To what extent can a politics of rights be reconciled with a politics of the common good? To what extent can a government understood to arise from a social contract and committed to the freedom of its contracting citizens seek to promote the development of a set of civic virtues that incline those citizens to concern for the common good?

In this dissertation I investigate this enduring question in political and legal theory with the data of American political history. Specifically, I examine the ways in which three American presidents, Thomas Jefferson through the ward republic, Abraham Lincoln through political religion, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt through the ethic of new individualism, attempted to give greater security to the rights of individuals by encouraging the formation of certain habits of devotion to the common good.

From this comparative study I draw three conclusions about the limitations, reasons, and sources each statesman abided by and drew upon in promoting the character formation of citizens. The limitations they observed were largely Lockean in nature, observant of the fact that the end of American government was to “secure rights” and not to cultivate moral virtue per se, they attempted to promote those character traits they believed particularly useful in the further securing of political, natural, and economic rights. The reasons they believed character formation was necessary, I contend, were largely Tocquevillian in character, reflecting their concern about the effects individualism, antinomianism, and the industrial aristocracy can have upon the character of citizens and ultimately their various freedoms. And finally, the sources they drew upon in their formative efforts were quasi-Aristotelian, drawing upon the ideals, institutions, and moral energy of various non-liberal (although not necessarily illiberal) elements of the “American amalgam” such as classical republicanism, Christianity, and communitarianism, but which were substantively modified and oriented towards the welfare of the liberal state. These presidents, then, were attempting to “pave the rights infrastructure,” encouraging the formation of certain character traits they believed particularly necessary to vindicate America’s culture of rights from some of its own potential cultural contradictions.