NATIONALISM

On 4 July 1776, the Continental Congress charged a committee consisting of John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson to devise both a motto and a seal for the newly declared nation. The motto, approved during the 9 September 1776 meeting that also gave the United States of America its name, was "E Pluribus Unum" or "Out of Many One." The motto was an expression more of hope than of reality. The newly united thirteen states faced a task unique to the world: to create a government whose primary affective ties were voluntary. The very idea of creating loyalty to the nation based not on kinship or ethnicity but on ideas was as revolutionary as the form of governance Americans were proposing. The Declaration of Independence from Great Britain issued that same July in Philadelphia by the delegates to the Continental Congress was one that not only called forth a nation but a war. The priority therefore was rallying domestic support through unity of purpose to defend their political actions on the field of battle. Making the principles outlined in the Declaration manifest was critical to obtaining that domestic support. To do the work of creating not only a nation but a people, it was imperative to forge bonds that would link far-flung Americans to each other and to the new nation-state. Only through the creation and inculcation of an American sense of nationalism could the Congress hope to create a durable state. The project was immense and the solutions often ingenious as the leaders of the Revolutionary effort sought to reshape old allegiances into new patterns. Institutions, rituals, and symbols by which kingdoms had created identification and loyalty in their subjects were reinvented to reflect new ideas about the relationships of citizens to one another and to their government.

The priority in the summer of 1776 was building a cohesive sense of national purpose to fight the war provoked with Great Britain. The Stamp Act Crisis of 1765 and the Townshend Act of 1767 had taught the colonists some important lessons about unity and resistance. The formation of the Sons of Liberty during those earlier crises created an organizational network that gathered around landmarks renamed "liberty trees"; where no suitable tree was available, poles were erected that were similarly dubbed "liberty poles." Used for signals and gathering places, the British searched them out and destroyed them, creating in the process a symbol. The Sons of Liberty were often controversial in their methods of organizing mob actions and enforcing boycotts, but they were effective. Unity was also promoted by ministers who mingled republicanism with millennial Christianity. Casting the Revolution as a sign of Christ's imminent thousand-year reign, various Protestant denominations supported the cause, which resulted in a distinctive cast to American political culture and to American Christianity. Broadsides and pamphlets poured out of the presses instructing the former colonists in the theory and benefits of republican government and shaping an idea of liberty that drove the engine of popular support.

After the Revolution, campaigns related to the ratification of the Constitution provided an opportunity for public outpourings of political sentiment as supporters of a federal system framed arguments in nationalist terms. The campaign over the ratification itself signaled a shift to a national political culture that functioned through parties whose interests extended beyond the local area and issues. Despite the often bitter battles in the individual states, news in June 1788 that the needed nine states would ratify before Independence Day set off a flurry of planning in Philadelphia. The 4 July 1788 Grand Federal Procession in Philadelphia involved every class, every organization, and every bit of ritual that the evolving nation had to offer. The political culture was public, participatory, and self-conscious, a symbolic enactment of the process of creating the political nation. The frictions of class, gender, and race or of local politics were subsumed in a celebration of an anticipated future. The centerpiece was the Grand Federal Edifice, consisting of a dome supported by thirteen columns adorned by thirteen stars. The democratic spirit was evident to Benjamin Rush, who later wrote that "rank for a while forgot all its claims."

inculcating nationalism

Remembrances of the Revolution in holidays and commemorations assumed a new importance in the early nineteenth century as the Revolutionary generation, with its concrete unifying experience of sacrifice, gave way to a generation whose national ties were more abstract. Monarchical governments had long understood the need for events that reinforced allegiance to and identification with the monarch. Holidays as well as symbols assisted in the process of encouraging people to imagine themselves as part of something larger. Sermons, songs, speeches, and monuments focused on the ideas of sacrifice and heroism in service of principle. The idea of nation was reflected in official and unofficial rituals of remembrance at such moments as the death of George Washington in 1799; the dedication of the Bunker Hill Monument in 1825; and in the ultimate in symbolism, the twin deaths of Thomas Jefferson and John Adams on the fiftieth anniversary of independence itself, 4 July 1826, were all directed to that same end.

Independence Day. The preeminent national holiday was Independence Day, celebrated first on 4 July 1777 in Philadelphia to mark the first anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. The Continental Army camp under the command of Washington was issued a double ration of rum to celebrate the day in 1778. The celebration of 4 July helped create a needed sense of unity that was bolstered by other spontaneous celebrations at the news of American military victories. After the war, the celebration of the day focused both on the birth of the political nation and on local partisan politics. Substituting political debate and demonstrations for potentially violent conflicts over local politics, Independence Day helped domesticate the Revolutionary impulse. But Independence Day did more than provide the citizen with a sense of political participation in the nation: it gave the disenfranchised a political presence. By joining in demonstrations for or against an issue, a candidate, a party, or even non-citizens were given a voice in the public discussion. Such activities provided a general sense of investment in the political future of the nation, even if tangible participation was at best a distant dream. In performing such rituals of respect, they too were participating in a performance of nationalism.

National symbols and newspapers. Visual representations of the nation were an important facet of the ongoing project of promoting a sense of nationalism. National symbols chosen to reinforce the idea of one nation with a unifying set of underlying principles and unique character were under design from the moment of creation. The Great Seal of the United States, whose central figure was an eagle symbolizing strength and vigilance, was adopted by Congress on 20 June 1782. Likewise, a flag to stand as a symbol for the nation both on and off the battlefield was critical. Here the desire to incorporate the idea of thirteen colonies united in common cause resulted in a flag of thirteen red and white stripes to the right of a circle of white stars on a field of deep blue, which was adopted by Congress on 14 June 1777. A federal city where government would be housed and the full force of national iconography would be displayed was designed specifically to be outside of the influence or control of any one state. There, the architecture celebrated ancient republics and the union of the thirteen original colonies.

Newspapers provided a public sphere of their own where editors and printers shaped political culture through their accounts of celebrations, letters from citizens, and selection of items from other newspapers. Ballads, broadsides, and orations all provided reinforcing ideas about the practices of the new national citizenship and its appropriate expression. Popular figures such as Brother Jonathan appeared in stage plays and in newspapers as a representative American man who was somewhat rural, more than a bit innocent, but possessed of a combination of optimism, entrepreneurial spirit, and native common sense that bested every confidence man or elitist who tried to get the better of him. Following the War of 1812 (1812–1815), Uncle Sam emerged from soldiers' jokes about the government to become a staple of the proliferating political cartoons. Less a representative man than a symbol of government personified, Uncle Sam dressed in clothing that echoed the iconography of the American flag, hectored citizens into patriotic behavior, and acted as the eternal booster of nationalism.

Educational texts. Noah Webster believed "language as well as government should be national" and set out to create an "American language." But his desire went beyond the simple idea of casting off anything British. Webster stated bluntly in the introduction to his famous speller in 1783 that education was critical to instill in youth "an inviolable attachment to their own country." "A Federal Catechism" was included in some editions so that the future citizen could imbibe stories of patriotism and the principles of republican government as he or she learned to spell. But there were lessons in nationalism even for the literate adult citizen. A critical issue for many whose universe had been decidedly local was the need to understand the parameters of the new nation. Jedidiah Morse, a minister and schoolteacher turned author, had great success with his American Geography (1789). Geographies like Morse's helped new citizens envision the boundaries of their new country and, within the discussion of the customs of those Americans in faraway regions, acquaint themselves with their fellow citizens.

The arts. The creative arts too were involved in the cultural work of nation building. Joel Barlow's epic poem, The Vision of Columbus (1787), presented the voyage of Columbus as a divinely inspired mission linked directly to the later creation of the American nation. The production of portraits of leading men combined with dramatic commemorative scenes from the Revolution enjoyed wild popularity while reinforcing ideas about sacrifice and unity. In 1786 John Trumbull completed his panoramic painting, The Death of General Warren at the Battle of Bunker Hill, which enjoyed healthy sales in prints and in painted copies. Trumbull's The Declaration of Independence, finished the following year, also won popular acceptance and, beginning in 1817, was copied onto the rotunda of the Capitol building. Gilbert Stuart of Rhode Island painted George Washington from life in 1797. Full of symbolic trappings such as eagles and representations of the founding documents, it too was widely copied and sold. The original was the only artwork saved by First Lady Dolley Madison in the 1814 burning of the White House by the British army during the War of 1812, a tribute to its symbolic importance. It became the iconic staple of the elementary-school classroom for over one hundred years. The inculcation of nationalism was as participatory as the political culture.

contested nationalism

Tests of national unity came early. In the early 1790s, farmers in western Pennsylvania were incensed over a tax they considered unfair because it applied to grain distilled into alcohol but not to grain carried to market in other forms. In 1794 they staged what became known as the Whiskey Rebellion. This test of federal authority was met head-on by George Washington, who sent more than twelve thousand federalized troops to Pennsylvania, not knowing whether the farmers would back down or the countryside would rise up in support. Washington's gamble—or his reputation—paid off as word of the approaching army defused the rebellion. The aborted revolt reminded many that the same energy that fueled the Revolution also resisted full domestication. The most serious crises that threatened the Union in the first decades of its existence came not from the feared uprisings of citizens but from the bridling of states under federal authority.

In his Farewell Address of 1796, President Washington showed that he had no illusions about the nation's potential problems. The valedictory on his eight-year presidency described anything but a triumphant and stable nation. Washington expressed an "apprehension of danger" from both foreign and domestic sources. Internal dangers included division into competing factions that might look to self-interest rather than to the Constitution and the commonweal. Only in devotion to the Constitution, he warned, would the "sacred ties" of unity protect the nation. As Washington entered retirement, he took with him not only the gratitude of the nation but its affections. By establishing a working government, he set the standard for the office of the president and demonstrated that constitutional government could work. But in his final public words there are pragmatic worries that would play out in the next generation as party politics created factions and crises arose over whose interpretation of the principles of the Revolution and the balance of power in government would prevail.

Just two years later Kentucky and Virginia raised the issue of states' rights in reaction to the Alien and Sedition Acts under Federalist president John Adams. The Marbury v. Madison opinion of 1803 by Chief Justice John Marshall asserted that the right of final review to determine the constitutionality of all legislation lay in the Supreme Court. Virginia's chief justice Spencer Roane held that the states were the final arbiter of debates on constitutionality, and between 1810 and 1821 the two debated the point bitterly. Roane became a moving force in the creation of both the Richmond Enquirer (to advocate in print the Republican position) and the Richmond Junto. The Richmond Junto, with its membership of elite Virginians, was a political machine just as much as Tammany Hall in New York City. Hoping to influence and strengthen the Republican agenda nationally, the battle was not over whether the United States should cease to exist but under what terms. The same debates arose in New England during the War of 1812. Federalists, hostile toward perceived constitutional inequities favoring the western and southern states, met in convention in Hartford, Connecticut in 1814–1815. Connecticut governor Roger Griswold directly challenged the federal government by refusing to surrender the state militia to federal authority. The case reached the Supreme Court, which affirmed the authority of the president to requisition troops from the states. The most radical element involved with the Convention was known as the Essex Junto. It took an extreme position that included favoring a separate peace with Great Britain. The demands, reduced by moderates to a call for the resignation of President James Madison and a list of grievances, were delivered by a delegation to Washington, D.C., in time for the delegates to see the celebrations of the American victory in the Battle of New Orleans (1815). Retreating in humiliation, the Federalists would never recover as a party. The foreshadowing of the nullification crisis at the end of the 1820s and the secession crisis that would split the Union between 1860 and 1861 underscored the ways in which this initial project of creating a sense of nationalism in the American people was, at best, a limited success.

See alsoAlien and Sedition Acts; Flags; Hartford Convention; Monuments and Memorials; Music: Patriotic and Political; National Symbols; Poetry; Whiskey Rebellion .

bibliography

Allgor, Catherine. Parlor Politics: In Which the Ladies of Washington Help Build a City and a Government. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 2000.

Anderson, Benedict R. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. Rev. ed. New York: Verso, 1991.

Craven, Wesley Frank. The Legend of the Founding Fathers. New York: New York University Press, 1956.

Kammen, Michael G. Mystic Chords of Memory: The Transformation of Tradition in American Culture. New York: Knopf, 1991.

Newman, Simon P. Parades and the Politics of the Street: Festive Culture in the Early Republic. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997.

Onuf, Peter S. Jefferson's Empire: The Language of American Nationhood. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 2000.

Pasley, Jeffrey L. "The Tyranny of Printers": Newspaper Politics in the Early American Republic. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 2001.

Purcell, Sarah J. Sealed with Blood: War, Sacrifice, and Memory in Revolutionary America. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002.

Travers, Len. Celebrating the Fourth: Independence Day and the Rites of Nationalism in the Early Republic. Amherst, Mass.: University of Massachusetts Press, 1997.

Waldstreicher, David. In the Midst of Perpetual Fetes: The Making of American Nationalism, 1776–1820. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997.

Wood, Gordon S. The Creation of the American Republic, 1776–1787. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1969.

Zelinsky, Wilbur. Nation into State: The Shifting Symbolic Foundations of American Nationalism. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1988.

Gretchen A. Adams