Nathaniel Hawthorne, whose birth day falls on July 4, was, from his boyhood, conscious of the meaning of the independence of his country from England, and naturally he paid sincere respect to the Father of the Independence, George Washington. This is a fact well evidenced in his repeated reference to this great national figure in varieties of his literary writings, including “A Book of Autographs,” though he left no independent works devoted solely to him like M. L. Weems’ The Life of Washington (1806) or Jared Sparks’ Life of George Washington (1837).

Hawthorne’s attitude towards Washington was by no means tinged with such wholesale hero worship as is typically exemplified by those biographers’ idea of him, namely a flawless military commander and statesman, or by other contemporary writers of his time like William Dunlap. This essay argues that Hawthorne, a man of letters distinguished in the observation of humanity, was perceptive enough to recognize in this great American commander such a hint of “petrified heart” as may be identifiable in the main characters of his fictions, “Ethan Brand” and “The Man of Adamant.”

As a man of literary and poetic imagination, however, Hawthorne is understood to have been gifted with a sharp and penetrative insight into the true human character of George Washington, and here the auther goes so far as to refer to Hawthorne’s hitherto - unknown interest in the personality of English Vice Admiral Collingwood, who appeared as a significant character in a French novel, Servitude and Grandeur of Arms (1835) by Alfred Vigny. The French novelist, who also had a military career, makes a character or storyteller in the novel respectfully portray the character of this British naval commander, referring to the commander’s individual fortitude as a soldier, “who waged war with a full consciousness of its nature” and selflessness in accepting his command and power and in obeying to his duty to public benefit. More significant than anything else in Vigny’s story is the fact that the spirit of George Washington finds itself referred to as ranking as high as that of the great hero in the novel. It still remain doubtful whether Hawthorne himself read this French novel by Vigny, but it is doubtlessly a fact that Hawthorne had already taken independent interest in Collingwood’s unequalled personality as a naval commander. In my own investigation Hawthorne had already borrowed from an athenium in Salem a volume entitled Selected Letters, Public and Private, of Vice Admiral Collingwood (1829) in 1834, one year before Vigny’s novel in question was published in France, and I also in those days Hawthorne was avidly reading literature related with the American Revolution.

Collingwood was, according to Vigny, dark eyed and dark browed and gifted with “a look of deep melancholy,” and within him was a “perfect calm,” which signified an inner peace which was the gift from his sense of sacred duty to his home country. From what is said about Collingwood by Vigny may we derive an inestimable key to understanding George Washington’s own personality as a national leader, who was famed for his most brilliant military reputation, beneath which lay a “profound repining” and an “unappeasable sadness” which had characterized Collingwood. What struck Hawthorne most was not Washington as a genuine patriotic hero only, as Sparks assumed him to be, but Washington as a melancholy genius who, having within him a profound attachment for his own deep inner world and his own personal home life, felt it a sacred duty, as a Catholic priest does, to relinquish and abnegate all his own private self for the sake of the happiness of others.

As the United States fought the War with Iraq under the administration of George W. Bush, there emerged a heated discussion on the nature of the American presidency. Some even speak of the arrival of “the new imperial presidency.” Yet the nature of the American presidency, especially its powers concerning foreign policy, is still unclear.

This essay delineates the contours of presidential foreign policy concentrating on the first successive administrations, i.e., those from George Washington to John Quincy Adams, because their foreign policy can be construed as an archetype. In doing so, this writer attempts to demonstrate the framework under which the modern presidents of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries have pursued their foreign policy.

On the subject of the first successive administrations, Ralph Ketcham’s Presidents above Party is a penetrating intellectual history. Although acknowledging his interpretations of the presidency as a whole, this essay focuses on foreign policy under the first six presidents.

First, the origins of the foreign policy powers of the American president and how the Federalist administrations of George Washington and John Adams actually confronted international issues are discussed. In the young republic, the partisan battles between Federalists and Republicans were closely connected with the Anglo-French rivalry. All in all, however, Washington and Adams contributed to the establishment of an independent executive by forging bipartisanship in foreign policy.

Second, this essay deals with the administrations of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. The Jefferson administration provides the first example of how the presidency can display strong leadership. Following the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, Jefferson’s power was at its zenith. The subsequent Madison administration fought the War of 1812, the first foreign war since the founding of the United States. In starting the war with England, Madison cooperated with Congress, holder of the power to declare war. But by the end of his term, he barely retained the leadership role he had inherited from his predecessor because predicaments from “Mr. Madison’s War,” such as the burning of Washington, were humiliating to the nation’s honor.

Third, the relationship between the President and Congress under the administrations of James Monroe and John Quincy Adams is discussed. During this period, Congress increased its power under the leadership of Speaker of the House Henry Clay. Thus Congress was able to influence the Monroe administration’s recognition policy toward the new Latin American republics. After the promulgation of the Monroe Doctrine in 1823, Congress also influenced the course of foreign policy under the Adams administration.

In conclusion, the bipartisanship in foreign policy, the strength of presidential leadership, and the rise of Congressional power seen under the first presidencies were the harbingers of the foreign policy role of the modern presidency. The bipartisan Vandenberg resolution of 1948, Woodrow Wilson’s leadership in the United States’ entry into World War I, and the resurgence of Congress after Watergate all testify to it. In this sense, the foreign policy of the first successive administrations was the archetype for that of the American presidency.

The campaign messages of the presidential elections of 2008, especially those during the Democratic primaries, remind us that American public expect their president to secure their nation’s safety in the first place. A presidential image shaped with a strong emphasis on the security concerns opens a leeway for any president to exercise, and sometimes over-exercise, the presidential war powers, in response to such public concerns.

We often call the war in Iraq as “Bush’s War,” meaning that mistakes were made by the Bush administration, or even by President George W. Bush personally. If we put this war in a historical perspective, however, we notice that the political environment leading to the Iraq War presents similarities to those of the previous “wrong” wars, and the seriousness of the mistakes should not be minimized by such personalization.

More precisely, the congressional control over the presidential war powers, which started with the ambiguous language of the Constitution, has never achieved its expected function. Congress has rather dodged the political responsibility of making the grave decision to prevent the presidential war making. Instead of controlling the presidential war powers, Congress often recognized the President’s prerogatives in general, then tried to control them specifically. Such procedure ends up with the further reduction of congressional relative power against the President, which was named as “legiscide” by Theodore Lowi.

One of the cases of “legiscide” was the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA). Enacted against the President Nixon’s abuse of foreign intelligence apparatus for domestic political purpose, FISA was to secure the constitutional right of American citizens to civil liberty. The provision of FISA, however, had approved exceptional treatment of foreign intelligence to the democratic rule, thus allowed the potential abuse of power by the executive. As President Bush launched the War on Terror, the potential became real and warrant-less wiretapping of American citizens had been carried out secretly for nearly four years before it was leaked in a newspaper.

An equally serious development, however, was the fact that the congressional leaders were notified of this secret program, but were not able to openly discuss or holt it in the face of the claim of constitutionally and legislatively-supported presidential war prerogatives. Legitimacy of the successive Presidents’ claims that their war powers outbalance the congressional powers, or even the constitutional rights of citizens, have been challenged over time. Yet, a sustaining answer to this question is still in the making.

Congress has been asked to play a key role in this balancing process, but as we have seen above, the expectation of the constituency toward a strong President, especially during the wartime, lies behind how strongly Congress can take their own position against the President. The Obama administration, with expanded presidential prerogatives in its hands, is no exception to the rule, and we have to be cautioned that too much expectation for “change” may deprive us of the necessary scrutiny.

Political Scientist Clinton Rossiter maintains that even a democracy needs to transform itself into a kind of dictatorship when the safety of the nation is in danger. Within the situation Rossiter calls “constitutional dictatorship,” the chief executive assumes direct leadership of the nation because of his responsiveness and the flexibility of his actions.

In fact, in the United States, there has been a consensus on the presidential prerogative, especially in times of crisis, whereas it remains undefined as to when an emergency is recognized and who determines it. Franklin Roosevelt (FDR) assumed the role of determinant when he proclaimed a state of national emergency. As significant as this may appear, historians and political scientists have paid scant attention to FDR’s proclamations. Thus, the immediate aim of this article is to demonstrate the strategy behind the FDR’s decision to proclaim an “unlimited” national emergency on May 27, 1941.

At first glance, this proclamation had almost no influence on whether the U.S. Navy should escort British merchant ships sailing across the Atlantic, which was the most relevant issue at the time. Moreover, FDR did not make the most of the psychological effect of the proclamation as the interventionists had desired. Indeed, FDR dismissed the idea of making drastic changes in his policy. As a result, his proclamation has been seen as just another occasion on which to declare an emergency; however, the presidential proclamation of emergency possessed not only psychological but also legal effects; namely, to invoke powers available only in times of emergency. Recognizing that, FDR attempted to take the advantage of the situation. Having considered the evidence and facts, it appears reasonable to think that an “unlimited” national emergency was necessary for FDR to interpret the powers delegated to the president during World War I and to justify his future actions, relative to the kind of action previously taken during wartime.

Although Congress did not necessarily agree with FDR’s judgment on whether an “unlimited” national emergency truly existed and despite the fact that FDR’s proclamation of emergency had no constitutional status, Congress validated it by referring to it in bills. If the duration of law was based solely on the FDR-claimed state of emergency, then Congress had no method by which to revoke it because there was no way to revoke the presidential proclamation itself. Harry Truman, FDR’s successor, also proclaimed a national emergency in the face of the Korean War. In fact, it was not until the National Emergencies Act of 1976 that the procedure by which presidents could proclaim a national emergency was established.

FDR’s proclamation is of symbolic value because it signals the ambiguity associated with who is able to determine the existence of an emergency. Future Presidents no longer can unilaterally proclaim a national emergency; however, given the lingering nature of the “war on terrorism,” they can claim a state of emergency or crisis to justify their use of prerogative. Therefore, the problem posed in this article remains relevant today.

This article examines how welfare agencies in Southern California implemented a state law which made a husband’s desertion or failure to provide for his wife and children a felony, and how the poor responded to public intervention in their family lives during the early twentieth century. In doing so, it demonstrates the ways in which welfare recipients appropriated social policies which intended to regulate the family. It also pays attention to the violence of state intervention in the private sphere.

At the turn of the twentieth century, every state passed a law which defined a husband’s failure to provide as a crime against the society. In California, a husband who failed to support his family could be faced with a fine, probation or imprisonment. Welfare agencies played an important role in implementing these laws. Private and public welfare agencies in San Diego, California made every effort to find male deserters and make them realize their financial responsibility toward their families. Welfare agencies encouraged deserted wives to bring their husbands to court in order to reduce the financial burden they faced in supporting destitute wives and children by disciplining irresponsible male breadwinners.

The state law that problematized a husband’s non-support not only as an immoral act but also as a crime against the society affected power relations within the family in several ways. First, a deserted wife acquired legal rights and resources to punish her husband for not contributing to the family economy. Social workers, judges, prosecutors, and parole officers monitored a husband’s behavior closely and made sure that he would pay a certain amount of money to his family periodically. A deserted wife also acquired the opportunity to indict her husband for his other behavioral problems such as alcoholism and domestic violence. As long as a deserted wife was deemed a worthy wife and mother, social workers and legal officials supported her in reforming her husband. However, accused husbands did not always surrender to the disciplinary power of the welfare and legal systems. Some of them ran away to other states to avoid non-support prosecutions. Others filed for divorce claiming that their wives did not deserve the right to be supported.

While the criminalization of the husband’s desertion and failure to provide empowered the deserted wife to indict her husband for domestic problems, she and her family members ran the risk of inviting detailed surveillance of their private lives when seeking welfare and legal assistance. If social workers found a deserted wife’s child raising or housekeeping inadequate by their middle-class standards, they occasionally institutionalized her children and deprived her of the right to raise her own children at home.

Welfare and court records in San Diego demonstrate that the regulation of male breadwinners constituted an important part of the emerging U.S. welfare governance in the early twentieth century. Records also show that welfare recipients were not the passive victims of social control, but were capable of appropriating legal and welfare resources for their own purposes.

As American Studies begins to address such fundamental questions as how America can be defined spatially, culturally, and conceptually in the age of globalization, it has become apparent that more international and transnational approaches are needed. This essay shares that same awareness as it reinvestigates Ernest Hemingway’s hardboiled style, which has been traditionally evaluated as quintessentially American. Through a careful rereading of A Farewell to Arms, it argues that this hardboiled style was born, by contrast, in a transnational and thus “extraterritorial” environment.

The essay begins by recontextualizing the oft-discussed passage in A Farewell to Arms where Frederic Henry denounces abstract words. There it becomes clear that his “hardboiled” denunciation of abstract words is connected at a deeper level to the transnational situation in which he finds himself. Prior to this interior monologue, he is talking with an Italian soldier, Gino. Although the novel is mostly written in English, including this scene depicting Henry’s conversation with Gino, it should be noted that the conversation was actually held in Italian, evidenced by the fact that Italians with some exceptions do not speak foreign tongues in the novel and that Henry is fluent in Italian. This indicates Henry is switching languages: he has been using Italian when talking with Gino and hearing his patriotic diction, but then switches to English during his interior monologue. This language switching brings to the fore a new aspect of Henry’s problem with abstract words: he feels much more separate, in English, from them. His problem, in other words, is augmented by translation.

The theory of translation explored by Walter Benjamin and his critics sheds new light on the structure of A Farewell to Arms, a novel consisting of two stories: 1) a war story in which the American Henry fights in an Italian army, and 2) a love story in which he escapes from war into a romantic relationship with an English nurse, Catherine Barkley. What becomes apparent is that, while in the war story Henry is in a transnational environment, retaining a sort of dual nationality, in the love story his relationship with Catherine becomes monolingual. The difference implies the superior quality of his affinity with Catherine relative to his extraterritorial status in the war story. Moreover, the affinity he feels toward Catherine has strong parallels to the relationship that exists between language and its native speaker. However, the irony of the novel reveals itself at the end with the death of both Catherine and the baby, making Henry keenly aware, once again, of the delusive nature of the sense of unity one feels with his/her native tongue.

By incorporating Benjamin’s concept of “pure language,” this essay explores the way these two stories in A Farewell to Arms supplement each other to connote a utopian horizon for literature where the representational function of language disappears and language becomes itself. The essay concludes that the hardboiled quality of Henry’s language and attitude suggests a desire for this utopian horizon, despite its tough, individualistic appearance

The rebuilding of Little Tokyo in Downtown Los Angeles after the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II has been thought to be proof how Japanese had a strong attachment to their “ethnic community.” Some studies, however, focused on the fact that the place was also called “Bronzeville,” where African American wartime workers occupied ex-Japanese tenants, and described the process of racial “integration” between two groups in the resettlement era. This paper aims to clarify how Japanese returnees and Black residents experienced the transition from Bronzeville to Little Tokyo and discuss what kinds of “sense of community” toward the place both groups hold.

When the United States government allowed the Japanese to return to the West Coast in 1945, federal and local officials, civic organizations, and racial and ethnic group leaders appealed for “interracial cooperation” to help ease resettlement into local communities. This interracialism emphasized that loyal “Japanese American citizens” deserved to have the right to live anywhere they wanted just as other American citizens did.

Under the influence of interracialism, Little Tokyo appeared to be rebuilt as a symbol of Japanese community. More than 500 Japanese businesses reopened around East First Street, and Issei leaders became involved in political activities in a few years. Some Japanese journalists, however, recognized that the post-war Little Tokyo was different from the pre-war community in which they perceived “authenticity.” In fact, out-of-towners and Nisei entrepreneurs, rather than pre-war generation businessmen, revitalized the ethnic economy in the resettlement era and young Japanese American Citizens League OACL) leaders extended political leadership over Issei pioneers. New Japanese businessmen preferred having their residences in the “Southwestern District” along Jefferson Blvd and Boyle Heights on the east of Downtown rather than in Little Tokyo.

Through the resettlement of the Japanese, interracialism was contextualized within the spatial formation in multiracial Los Angeles. Interracialists appealed to a color-blind ideal promoting a race-neutral approach, and they were reluctant to eradicate restrictive covenants that kept barriers between “west” of LA as white middle-class suburbia and “east” as multiracial working-class neighborhoods. Faced with this contradiction, on the one hand, Japanese returnees found “safety and stability” in Little Tokyo, even though they recognized its lost authenticity as an ethnic community. On the other, African Americans pursued interracial cooperation against white supremacy and discovered their original community along Central Avenue to Watts in South Los Angeles, while they alienated Black working-class southerners living in Bronzeville.

Little Tokyo/Bronzeville was a multiracial place where neither single “ethnic community” nor color-blind “community” was impossible. Japanese and Blacks rediscovered their senses of belonging within frictional and sympathetic interracial relations, even though newly developed ways of identification with the place was also difficult to achieve. Thus, the sense of a multiracial community such as Little Tokyo in the resettlement era rose from dynamic relations of difference, belonging, and solidarity, rather than cooperative unity.

This paper discusses the commemoration of John Ericsson (1803- 1889), a Swedish-born engineer and the inventor of the famous Civil-War era war vessel Monitor. Monitor, the first ironclad built for the Union Navy, gained an international acclaim by stopping the Confederate ironclad Virginia from breaking the Union blockade on the East Coast at the battle of Hampton Roads on March 9, 1862. Ericsson was named a national hero by Swedish Americans, and his heroic image assumed an exemplary role for Swedish immigrants who aspired to move into American middle class. Ericsson was designated as an important figure in Swedish-Americanism, which may be defined as a discourse that saw the history of Swedish Americans as interwoven with the mainstream narrative of American nation-building. The story of Ericsson and the Monitor formed a part of the Swedish-American historical discourse that highlighted Swedish involvement at the critical moments of American history.

Some examples of such discourse are observed in the activities of the Swedish American Republican League of Illinois, an ethnic political organization established in 1894. In the speeches given at the League’s annual meetings, Ericsson was presented as a hero born out of Swedish "nationality," and was comparable to Lincoln and Grant, because of his contribution to the cause of freedom. Also, the tributes to Ericsson would include the words of praise to the power of science and technology. At the time when science and technology growingly came to be seen as an inseparable set, Ericsson was described as a forerunner who had applied scientific knowledge to technological innovations. Ericsson, therefore, was presented as a defender of the American political principle of liberty and, at the same time, as an early leader of American industrial development. The League and cultural leaders of Swedish-American community sought to propagate this image of Ericsson to American society at large, and their efforts culminated in the unveiling of John Ericsson statue in Potomac Park, Washington D. C., in 1926.

The decades around the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries saw the rise of new Americanism, which regarded science and technology as omnipotent, and took the capability to control technology as Americanness itself. At this time, it was a reasonable strategy for immigrants to appropriate the image of technology in the narrative of collective representation in order to join American mainstream society. Novelty of technology enabled Ericsson and the Monitor function as cultural icons that simultaneously represented Swedish ethno-national identity and Americanness. For smaller groups to claim their share of power and interest in an established social structure, the groups without much of the traditionally valued cultural capitals and heritages would have to compete with something that allowed them to be on equal terms with older groups with power. For the leaders of the Swedish immigrant community, technology was just such an arena for an open competition. Technology, in this regard, worked in a way parallel to the role it was endowed with when American civilization was claimed to be equal to, or superior to, European civilization.

This paper reconsiders the Outlawry of War Movement which was launched by the Chicago lawyer Salmon 0. Levinson during World War I and gained popularity during the Interwar Period. Levinson’s main argument was that the war, which was recognized as the legitimate method for settling disputes between nations under existing international law, should be declared to be illegal under any circumstances. What made Levinson’s idea radical was its rejection of all coercive measures against recalcitrant states. He insisted that it was the institution of war and not particular wars which were to be outlawed, and that the war system could be abolished only through the voluntary condemnation and renunciation of war by the nations. Levinson founded the American Committee for the Outlawry of War in Chicago, and won ardent supporters such as Senator William E. Borah and John Dewey.

Most historians have regarded the outlawrists as na’ive idealists, who believed that noncoercive measures such as international law and public opinions would suffice to maintain international peace. They have failed to note, however, that the outlawrists opposed to physical force not because they naively believed in moral force, but because they realized the fundamental weakness of sanctionists’ arguments. Effective military sanction was possible only when there was enough solidarity among nations. Yet, the European nations still deeply distrusted each other after the end of World War I. The outlawrists also pointed out that it was impossible to make a sharp line between “sanction” and “war.” Even though tempered by the name of “sanction,” international police action necessarily involved the use of disastrous weapons and resulted massive losses of human lives. They emphasized the moral force because it was the only force that would not reintroduce the war system.

On August 27, 1928, the Pact of Paris was signed by 15 nations including the major powers at that time. In contrast to the Covenant of the League of Nations, the pact contained no provision for enforcement and solely relied on each nation’s voluntary commitment. The outlawrists saw the pact as an ideal basis upon which the nations could cooperate more closely to overcome the war system. At the same time, however, they were realists enough to know that the bare renunciation of war would not suffice. Certainly they had rejected the League of Nations, which was empowered to initiate sanctions against recalcitrant states, but they recognized that there could be no stable peace without a permanent international organization. They emphasized that the pact was only one half of the outlawry of war, and that the genuine outlawry of war could be achieved only with a competent mechanism through which all international disputes would be settled amicably.

Since the outbreak of World War II, the majority of Americans accepted the idea of strong international force for security guarantee. They have ceased to think about the possible negative effects of coercive measures, and often resorted to military force too easily. In order to develop a more balanced approach to international security, it would be useful to shed light on the neglected “realism” of the Outlawry of War Movement.

Harold Lloyd’s masterpiece, Safety Last! (1923), is generally considered as a film that captures the ethos of the economic prosperity enjoyed by the American society in the 1920’s. Lloyd plays a young, ambitious boy from the countryside, who leaves home to make it as a successful businessman in the big city. He is hired in a department store, where he proposes a huge publicity event, which involves a person climbing up the face of a twelve-story building without any support. This sequence has been interpreted by many film critics as a metaphor for the upward mobility. However, according to my interpretation, this vertical movement represents not only the conquest of height but also the conflict between subjective time (the natural passage of time) and objective time (the one measured by clocks). Throughout the film, Lloyd is shown failing to accomplish things by the required time because the city runs on the objective time, which is incompatible with the character’s subjective time. This conflict is most represented in the climb by Lloyd.

The key to analyze this vertical movement is to regard it as a form of chase. As Tom Gunning analyzes, chase sequences consist of two factors, "flow" and "shock." Flow refers to a character’s linear movement and shock to the obstacles that hinder the movement. The climb by Lloyd is also composed of flow and shock. The former is his vertical and linear movement and the latter is represented by the many obstacles that he has to overcome. In this sense, his act of climbing, however slow it may appear, can be interpreted as a chase sequence.

There are two chase sequences in the film: the first is the dash made by Lloyd through a crowded city to an office and the second is his climbing which can be actually considered as a variation of the first. In the first chase sequence, Lloyd is late for work but he offsets this failure by manipulating the punch clock. In the second, he uses the same trickery but with a slapstick twist. This sequence unfolds in two phases. The first is his literal struggle with a huge clock on the building wall that he climbs. This scene clearly indicates that Lloyd is alienated from the objective time symbolized by the clock. The second phase involves his conquer of this alienation. In this scene, Lloyd reaches to the topmost floor, but falls off accidentally. Fortunately, his leg is caught in a rope and he swings like a pendulum in the air several times. He luckily manages to reach the topmost floor again and successfully completes the task. In other words, by making himself as one of the clock’s cogs (pendulum), he manages to internalize the objective time. Safety Last! is a film that presents the conflict between two kinds of time consciousness and its resolution and in this sense, the film is representative of modernity.