Dewey gets right to the point. Liberty is not leaving individuals alone. Rather, the government must give everyone a equal chance to live freely. Instead of lessening the protection of these individuals, it is important that the state find ways to strengthen them from the corporate world. This view is radically different from the American tradition. Instead of focusing on an individual, Dewey sought to draw attention to the community as a whole. Through this community is where people will reap the benefits by being active. .
Herbert Croly's promise of American life reflected a new means of democracy. It certainly did not match up to the American tradition but yet it didn't completely ignore the ideas. In the "Promise of American Life," Croly states that the "only way to secure individual liberty is consequently to organize a state in which the sovereign power is deprived of any rational excuse or legal opportunity of violating certain essential individual rights. (416) He wanted Americans to overcome the Jeffersonian traditional way of government in order deal with the unprecedented problems that the industrial and modern age brought. Industrialism reduced people to more of "wage slavery" and only a strong central government can promote social progress and preserve democracy. Hamilton also believed in a strong central government. The nation will have to be an active participant in order for the democratic promise to be fulfilled and the nation can not assume that the promise of a brighter future will fulfill itself. A democratic society requires unity. .
Franklin Roosevelt sought to explain why "new terms" needed to be added to the "old social contract" of the United States in the "commonwealth club speech." He then explains that because things have changed dramatically since the founding of the United States there has to be change. This does not necessarily constitute that his views was a departure from the Constitution.