Universalistic Notion News Today

Shall, thats not true? >> thats completely false. they were trying to set up after the civil war a new standard of citizenship for the united states. not just as it was before the war, where each state kind of declared who was going to be a citizen. the civil war created this sense of a nation, unified nation. >> were some arguing, look, youre demogogging against democrats? >> absolutely. the republican majority wanted to get race out of the definition of citizenship. they felt this was a legacy...

Citizen. the civil war created this sense of a nation, unified nation. >> were some arguing, look, youre demogogging against democrats? >> absolutely. the republican majority wanted to get race out of the definition of citizenship. they felt this was a legacy of slavery to limit citizenship to one race or another race. they wanted to go to this universalistic notion of who could be an american. to be an american -- this is true today, i believe. to be an american is not to be a member of a parti...