Beginning of Essay
Liberty. Egalitarianism. Individualism. Populism. Laissez-faire. These five concepts embody the "American creed" as described by author Seymour Martin Lipset. Lipset feels that this "American creed" is representative of an ideology that all Americans share. ....

Middle of Essay
.... that the Founding Fathers had an "out of sight, out of mind" mentality towards the issue of slavery. While Huggins understands why the Founding Fathers may have elected to ignore the issue, he hardly thinks that it was a good idea. "It encouraged the belief that American history-its institutions, its values, its people- was one thing and racial slavery and oppression were a different story" (Huggins xii). He reinforces this idea by looking at the historical perspective that was prevalent in America until only recently. "American historians, guarding the ideological integrity of the center, have wanted to treat race and slavery as matte ....