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Show Who We Are: Constructivism and the Dual Personality of American Nationalism Michael A. Thomas components to American political identity, such as notions of individual freedom and responsibility. Epitomizing thought of early American writers, John Wise states not only that "democracy is founded in scripture," but also that democracy is then erected when a number of free persons do assemble together in order to enter into a covenant for uniting themselves in a body: And such a preparative assembly has some appearance already of a democracy; that every man has the privilege freely to deliver his opinion concerning the common affairs (Wise 1998, 27). John Winthrop, an American writer of the seventeenth century, offers Puritan insights to early American identity, that embody complementary civic and selfish ideals: [T]here is a two-fold liberty, natural (I mean as our nature is now corrupt) and civil or federal. The first is common to man with beasts and other creatures. By this, man, as he stands in relation to man, simply hath liberty to do what he lists; it is a liberty to do evil as well as...good....[T]he other kind of liberty I call civil or federal may also be termed moral, in reference to the covenant between God and man, in the moral law (1998, 23-24). Winthrop's view of American identity forms notions of the "national myth" also known as the jeremiad, or beliefs that Americans are God's chosen people. Puritans viewed their presence as providential; as they conducted themselves in a pleasing way to God, he in return preserved them. Winthrop cites a "covenant" relationship between his people and God. When God gives a special commission he looks to have it strictly observed in every article....[T]hus stand the cause between God and us, we are entered into covenant with him for this work, we have taken out a commission. But if we shall neglect the observation of these articles...the Lord will surely break out in wrath against us....[He will] be revenged of such a perjured people and make us know the price of such a covenant (1994,39). Puritanism contributes to American identity notions of a virtuous people connected with a democracy, a moral people in terms of liberty. This "mission" or divine commission requires that America prove to the world that democracy works when upheld by virtue, wherein success insures that "we will find that the God of Israel is among us...for we must consider that we shall be as a city on a hill, the eyes of all people are upon us." Therefore, if "we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken and so cause him to withdraw his present help from us, we shall be made a story and a by-word through the world" (Winthrop 1994, 39). Invoking religion, Winthrop constructs identity where fulfilling a contract with God makes Americans a "chosen people," in both a religious and political way. Identity and the. Necessity to Believe in God. Intrinsic in this "national myth" with religious overtones shines necessity of belief in God. Winthrop again invokes the view that "we are commanded this day to love the Lord our God, and to love one another...to keep his commandments and his ordinance, and his laws...that we may live and be multiplied" (Winthrop 1994, 40). Thus, belief in God in conjunction with "political participation, economic individualism, and egalitarian social manners" are "long enshrined in the American culture tradition" (Citrin et al. 1990, 1130). When overcome by thoughts of enemy advantage at the time of the American Revolution, Paine says that he has "as little superstition in me as any man living, but my secret opinion has been and still is that God Almighty will not give up a people to military destruction or leave them unsupported to perish who have so earnestly and so repeatedly sought to avoid the calamities of war" (1998b, 56). Here he successfully invokes notions of divine relationship as defense against outside encroachment. With reliance on God, "true Americans" believe in "social equality and self-reliance...and particularistic characteristics such as believing in God" (Citrin et al. 1994, 11). The Importance of Religious Affiliation. Equally important to belief in God, religious affiliation forms origins of American identity. Alexis de Tocqueville further believes that "it was religion that gave birth to the English colonies in America," and "in the United States religion is mingled with all the national customs and all those feelings which the word fatherland evokes. For that reason it has peculiar power" (1969, 432). He observes, however that, "the structure of religious life has remained entirely distinct from the political organization" (Tocqueville 1969, 432). Because of this, Michael Lienesch and some religious scholars credit the importance of religion in America as making it "the nation with the soul of a church" (1983, 445). Lienesch argues that, long before the constitutional founding, a sense of national identity had been developing. But with the creation of a national government, local and state ties increasingly gave way to national id entity.... In the process, myths, symbols and rituals emerged to constitute the basis of anew national identity. Many of these symbols originated in Christianity... (1983, 446). Translating Religious Imagery into Political Symbols Early American nationalism assumed religious shape in "political millennialism," or the belief that democracy brings peace characteristic of the Christian notion of a thousand years of divine rule. Political millennialism caused nationalists to rely "on these prophecies concerning the end of the world to make predictions about the fate of the new nation," and these "political prophets" assumed that the "founding would usher in a new era of republican peace and happiness" (Lienesch 1983, 446). In this light, victories of enemies become "transitory" in that they only "confirm our faith, for the forces of darkness" are "really, though ignorantly working their own destruction" (Lienesch 1983, 454). Though talk of Armageddon proved premature, "Americans did not need to abandon the millennium, instead they could set to work ere- 84 |