Dominion:

Lowi's accurate description of the two phases of dominion is reflected in history. The Pilgrims, and their heirs of the moralist political culture,⁽³³⁾ began to assert physical dominion over North America when they landed at Plymouth in 1620. When the Battle of Wounded Knee was over, in 1890, so was the effort to establish physical dominion over the land. British, French, Spanish, Mexicans, Indians and Hawaiians had been left in the wake. Only the Canadians and the Seminoles were able to maintain their border through both force of arms and treaties.

The second step of this same process of dominion was the socialization of the population to the moralist political culture and value system espoused by the Puritans. Fortunately for the Puritans most of the immigrants who came to the United States did so voluntarily, with the intent of discharging their old values and finding a better life.⁽³⁴⁾ These immigrants entered the melting pot and - certainly by the third generation - behaved like mainstream Americans.⁽³⁵⁾

The conspicuous exceptions to this rule of voluntary adaptation were the negro slaves and the Indians, Hawaiians, Mexicans and Puerto Ricans who were forcibly conquered.⁽³⁶⁾ A less conspicuous example of this same process of forcible socialization is found in the Confederacy. Abolition was an idea conceived by moralists which was then imposed on the members of the traditionalist political cultures.⁽³⁷⁾ The Civil War was far less a liberation of the slaves from a failing economic system than it was the destruction of the power of the traditionalists, especially in the Senate.⁽³⁸⁾ Polygamy was a value held by one moralist group, but was forsaken because of pressure - and prior experience - from another moralist group. Prohibition was a noble experiment which a group of moralists attempted to impose on both the individualists and the traditionalists, but failed. Women's suffrage succeeded. Abortion is now before us as a problem that simply will not go away. Each is an example of the exertion of dominion over the population after dominion has been established over the territory.

Similar examples are available everywhere. The Saxons were able to establish dominion up to Hadrian's Wall. Wales, however, never lost its distinction, and dominion over the Scottish "Confederacy" was only achieved through the Treaty of Union with Scotland in 1707⁽³⁹⁾

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