At the dawn of the 20th Century, the U.S. Constitution had been unchanged for more than 40 years since the amendments of 1865-1870 that prohibited slavery. But then the country panicked. Fearful of the shift from an agrarian to industrialized society and the movement of people from the country to the city, the United States 100 years ago experienced a crisis of confidence that led to something called progressivism. Progressivism was the belief that the government could and should mandate something called the public good as opposed to traditional values of limited government and individual responsibility.
