This bright symphony is a lively bit of Americana in music. Although it goes on a little too long in a typical brassy conclusion, it is mostly highly entertaining, high voltage, tonal American music written in the style Harris helped pioneer in the 1930s. By the time Harris wrote this work, many were proclaiming the symphony as a musical form that seemed essentially tonal and rooted in the past, a dying genre. Even Harris saw a decline in his symphonic production, although he did keep going in the form and wrote a total of 15 of them. Importantly, he still received commissions, including the one from the Philadelphia Orchestra that produced this symphony. The symphony is a fairly large one for Harris' later period. It has a strong patriotic flavor, celebrating the founding of the United States and the creation of a distinctive nationality. It lasts about 30 minutes and is divided into three movements. The last two are of equal length (about 12 minutes each), while the opening part is a bit over half that. All three movements bear a superscript drawn from the "Preamble" of the "Constitution of the United States." (This section of the document states the purposes for which it was ordained and established.) The first movement is headed "We the people...." It starts with a peal of brass and bells. Then it continues in a vigorous, assertively scored fashion, full of purpose and activity. It is assumed that Harris had in mind to show the "People" of America as inventive, active, and positive. The movement is a pure delight from beginning to end. The second movement is called "...to form a more perfect Union." This is a contemplative, melodic movement with the gentle motion of a pavane, but it also has the quality of a benediction. (Richard Whitehouse, in his notes for the Naxos recording, hears it as a threnody.) At the end, a solo trumpet emerges, which may be taken to represent the attainment (whether accomplished or yet an ideal) of that "more perfect Union." The third movement is headed with the last of the "Preamble's" purposes: "...to promote the general welfare." This movement is less effective than the others. It is too episodic, a result of breaking itself down into a further series of three superscriptions, these from poet Walt Whitman: "Of life immense in passion, pulse, power; "Cheerful for freest action formed," and "The Modern Man I Sing." This last section, returning to powerful positive imagery, returns to the opening consideration of "The People"—the new nation of which Whitman sang, created under the "Constitution."

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