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Show Who We Are: Constructivism and the Dual Personality of American Nationalism Michael A. Thomas The foundations of American identity, however, [are] fundamentally different Not ethnicity, but a commitment to liberal political principles...held out by the founding elite as the leaven of American identity. Whatever one's ancestry or background, to be an American one had only to adhere to a set of ideals: liberty, individualism, popular sovereignty, and egalitarianism defined as equality of opportunity and respect...(Citrin, et al. 1994, 6). Belief in equality of opportunity, conditional upon obedience to rules and norms leads American nationalism to being available for anyone willing to consent to those rules. One metaphor portrays America as "God's Crucible, the great melting pot where all the races...are melting and reforming!" (Citrin et al. 1994, 7). Such language proves inclusive, positioning America as a country where success results from merit rather than ancestry or ethnicity. Rogers M. Smith contributes the view that "whenever the United States becomes severely divided, the nation's liberal democratic ideals serve to restore unity more inclusively than a focus on common ancestors, language or religion would permit" (R. Smith 1988, 225). Though strengths exist, inconsistencies crop up when one examines the notion that theory translates into practice only to some extent. Rogers Smith also states that "there is always a gulf between these principles and the practices of American institutions" (1988, 226). He maintains that adherence to the "American Creed," either as a matter of law or of social psychology, is at best a half-truth. If it were so, this conception of American nationality should be clearly embodied in the nation's laws governing citizenship. Instead, [lawmakers] have established and sometimes later reestablished civic laws based on non-liberal ideals (R Smith 1988, 226-27). Such inconsistencies result from debate between the desire for individual rights and the desire to be a part of a greater whole. Two strains of antithetical political thought, one embracing protection of individual rights and the other communitarianism, explain this conflict. Competing Ideologies of Rights and Responsibilities Liberalism and Civic Republicanism. American nationalism results from competing beliefs about roles of government, namely classical liberalism and civic republicanism. Classical liberalism postulates that government exists to protect rights and property of individuals. According to this view, humans come into a state of nature with birth, possessing certain rights which government exists to protect. As humans prove self-interested, governments protect individuals from each other by consent from the governed. Intervention becomes necessary only in protecting individual freedoms to pursue self-interests of life, liberty and property. Civic republicans on the other hand believe that governments exist to grant rights protected by political participation. Here, rights are created rather than innate. Each strain of thought finds expression in pre-Revolutionary America, both contributing to advocacy for the Revolutionary War, and later forming feelings of sovereignty and self-determination. John Locke, American Liberalism and the Language of Rights. Writings of John Locke in the seventeenth-century use the language of rights and consent that become essential for legitimate government. He claims that "the liberty of man in society is to be under no other legislative power but that established by consent in the commonwealth, nor under dominion of any will but what the legislative shall enact according to the trust put in it..." (Locke 1960, 18). According to Locke, freedom results from putting trust in elective bodies who in turn exercise the will of the people in protecting individual self-interest. To Locke, government exists at the pleasure of the governed. Men being, as has been said, by nature all free, equal, and independent, no one can be put out of his estate and subjected to the political power of another without his own consent, which is done by agreeing with other men, to join and unite into a community for their comfortable, safe, and peaceable living... (Locke 1960, 29). Likewise, Lockean writers such as Samuel Adams and Thomas Paine during the period of the American Revolution emphasize individual freedoms. For instance, Samuel Adams declares these freedoms to be "personal security, personal liberty, and private property" (S. Adams 1998, 46). Invoking the language of "natural rights," Paine rallies support for rebellion against an "intrusive" outsider by saying, "the last cord is broken, the people of England are presenting addresses against us. There are injuries which nature cannot forgive; she would cease to be nature if she did" (Paine 1998a, 55). In defining who Americans are not, Paine effectively builds American nationalism as seeking justice against common oppression, and says in words which became famous, "these are the times that try men's souls" (Paine 1998b, 55). Such examples of liberalism shape American nationalism as individualistic, defining it in terms of rights. Americans view citizenship as "securing the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and property, for all members of the American political community" (R. Smith 1988, 240). Rogers Smith notes that the "culmination of this process, the Declaration of Independence, holds that all men are created equal" and that governments are created to secure this citizenship. For example, to secure these rights Thomas Jefferson says that, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed-That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it... (The Declaration of Independence 1998, 62). In this light, American nationalism becomes contractual. Citizens are "regarded as autonomous individuals who make choices as individuals bound together by a social contract, rather than as friends and neighbors united by common activity" according to Pamela Conover, Ivor M. Crewe, and Donald D. Searing (1991, 802). Americans see themselves as possessing guaranteed, codified rights such as "freedom of speech, freedom of religion, [and] freedom of movement" defining the "very substance" of how Americans think about 82 |