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« on: September 09, 2010, 02:45:48 PM » |
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The Patriot Post - Alexander's Essay 9-9-2010
From The Federalist Patriot
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On American Patriotism
By Mark Alexander · Thursday, September 9, 2010
"Citizens by birth or choice of a common country, that country has a right to concentrate your affections. The name of American, which belongs to you, in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of patriotism, more than any appellation derived from local discriminations." --George Washington
The ideal of "patriotism" evokes different concepts of what it means to be patriotic, but for most, patriotism equates with "love of country," and some degree of nationalism.
In regard to our Republic, Thomas Jefferson advised, "Love your neighbor as yourself and your country more than yourself."
Of course, Jefferson and our Founders understood that American Patriotism1 was (and remains) something quite apart from obedient loyalty to the state or its sovereigns. Jefferson's "country" represented the eternal struggle for liberty over tyranny.
In 1775, the English author and lexicographer Samuel Johnson, a Tory loyalist, wrote that American Patriots' quest for liberty was nothing more than "the delirious dream of republican fanaticism" which would "put the axe to the roots of all government."
Johnson concluded famously, "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel." The consummate cynic Ambrose Bierce would later counter, "I beg to submit that it is the first."
Unlike King George's partisans, however, American Patriots were unwaveringly loyal to something much larger than a mere man or geo-political institution. They pledged their sacred honor2 in support of Essential Liberty as "endowed by our creator3" and enshrined in our Declaration of Independence and its subordinate guidance, our Constitution.
During the same year Johnson was denigrating American Patriotism, Founder Alexander Hamilton was aptly defining its basis in America: "To grant that there is a supreme intelligence who rules the world and has established laws to regulate the actions of his creatures; and still to assert that man, in a state of nature, may be considered as perfectly free from all restraints of law and government, appears to a common understanding altogether irreconcilable. Good and wise men, in all ages, have embraced a very dissimilar theory. They have supposed that the deity, from the relations we stand in to himself and to each other, has constituted an eternal and immutable law, which is indispensably obligatory upon all mankind, prior to any human institution whatever. This is what is called the law of nature."
Hamilton continued: "Upon this law depends the natural rights of mankind: the Supreme Being gave existence to man, together with the means of preserving and beatifying that existence. He endowed him with rational faculties, by the help of which, to discern and pursue such things, as were consistent with his duty and interest, and invested him with an inviolable right to personal Liberty, and personal safety. The Sacred Rights of Mankind are not to be rummaged for, among old parchments, or musty records. They are written, as with a sun beam, in the whole volume of human nature, by the Hand of the Divinity itself; and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power."
Our Founders declared "that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights," and they constituted this affirmation in order to "secure the blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our posterity."
George Washington encouraged "the just pride of patriotism" but warned of those who would misrepresent their love for country in an effort to advance other less noble ends: "Guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism."
Washington also understood that Liberty was the gift of God, not government, and in his farewell address, he notes concern that in a future day, this order of Liberty could be lost: "Let it simply be asked where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths. ... Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that National morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle."
Washington's successor, John Adams, asserted, "Liberty must at all hazards be supported. We have a right to it, derived from our Maker. But if we had not, our fathers have earned and bought it for us, at the expense of their ease, their estates, their pleasure, and their blood."
Note, however, what Adams proclaimed: Liberty must be supported at all costs, but not so the state. Indeed, American Patriotism is rooted in defiance of the state when it becomes oppressive to Essential Liberty4. Our Constitution enshrines this Liberty, about which Adams warned, "A Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever." |
