960s, general
levels of public trust in govern-
ment have declined. What 40
factors might help to account
for changes in the public’s
trust in government? Why 30
has confidence in govern-
ment dropped again since
20
September 11, 2001?
In 2013, only 19 percent
SOURCES: The American National
of Americans trusted
Election Studies, 1958–2004; Pew
10 the government.
Research Center, www.people-press
.org/2013/10/18/trust-in-government
-nears-record-Iow-but-most-federal
-agencies-are-viewed-favorably (accessed
0
5/14/14). 1960 1964 1968 1972 1976 1980 1984 1988 1992 1996 2000 2004 2008 2012
TABLE 1.1
The Presence of Government in the Daily Life

of a Student at “State University”
TIME OF DAY SCH E D UL E
7:00 AM Wake up. Standard time set by the national government.
7:10 AM Shower. Water courtesy of local government, either a public entity or a regulated private company. Brush
your teeth with toothpaste whose cavity-fighting claims have been verified by a federal agency. Dry your
hair with an electric dryer manufactured according to federal government agency guidelines.
7:30 AM Have a bowl of cereal with milk for breakfast. “Nutrition Facts” on food labels are a federal requirement,
pasteurization of milk required by state law, freshness dating on milk based on state and federal
standards, recycling the empty cereal box and milk carton enabled by state or local laws.
8:30 AM Drive or take public transportation to campus. Air bags and seat belts required by federal and state laws.
Roads and bridges paid for by state and local governments, speed and traffic laws set by state and local
governments, public transportation subsidized by all levels of government.
8:45 AM Arrive on campus of large public university. Buildings are 70 percent financed by state taxpayers.
9:00 AM First class: Chemistry 101. Tuition partially paid by a federal loan (more than half the cost of university
instruction is paid for by taxpayers), chemistry lab paid for with grants from the National Science
Foundation (a federal agency) and smaller grants from business corporations made possible by federal
income tax deductions for charitable contributions.
Noon Eat lunch. College cafeteria financed by state dormitory authority on land grant from federal Department
of Agriculture.
12:47 PM Felt an earthquake! Check the U.S. Geological Survey at www.usgs.gov to see that it was a 3.9 on the
Richter scale.
2:00 PM Second class: American Government 101 (your favorite class!). You may be taking this class because it
is required by the state legislature or because it fulfills a university requirement.
4:00 PM Third class: Computer Lab. Free computers, software, and Internet access courtesy of state subsidies plus
grants and discounts from IBM and Microsoft, the costs of which are deducted from their corporate income
taxes; Internet built in part by federal government. Duplication of software prohibited by federal copyright laws.
6:00 PM Eat dinner: hamburger and french fries. Meat inspected for bacteria by federal agencies.
7:00 PM Work at part-time job at the campus library. Minimum wage set by federal, state, or local government,
books and journals in library paid for by state taxpayers.
8:15 PM Go online to check the status of your application for a federal student loan (FAFSA) on the Department of
Education’s website at studentaid.ed.gov.
10:00 PM Go home. Street lighting paid for by county and city governments, police patrols by city government.
10:15 PM Watch TV. Networks regulated by federal government, cable public-access channels required by city law.
Weather forecast provided to broadcasters by a federal agency.
10:45 PM To complete your economics homework, visit the Bureau of Labor Statistics at www.bls.gov to look up
unemployment levels since 1972.
Midnight Put out the trash before going to bed. Trash collected by city sanitation department, financed by “user
charges.”
W H AT A M E R I C A N S T H I N K A B O U T G OV E R N M E N T 7
In response to the terrorist attacks
of September 11, 2001, Americans
rallied around government officials
and offered unprecedented support.
Is support for the government
during times of crisis at odds with
Americans’ distrust of government
at other times?
And, indeed, by 2004, trust in government had fallen to near its pre-September
11 level.4 Several factors contributed to the decline in trust. Revelations about the
faulty information that led up to the war in Iraq and ongoing concern about the
war had increased Americans’ distrust of government. In March 2007, 54 percent
of those surveyed believed that the Bush administration had deliberately misled
the American public about whether Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.
By 2013 intense partisan conflict further undermined trust in government. The
public watched with dismay as political differences over taxing and spending led
to repeated threats to shut down the federal government. In the fall of 2011, after
a bitter congressional battle over raising the national debt limit—usually a routine
matter—only 10 percent of Americans trusted government to do the right thing
always or most of the time, the lowest level of trust ever recorded.5 When politi-
cal differences over the Affordable Care Act, a new social program supported by
President Obama to reform the American health care system, led to a government
shutdown in 2013 and yet another dramatic showdown over raising the national
debt limit, public trust once again dipped to historically low levels.
Does it matter if Americans trust their government? For the most part, the answer
is yes. As we have seen, most Americans rely on government for a wide range of ser-
vices and laws that they simply take for granted. But long-term distrust in government
forcriticalanalysis can result in public refusal to pay taxes adequate to support such widely approved
public activities. Low levels of confidence may also make it difficult for government
What recent events have to attract talented and effective workers to public service.6 The weakening of govern-
affected Americans’ trust in
ment as a result of prolonged levels of distrust may ultimately harm the United States’
government? What might it
take to restore Americans’ trust capacity to defend its national interest in the world economy and may jeopardize its
in the federal government? national security. Likewise, a weak government can do little to assist citizens who
need help in weathering periods of sharp economic or technological change.
Political Efficacy
Another important trend in American views about government has been a de-
political efficacy the ability to clining sense of political efficacy, the belief that ordinary citizens can affect what
influence government and politics government does, that they can make government listen to them. In 2014,
78 percent of Americans said that elected officials don’t care what people like
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others. It is possible that, before the coming of the white man, the
number of these winter outer-sea birds in the Cape Cod region
exceeded that of the summer birds, but now, alas! the shotgun and
the killer had their fun, the winter peoples have been wasted away,
and some even exterminated. To-day, the summer birds outnumber
their winter kin.
A new danger, moreover, now threatens the birds at sea. An
irreducible residue of crude oil, called by refiners “slop,” remains in
stills after oil distillation, and this is pumped into southbound tankers
and emptied far offshore. This wretched pollution floats over large
areas, and the birds alight in it and get it on their feathers. They
inevitably die. Just how they perish is still something of a question.
Some die of cold, for the gluey oil so mats and swabs the thick arctic
feathering that creases open through it to the skin above the vitals;
others die of hunger as well. Captain George Nickerson of Nauset
tells me that he saw an oil-covered eider trying to dive for food off
Monomoy, and that the bird was unable to plunge. I am glad to be
able to write that the situation is better than it was. Five years ago,
the shores of Monomoy peninsula were strewn with hundreds, even
thousands, of dead sea fowl, for the tankers pumped out slop as
they were passing the shoals—into the very waters, indeed, on
which the birds have lived since time began! To-day oil is more the
chance fate of the unfortunate individual. But let us hope that all
such pollution will presently end.
My beach is empty, but not the ocean beyond. Between the coast
guard station and Nauset Light, a “raft” of skunk coots is spending
the winter. Patches of white on the forehead and the hind neck of the
glossy black head of the male are responsible for this local name.
The birds sit in the ocean, just seaward of the surf—the coast
guardsmen say there is a shallow close by and shellfish—and the
whole raft rises and falls unconcernedly as the swells roll under it.
Sometimes a bird will dive through the oncoming ridge of a breaker
and emerge casually on the other side; sometimes a bird will stand
up in the water, flap its wings, and settle down again unconcernedly.
There are perhaps thirty birds in this flock. In Thoreau’s time, these
rafts of coots formed a flock which was practically continuous the
whole length of the outer Cape, but to-day such rafts, though not at
all rare, are but occasional.
Standing at the door of my house, I watch these winter birds pass
and repass, flying well offshore. Now a company of a hundred or
more old squaws pass, now a tribe of one of the scoter folk; now a
pair of eiders come to rest in the ocean directly in front of the
Fo’castle.
These birds practically never come ashore during the winter. They
eat, sleep, live, and meet together at sea. When you see a sea duck
on the beach, you can be sure something is the matter with him, so
runs a saying of the Cape which I had from Captain Nickerson. The
only way in which I can observe these winter folk is by using a good
glass or by catching a specimen who has got into some kind of
trouble and taken refuge on the beach. All these creatures are at a
great disadvantage when ashore, and have a world of difficulty trying
to launch themselves into the air; they make unwieldy jump after
jump, the auks being practically unable to rise at all upon their wings.
It was thrilling to walk the beach, and catch sight of a bird sitting
solitary on the sands. What might it be? What had led it ashore?
Could I possibly catch it and give it a careful looking over? The
keynote of my strategy lay in the attempt to prevent the birds from
getting back into the water, so between them and the surf I would
rush—for the birds would begin to move down the slope to the surf
the instant they saw or heard or felt me—and I soon learned that a
brisk countercharge was worth all the ruse and the patient stalking in
the world. Then began a furious game of tag, the alarmed bird
skittering all over the beach, being gradually driven by me toward the
dunes, till I manœuvred him into the angle between the beach and
the sandy wall.
My first prisoners were three unhappy little auks, Alle alle, who
had dipped themselves in oil somewhere on their way down from the
arctic—odd little browny-black and white birds about the size of a
pigeon, who stood up on queer little auk feet, faced me, and beat
little bent wings with a penguin look to them; indeed, the bird has
much of an Adelie penguin air. On the Cape, these auks are known
as “pine knots”—a term said to be derived from the creature’s tough
compactness—or as “dovekies.” They have always been “aukies” to
me. At the Fo’castle I gave them a generous corner floored with
newspaper and walled in with boards and a chair. I tried to clean off
what I could of the oil; I gave them what I could find of sea victuals,
but all in vain; they would not eat, and I let them go just as soon as I
saw that I could not possibly help them and that Nature had best
deal with the problem in her own way.
Razor-billed Auk
When they stood up almost perpendicularly and tried to walk about
on their little legs set far aft—they are pygopodes—it was much as if
an acrobat, standing on his head, were trying to patter about, using
the length between his elbow and his finger tips as feet. These little
birds used both wings and feet when trying to escape me on the
beach. They ran and rowed the sand with their wings; the verb gives
the precise motion. Moreover, what had taken place was beautifully
marked upon the tabula rasa of the sand—little webbed feet running
in a close chain, wing tips nicking the sand once in each stroke.
Coming south from their distant arctic, these little auks do not fly
above the ocean as do the more advanced birds; they “skitter” along
just over the surface of the waves and keep well out to sea, even
well out of sight of land.
One aukie I caught at night. I was on the beach walking north to
meet the man coming south from Nauset, and, as I flashed my
searchlight to see who the surfman might be, I saw an aukie coming
toward me, fluttering along the very edge of surf, all sticky and a-
glisten with fuel oil. Strange little fragment of life on the edge of that
mysterious immensity! I picked him up; he struggled and then kept
still, and I carried him back to the Fo’castle. The bird was small
enough to be carried in one hand, and as I held him, his duck feet
rested on my palm and his head and neck emerged from the fork
between my thumb and index finger. At the Fo’castle he opened his
beak, “chattered” with it (there is no word for that motion without
sound), transformed his short neck into a surprisingly long one, and
looked at me with a kind of “all is well but anything may be expected”
expression in his eyes. Every now and then he rather solemnly
winked, showing the delicate tan-coloured feathering on his lid. I put
him in a corner by himself, and when I went to bed he had given up
trying to pick himself free of the oil with his pointed, sparrowy bill,
and was standing in his corner of shadow, facing the angle of the
walls, for all the world like a small boy who has been naughty at
school. The next morning I let him go at his own insistent request.
I found a razor-billed auk, Alca torda, cornered him, looked him
over while he threatened me with a bill held open and motionless,
and then left him to his own devices. I did the same with a Brünnich’s
murre, and I might have had an eider, too, had I wanted one, for
Alvin Newcomb, surfman No. 1 at Nauset, captured a male one night
while on north patrol. The eider, however, is a huge bird, and I was
not quite prepared to turn the Fo’castle into a kind of ocean hen
yard. So the eider at Nauset, after having most unconcernedly
listened to the station radio for a little while, was returned that same
evening to the North Atlantic. I had one chance at a rare bird. On the
first day of the great northeast storm, as I was wandering about at
noontime through the sleet, I found in the mouth of a cut the body of
a murre. The bird had been dead but a short time, for it was still limp
when I picked it up, and as I held it I could even feel a faint vanishing
warmth in its exhausted flesh. This bird was the rarer murre, Uria
troile troile, he of the sharper beak whom men have almost erased
from the list of living things. It had apparently died of being caught
and battered about for long hours by the gale. After the storm, I tried
to find the creature again, but the tide and the storm had poured
through the cut and swept everything before them into a confusion of
sand and ruin.
These ocean peoples live on such little fish as they can seize; they
pick up shellfish on shallow areas; they eat certain marine growths.
Some have a taste for the local mussel, Mytilus edulis. Unless the
winter is an exceptionally severe one, the birds seem to fare well
enough. Many stay late, and May is usually at hand before the long
lines of scoters fly north again under the command of their feathered
admirals. Such is the history of the migrant seafarers of the Cape. A
word remains to be said about the residents and the migrants in the
marsh.
II
About the middle of December, I began to see that an amusing
game of cross purposes was being played by the sea birds and the
land birds of the region west of the dunes. Food becoming scarce
upon the uplands, crows, bobwhites, and starlings began to take an
interest in the sea and the salt meadows, while gulls took to
exploring the moors and to sitting in the top branches of inland pines.
One wise old gull once discovered that there was good fare to be
had in Mr. Joe Cobb’s chicken yard just off the western rim of the
great marsh, and every morning this sagacious creature would
separate himself from the thousands milling about over the cold tides
and flutter down among the hens. There he would forage about,
picking up grain like a barnyard fowl till he had dulled the edge of his
hunger. I doubt if gulls ever do more. After visiting the chicken yard
regularly for several winters, the bird disappeared one spring and
was never seen again. He had probably lived out the span of his
days.
I pause here to wonder at how little we know of the life span of
wild animals. Only cases of exceptionally long life or short life seem
to attract the attention of man. I can open any good bird book and
find a most careful, a most detailed study of the physical selves and
habits of birds, but of their probable length of life, never a word. Such
material would be exceedingly difficult to secure, and perhaps the
suggestion is folly, but there are times when one wishes that this
neglected side of animal existence might have more attention.
During the summer, I never saw starlings on the marsh, but now
that winter is here they leave the uplands by the coast guard station,
and venture out along the dunes. These flights of exploration are
very rare. I have seen the birds flying over the salt meadows, I have
seen them light on the ridgepole of a gunning camp, but I have never
once encountered them on the outer beach. With crows, it is a
different story. The birds will investigate anything promising, and
during the summer I found crows on the beach on four or five
different occasions, these visits being made, for the most part, early
in the morning.
Chancing to look toward the marsh one warm October afternoon, I
witnessed a battle between two gulls and a young crow for the
possession of some marine titbit the crow had picked up on the flats;
it was a picturesque contest, for the great silvery wings of the gulls
beat down and inclosed the crow till he resembled a junior demon in
some old lithograph of the war in heaven. Eventually one of the gulls
seized on the coveted morsel, flew off a bit, and gulped it down,
leaving the crow and the other gull to “consider” like the cow in the
old song. Winter and necessity now make the crow something of a
beach comber. The birds cross over to the beach at low tide on mild
days, forage about warily, and return to their uplands the instant they
no longer have the beach all to themselves. A flight of gulls will send
them cawing home, their great sombre wings beating the ocean air.
Even on this immense and lonely beach, they remain the wariest of
creatures, and if I wish to see what they are up to, I have to use ten
times the care in stalking them that I would have to use in stalking
any casual sea bird. I have to creep through cuts and valleys in the
dunes and worm my way over cold sand that drinks the warmth and
life out of the flesh. I usually find them picking at a fish flung out of
the breakers perhaps a day or two before—picking industriously and
solemnly.
Once in a while, a covey of shore larks will cross the dunes and
alight on the beach in the lee and the afternoon shadow of the sand
bank. They fly very low, the whole group rising and falling with the
rise and fall of the hills and hollows, a habit that gives their flights a
picturesque and amusing roller-coaster quality. Once having settled
down on the outer side of the dunes, the birds keep well up on the
beach and never seem to venture close to ocean.
This same shore lark, Otocoris alpestris, is perhaps the bird I
encounter most frequently during the winter months. This season
they are here by the thousand; indeed, they are so thick that I scarce
can walk behind the dunes without putting up a flock of these alert,
brownish, fugitive creatures. Their kingdom lies to the west of the
dunes, in the salt-hay fields and intermingled marsh areas which
extend between the dunes and the creek running more or less
parallel to the sand bar. Coming from Greenland and Labrador, these
birds reach the Eastham meadows in October and November, and
all winter long they forage and run about in the dead bristles of the
hay. Their only note here is a rather sad little “tseep, tseep,” which
they utter as they skim the grass in alarm, but it is said that they
have an interesting song during their breeding season in springtime
Labrador.
Brünnich’s Murres at Nest in
the Summer North
It is early on a pleasant winter afternoon, and I am returning to the
Fo’castle through the meadows, my staff in my hand and a load of
groceries in a knapsack on my back. The preceding day brought
snow flurries to us out of the northwest, and there are patches of
snow on the hay fields and the marshes, and, on the dunes, nests of
snow held up off the ground by wiry spears of beach grass bent over
and tangled into a cup. Such little pictures as this last are often to be
seen on the winter dunes; I pause to enjoy them, for they have the
quality and delicacy of Japanese painting. There is a blueness in the
air, a blue coldness on the moors, and across the sky to the south, a
pale streamer of cloud smoking from its upper edge. Every now and
then, I see ahead of me a round, blackish spot in the thin snow;
these are the cast-off shells of horseshoe crabs, from whose thin
tegument the snow has melted. A flock of nervous shore larks,
hidden under an old mowing machine, emerge running, take to their
wings, and, flying south a fifty yards, suddenly drop and disappear
into the grass. Hesitating on the half-alert, a little flock of bobwhites,
occasional invaders of this stubble, watch me pass, and then
continue feeding. To the west, from the marsh, I hear the various
cries of gulls, the mewing note, the call, and that queer sound which
is almost a guttural bark. Afternoon shadows are gathering in the
cuts of the dunes, blue shadows and cold, and there is a fine sea
tang in the air.
It is low tide, and the herring gulls, Larus argentatus, are feeding
on the flats and gravel banks. As I watch them through a glass, they
seem as untroubled as fowls on an inland farm. Their talkative
groups and gatherings have a domestic look. The gull population of
the Cape is really one people, for, though separate gull
congregations live in various bays and marshes, the mass of the
birds seem to hear of any new food supply and flock as one to the
feast. So accustomed to man have they grown, and so fearless, that
they will follow in his very footsteps for a chance to scavenge food; I
have seen the great birds walking round clammers who threw broken
clams to them as they might throw scraps of meat to kittens. In
hungry seasons the clammer may hear a flapping just behind and
discover that a gull has just made off with a clam from his pail. They
follow the eelers, too, and on the ice of the Eastham salt pond you
may chance to see a pair of gulls disputing an eel which the eelers
have thrown away; one will have it by the tail, the other by the head,
and both tug with insistence and increasing bad temper. The victory
in this primitive battle goes either to the strongest gull or to the
fastest swallower.
An unhurried observation of the marsh, especially a study of its
lesser creeks and concealed pools, reveals hundreds of ducks. To
identify and classify these birds is a next to impossible task, for they
are very suspicious and have chosen their winter quarters with a
sound instinct for defensive strategy. The great majority of these
birds are undoubtedly black duck, Anas rubripes, the most wary and
suspicious of all wintering birds. All day long, back and forth over the
dunes between the marsh and the ocean, these ducks are ever
flying; by twos and threes and little flocks they go, and those who go
out to sea fly so far out that the eye loses them in the vastness of
ocean. I like to walk in the marsh early in the evening, keeping out as
far as I can toward the creeks. The ducks hear me and begin a
questioning quacking. I hear them talk and take alarm; other ducks,
far off, take up the alerte; sometimes wings whistle by in the
darkness. The sound of a pair of “whistler” ducks on the wing is a
lovely, mysterious sound at such a time. It is a sound made with
wings, a clear, sibilant note which increases as the birds draw near,
and dies away in the distance like a faint and whistling sigh.
One March evening, just as sundown was fading into night, the
whole sky chanced to be overspread with cloud, all save a golden
channel in the west between the cloud floor and the earth. It was
very still, very peaceful on my solitary dune. The whole earth was
dark, dark as a shallow cup lifted to a solemnity of silence and cloud.
I heard a familiar sound. Turning toward the marsh, I saw a flock of
geese flying over the meadows along the rift of dying, golden light,
their great wings beating with a slow and solemn beauty, their
musical, bell-like cry filling the lonely levels and the dark. Is there a
nobler wild clamour in all the world? I listened to the sound till it died
away and the birds had disappeared into darkness, and then heard a
quiet sea chiding a little at the turn of tide. Presently, I began to feel
a little cold, and returned to the Fo’castle, and threw some fresh
wood on the fire.
Chapter VI
LANTERNS ON THE BEACH
I
It is now the middle of March, cold winds stream between earth
and the serene assurance of the sun, winter retreats, and for a little
season the whole vast world here seems as empty as a shell. Winter
is no mere negation, no mere absence of summer; it is another and
a positive presence, and between its ebbing and the slow, cautious
inflow of our northern spring there is a phase of earth emptiness, half
real, perhaps, and half subjective. A day of rain, another bright week,
and all earth will be filled with the tremor and the thrust of the year’s
new energies.
There has just been a great wreck, the fifth this winter and the
worst. On Monday morning last, shortly after five o’clock, the big
three-masted schooner Montclair stranded at Orleans and went to
pieces in an hour, drowning five of her crew.
It had blown hard all Sunday night, building up enormous seas.
Monday’s dawn, however, was not stormy, only wintry and grey. The
Montclair, on her way from Halifax to New York, had had a hard
passage, and sunrise found her off Orleans with her rigging iced up
and her crew dog-weary. Helpless and unmanageable, she swung
inshore and presently struck far out and began to break up. Lifted,
rocked, and pounded by the morning’s mountainous seas, her masts
were seen to quiver at each crash, and presently her foremast and
her mainmast worked free, and, scissoring grotesquely back and
forth across each other, split the forward two thirds of the vessel
lengthwise—“levered the ship open,” as Russell Taylor of Nauset
said. The vessel burst, the two forward masses of the ship drifted
inshore and apart, a cargo of new laths poured into the seas from
the broken belly of the hold. Seven men clung to the rocking, drifting
mass that was once the stern.
It was a singular fragment, for the vessel had broken as neatly
crosswise as it had lengthwise, and the seas were washing in below
deck as into an open barrel. Dragging over the shoal ground, the
mass rocked on its keel, now rolling the men sickeningly high, now
tumbling them down into the trampling rush of the seas. The fall of
the two forward masts had snapped off the mizzen some twenty-five
feet above the deck, and from the stump cracked-out slivers swung
free with the rolling. Bruised, wet through, and chilled to the bone,
the unfortunate men dared not lash themselves down, for they had to
be free to climb the tilted deck when the ship careened.
Five clung to the skylight of the after deckhouse, two to the stern-
rail balustrade. Laths filled the sea, poured over the men, and
formed a jagged and fantastic wall along the beach.
One great sea drowned all the five. Men on the beach saw it
coming and shouted, the men on the deckhouse shouted and were
heard, and then the wave broke, hiding the tragic fragment in a
sluice of foam and wreckage. When this had poured away, the men
on the afterhouse were gone. A head was visible for a minute, and
then another drifting southward, and then there was nothing but sea.
Two men still clung to the balustrade, one a seventeen-year-old
boy, the other a stocky, husky-built sailor. The wave tore the boy
from the balustrade, but the stocky man reached out, caught him,
and held on. The tide rising, the stern began to approach the beach.
A detail of men hurriedly sent over from Nauset Station now
appeared on the beach and managed to reach and rescue the
survivors. The Montclair had chanced to strand near a station
classed as “inactive”—coast guard stations are discontinued if there
is not enough work to justify their maintenance—and the two or three
men who garrisoned the station could do little but summon instant
aid. Men came from Nauset, circling the Eastham lagoon and
Orleans cove in local automobiles, but the whole primitive tragedy
was over in a moment of time.
The Wreck of the Montclair.
Early Afternoon
As the vessel was breaking up, men came to the beach and
helped themselves to the laths and what wreckage they fancied.
Later on, there was a kind of an auction of the salvaged material.
The other day I saw half-a-dozen bundles of the Montclair’s laths
piled up near a barn.
A week after the wreck, a man walking the Orleans shore came to
a lonely place, and there he saw ahead of him a hand thrust up out
of the great sands. Beneath he found the buried body of one of the
Montclair’s crew.
I can see the broken mast of the schooner from the deck of the
Fo’castle. Sunday last, I walked over to the ship. The space under
the after deckhouse from which the men were swept—officers’
quarters, I imagine—is an indescribable flung mass of laths, torn
wood, wrecked panelling, sopped blankets, and sailor’s clothing. I
remember the poor, stringy, cheap ties. In the midst of the débris a
stain of soppy pink paper caught my eye: it was a booklet, “If You
Were Born in February.” I have often seen the set of twelve on
newsstands. The scarlet cover of this copy had seeped into the
musty pages. “Those who are born in this month,” I read, “have a
particular affection for home”; and again, “They will go through fire
and water for their loved ones.”
Who brought this thing aboard? one wonders. Whose curious
hands first opened it in the lamplight of this tragic and disordered
space? The seventeen-year-old boy is dead of the shock and
exposure; the stocky, husky-built man, the only survivor, is going on
with the sea. “He says it’s all he knows,” said a coast guardsman.
The wreck lies on the edge of the surf and trembles when the
incoming seas strike its counter and burst there with a great
upflinging of heavy spray.
II
To understand this great outer beach, to appreciate its
atmosphere, its “feel,” one must have a sense of it as the scene of
wreck and elemental drama. Tales and legends of the great disasters
fill no inconsiderable niche in the Cape mind. Older folk will tell you
of the Jason, of how she struck near Pamet in a gale of winter rain,
and of how the breakers flung the solitary survivor on the midnight
beach; others will tell of the tragic Castagna and the frozen men who
were taken off while the snow flurries obscured the February sun. Go
about in the cottages, and you may sit in a chair taken from one
great wreck and at a table taken from another; the cat purring at your
feet may be himself a rescued mariner. When the coast guards
returned to the Castagna on the quiet morning after the wreck, they
found a grey cat calmly waiting for them in the dead captain’s cabin,
and a chilled canary hunched up upon his perch. The bird died of the
bitter cold while being taken ashore in a lifeboat, “just fell off,” but the
cat left a dynasty to carry on his name.
Cape Codders have often been humorously reproached for their
attitude toward wrecks. On this coast, as on every other in the old
isolated days, a wreck was treasure trove, a free gift of the sea; even
to-day, the usable parts of a wreck are liable to melt away in a
curious manner. There is no real looting; in fact, public opinion on the
Cape is decidedly against such a practice, for it offends the local
sense of decency. The gathering of the Montclair’s laths during the
wreck really upset many people. They did not like it here. When men
are lost on the beach, the whole Cape takes it very much to heart,
talks about it, mulls over it; when men are saved, there is no place
where they are treated with greater hospitality and kindness. Cape
folks have never been wreckers in the European sense of that dark
word. Their first thought has always been of the shipwrecked men.
Forty years ago, a winter nor’easter flung the schooner J. H. Eells
on the outer bar of Eastham. Water-logged, leaking, and weighted
down with a cargo of railroad iron, the ship remained on the outer
bar, snow flurries hiding her now and then through the furious winter
day. So swift and powerful were the alongshore currents that a
surfboat could not approach the ship, and so far offshore had she
stranded that the life-saving gun would not carry. All Eastham was
on the beach, the women as well as the boys and men, and all day
long villagers and surfmen fought to reach the vessel. They were
powerless, however, and when darkness and continuing snow
closed the winter day, they had to watch the Eells fading away in the
squalls, her dying men still clinging to the shrouds.
To give these men heart, to let them know themselves
remembered, the villagers that night built great fires of driftwood on
the beach. Men and women shook the thin snow and sand from
ancient wreckage and tossed it on a wind-crazed heap of flame. All
night long they fed these pyres. With the slow return of day, it was
seen that two of the men had already died and fallen overboard. At
ten o’clock that morning, the storm having somewhat abated, the
survivors were pluckily taken off by a lone tug which approached the
wreck from seaward. Every once in a while, the rusty, shell-fouled
iron uncovers, and above it, the yellow-green waters of the outer bar
turn blue-black in a strike of summer sun.
Eighteenth Century pirates, stately British merchantmen of the
mid-Victorian years, whaling brigs, Salem East India traders,
Gloucester fishermen, and a whole host of forgotten Nineteenth
Century schooners—all these have strewn this beach with broken
spars and dead. Why this history of wreck and storm? Because the
outer Cape stands a full thirty miles out in the North Atlantic, and
because its shelterless eastern beaches flank the New Englander’s
ocean lanes for fifty miles. When a real nor’easter blows, howling
landward through the winter night over a thousand miles of grey,
tormented seas, all shipping off the Cape must pass the Cape or
strand. In the darkness and scream of the storm, in the beat of the
endless, icy, crystalline snow, rigging freezes, sails freeze and tear—
of a sudden the long booming undertone of the surf sounds under
the lee bow—a moment’s drift, the feel of surf twisting the keel of the
vessel, then a jarring, thundering crash and the upward drive of the
bar.
Stranded vessels soon begin to break up. Wrecks drag and pound
on the shoals, the waves thunder in-board, decks splinter and crack
like wooden glass, timbers part, and iron rods bend over like candles
in a heat.
Ships may strand here in dull weather and fog. The coast guards
then work at full speed to get them off before a surf rises; a coast
guard cutter comes to aid.
A few mornings ago, when I walked the beach to Nauset Station, I
followed close along the dune wall to see the wreckage uncovered
since the storm. North of the Fo’castle, along a broken mile, the new
seaward cliff of the dunes stands at least twenty feet west of the
former rim, and all the old wreckage once buried up in the region
washed away is now lying on the beach or tumbling out of the wall.
Being young, the twelve-foot cliff is still sheer, and the wreckage lies
solidly packed in its side like fruits in a sliced pudding. In one place,
some ten feet of a schooner’s mast is jutting from the wall like a
cannon from a fortress; in another, the sand is crumbling away from
the fragments of a ship’s boat, in another appears the speckled and
musty yellow corner of a door. Root tendrils of beach grass, whitish
and fine-spun as open nerves, have grown in the crumbled and
sand-eroded crevices.
Some of this wreckage is centuries old. High course tides carry
débris up the beach, sand and the dunes move down to claim it;
presently beach grass is growing tall in sand wedged between a
ship’s splintered ribs and its buried keel. A few laths from the
Montclair are whitening on the beach.
Two miles down the beach, its tiny flag streaming seaward in the
endless wind, stands Nauset Station, chimneys, weathered roof, and
cupola watchtower just visible above the dunes.
III
From Monomoy Point to Race Point in Provincetown—full fifty
miles—twelve coast guard stations watch the beach and the
shipping night and day. There are no breaks save natural ones in
this keep of the frontier.
Between the stations, at some midway and convenient point,
stand huts called halfway houses, and stations, huts, and
lighthouses are linked together by a special telephone system owned
and maintained by the coast guard services.
Every night in the year, when darkness has fallen on the Cape and
the sombre thunder of ocean is heard in the pitch pines and the
moors, lights are to be seen moving along these fifty miles of sand,
some going north, some south, twinkles and points of light solitary
and mysterious. These lights gleam from the lanterns and electric
torches of the coast guardsmen of the Cape walking the night
patrols. When the nights are full of wind and rain, loneliness and the
thunder of the sea, these lights along the surf have a quality of
romance and beauty that is Elizabethan, that is beyond all stain of
present time.
Nauset Station
Sometimes a red flare burns on the edge of ocean, a red fireworks
flare which means wreck or danger of wreck. “You are standing in
too near to the outer bar,” says the red light to the freighter lost in a
night’s downpour of March rain. “Keep off! Keep off! Keep off!” The
signal burns and sputters, the smoke is blown away almost ere it is
born; the glassy bellies of the advancing breakers turn to volutes of
rosy black, the seething foam to a strange vermilion-pink. In the night
and rain beyond the hole of light an answering bellow sounds, ship
lights dim as the vessel changes her course, the red flare dies to a
sizzling, empty cartridge, the great dark of the beach returns to the
solitary dunes. The next day it is all entered quietly in the station log:
“Two thirty-six a.m. saw freighter standing in toward outer bar, burnt
Coston signals, freighter whistled and changed her course.”
Every night they go; every night of the year the eastern beaches
see the comings and goings of the wardens of Cape Cod. Winter
and summer they pass and repass, now through the midnight sleet
and fury of a great northeaster, now through August quiet and the
reddish-golden radiance of an old moon rising after midnight from
the sea, now through a world of rain shaken with heavy thunder and
stabbed through and through with lightning. And always, always
alone. Whenever I rise at earliest dawn, I find the beach traced and
retraced with footprints that vanish in the distances, each step a
chain forged anew each night in the courageous service of mankind.
Night patrols go between the stations and their halfway houses.
Under certain circumstances and at special times of the year, the last
patrol in the morning may end at a key post placed on some
commanding height above the beach. While on patrol, the men carry
a stock of red flare cartridges—the Coston lights—a handle to burn
them in, and a watchman’s clock which they must wind with a special
key kept at the halfway house. In summer, the beaches are covered
twice every night, in winter three times, the first patrol leaving the
station soon after dark, the second at midnight, the third an hour or
so before the dawn. The average patrol covers something like seven
miles. Only one man from each station is on the beach at any given
time, so north and south patrols alternate through the night.
Day patrols are maintained only during stormy or foggy weather.
The men then have to walk the beach night and day with not much
chance for proper rest, mile after mile of a furious winter day on the
heels of a long and almost sleepless night. The usual day watch is
kept from the towers of the stations.
A surfman who has discovered a wreck or found some sort of
trouble on the beach first burns the Coston light I have already
mentioned. This warns his station that there is something the matter,
and at the same time tells men aboard a wreck that they have been
seen and that help is coming. If the wreck lies near the station, the
guard returns with his news; if it lies near the halfway house, he
telephones. At the station, the man on station watch gives the alarm,
everybody tumbles up, and in the quickest possible time the crew
and their apparatus are on the beach hurrying through the darkness
to the wreck. Each station has now a small tractor to draw its
apparatus down the beach.
The crew of a stranded ship may be taken off either in the lifeboat
or the breeches buoy. Everything depends on the conditions of the
hour.
The life-saving cannon and its auxiliary apparatus, its powder,
lines, hawsers, and pulleys, are kept in a stout two-wheeled wagon
called “the beach cart.” The “shot,” or projectile, fired from this gun
resembles a heavy brass window weight with one end pulled out into
a stout two-foot rod ending in a loop.
When a wreck lies offshore in the surf, the end of a very light line
called the “shot line” is attached to the eyelet in the brass projectile,
and the gun aimed at the wreck with particular care. One must place
the shot where the men in the rigging can reach it, and yet avoid
striking them. If all goes well, the shot whizzes into the very teeth of
the gale and falls aboard, leaving the shot line entangled. Should the
wrecked men succeed in reaching and hauling in this first cord, a
heavier line is sent on, and when the mariners haul in this second
line, “the whip,” they haul out to their vessel the lifebuoy and its
hawser. Pulleys and cables are so rigged as to permit the buoy to be
hauled in and out to the wreck by the coast guard crew.
After everybody has been taken off, an ingenious contrivance is
hauled out to the wreck which cuts the hawser free. The crew then
gather up the apparatus, station a guard, and return.
The crew return, the little group of men in black oilers and the men
they have saved trudge off, tunnelling into the wind, the surfboat on
its wagon-cradle leading the way, the hum-rhythm of the tractor
dissolving in the gale. Ridges and piles of broken, twisted wreckage
rim the breakers’ edges, new wreckage is on its way ashore,
strewings of old weathered planking, a hatchway, sops of sailors’
clothing. A maze of footprints traces the desolate beach; the air is full
of wind-flung froth and breaker spray; the gale screams unceasing.
Just offshore, in the mile of surf, the wreck lies flat—utterly forlorn,
and helpless as a toy ship neglected by a giant’s child. The guard left
behind walks to and fro, rubs his mittened hands, and watches the
breakers cover the wreck under mountains of surf, overflow, and
sluice off in spouting masses and cascades ... breaking up.... Fishing
schooner, rigging frozen up, one of the men with both his hands
frozen ... yes, got ’em all.
IV
I call at Nauset Station several times a week, usually late in the
afternoon. Packages and mail are delivered near by, and every once

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2  The Founding and the Constitution 38

New Federalism and State Control 99

Federalism and Your Future 108

4  Civil Liberties 114

The First Amendment and Freedom of Religion 122

The Right to Privacy 144

5  Civil Rights 156

Stability of Opinion and Political Knowledge 225

New Media and Online News 267

Regulation of the Media 289

The Media, Democracy, and Your Future 291

8  Political Participation and Voting 298

Political Participation and Your Future 333

9  Political Parties 340

Parties as Organizations 350

Party Systems 362

10  Campaigns and Elections 384

How Voters Decide 415

How Groups Organize 442

Interest Group Strategies 449

Interest Groups and Your Future 463

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Beyond Legislation: Other Congressional Powers 507

13  The Presidency 518

The Constitutional Powers of the Presidency 523

Goals of the Federal Bureaucracy 569

15  The Federal Courts 598

The Power of the Supreme Court: Judicial Review 612

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The Constitution of the United States of America A8

Amendments to the Constitution A14

The Federalist Papers A20

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Presidents and Vice Presidents A30

Answer Key A77

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