Michael Barone has a long essay entitled "The Return of the Jeffersonian Vision and the Rejection of Progressivism." He summarizes American political philososphy from the Early Republic, Progressive Era, the New Deal and to the present day. He has many good quotes. I like his final paragraph:

The major political development of the last 17 months has been an inrush of hundreds of thousands or even millions of Americans into political activity, an inrush symbolized by but not limited to the tea party movement. It is fascinating to me that the tea partiers have adopted the language and in some cases even the costumes of the Founders. While the Progressives’ descriptions of a “horse and buggy” Constitution and their sense that giant auto factories and steel mills were the harbinger of the future seem tinny and out of date, the language of the Founders continues to resonate with the clear timbre of a silver spoon tapping a crystal glass. The majority of the American people seem to firmly agree with the Founders’ insistence that no one should be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. And so we can take satisfaction that most of our fellow citizens in our freeholders’ republic still hold these truths to be self-evident.

But what is taught in American history courses in colleges and universities across the country bears little resemblance to Barone's view of our history.