Note 325 — Chapter VI · —Geographical Area

Emerson's statement that the vast size of the United States is reflected in the big views of its people applies not only to political policy, which in the Monroe Doctrine for the first time in history has embraced a hemisphere; nor is it confined to the big scale of their economic processes. Emerson had in mind rather their whole conception of national mission and national life, especially their legislation,325 for which he anticipated larger and more Catholic aims than obtain in Europe, hampered as it is by countless political and linguistic boundaries and barred thereby from any far-reaching unity of purpose and action.