By such an account, natural-rights philosophy and its understanding of liberty are regarded as fully adequate, and the Progressive reaction against them has nothing to teach us about their limitations.

The fuller account of America’s five conceptions of liberty suggests instead that, as natural-rights thinking about liberty became more divorced over time from classical and Christian inheritances and more subject to rigid judicial articulation and elaboration, it became less moderated by prudence and gradually morphed into the economic-autonomy conception and later on into the personal-autonomy conception. Additionally, as Americans found the local community and its exercise of liberty less meaningful and relevant, they were prepared to embrace a progressive vision of collective liberty practiced mainly at the national level.