Good article, thanks for posting.
I’d say Buchanan is wrong, in that the original (traditional) Americans are the only ones able to state their true beliefs openly.
The invaders (cultural Marxists, or immigrants of whichever variety) are forced to pretend to have traditional American values such as honesty, good will, work ethic, etc.
So we gauge which is the true America based on who is able to be real. The pretenders are the outsiders.
The “immigrants from a wide variety of backgrounds” in the 1920’s and 30’s were from western cultures, namely Europe. So the variety wasn’t as large as what we’re experiencing today.
FWIW, Buchanan’s definition of ‘Nation’ is from John Jay.
The US had a common culture before the civil war though it was slowly dividing but mostly over agitation between each area’s elites. The biggest divide before the civil war was the ruling elites. In the north in Puritan traders who ran everything. In the south you had landed aristocracy. When the North won they abolished the aristocracy and tried to setup a Putin trader elite. It didn’t work out to well in the south.
By the early 1900s American elites realized they needed a common culture so they started trying to promote a common American culture. Even when people are pretty different as long as you can give them something they all feel kinship too it works pretty well. The problem was it didn’t work with the immigrants. Eventually we had to slam the door on all new immigrants and abolish papers and language schools that were not English to force integration.
Today the elites have built a multicultural society that has no foundation. We’re one good shock away from everyone grouping with their own and carving territory.
Massachusetts, Georgia, and Connecticut ratified the Bill of Rights in 1939. We have been fighting over the basics for a very long time. It’s still the same fight: Are our rights limited only to those specifically protected (and should that list be interpreted as narrowly as possible), or are government’s powers over us limited to only those specifically enumerated (and should that list be interpreted as narrowly as possible)?
I.e., it is what we should strive for.
Regards,
I felt that Buchanan’s essay was focused on the Founding Fathers, and their written documents.
Between 1620 and 1820, except for slaves and the mostly powerless native Americans, almost every person in America could trace their heritage within a 500 mile radius of London.
Being One Nation and being a bunch of clones are very very different things.
I know that simplifies and condenses much of the article, but the overall premise is more a self-fulfilling prophesy than a statement of fact - the question is, what are we willing to do to remain One Nation????
United Individuals with an understanding of the arc of history and a compass of right/wrong move the republic...forward.
The immigrants from the early 1900’s through the mid 1900’s may have come from “diverse country’s but they for the most part cam for the same reason. To become Americans, work hard and build a better life for their families then they could where they came from. They did not come here to turn this Country into the same shit-holes they cam from. Big Difference!
Buchanan may be interesting or even vaguely entertaining for his opinions.
Buchanan appears to have a public opinion history of anti-Semitism.
That is not very good in my book
A slight disagreement that we were never one nation.
When I was in grade school in the 30’s every day began with - ‘I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all’.
At other times we also sang - ‘My country, ‘tis of Thee, Sweet Land of Liberty Of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, Land of the pilgrims pride, From every mountainside Let Freedom ring’.
It is my opinion that at that time we were ‘One Nation’ or very close to it. And had that Pledge and Song continued to be recited we would be in much better shape today.
Even before the Constitution there were four cultures: the yankees, the southerners, the backwoods scots-irish in the west, and the quakers between the north and the south.
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Federalist, no. 39,James Madison, 16 Jan. 1788
On examining the first relation, it appears on one hand that the Constitution is to be founded on the assent and ratification of the people of America, given by deputies elected for the special purpose; but on the other, that this assent and ratification is to be given by the people, not as individuals composing one entire nation; but as composing the distinct and independent States to which they respectively belong. It is to be the assent and ratification of the several States, derived from the supreme authority in each State, the authority of the people themselves. The act therefore establishing the Constitution, will not be a national but a federal act.
That it will be a federal and not a national act, as these terms are understood by the objectors, the act of the people as forming so many independent States, not as forming one aggregate nation, is obvious from this single consideration that it is to result neither from the decision of a majority of the people of the Union, nor from that of a majority of the States. It must result from the unanimous assent of the several States that are parties to it, differing no other wise from their ordinary assent than in its being expressed, not by the legislative authority, but by that of the people themselves. Were the people regarded in this transaction as forming one nation, the will of the majority of the whole people of the United States, would bind the minority; in the same manner as the majority in each State must bind the minority; and the will of the majority must be determined either by a comparison of the individual votes; or by considering the will of a majority of the States, as evidence of the will of a majority of the people of the United States. Neither of these rules has been adopted. Each State in ratifying the Constitution, is considered as a sovereign body independent of all others, and only to be bound by its own voluntary act. In this relation then the new Constitution will, if established, be a federal and not a national Constitution.
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America was a 'nation' under the auspices of the United States when it turned it's face outward to the world.
INTERNALLY, it was supposed to be an association of States with only limited powers relinquished to serve the purposes of the collective...so no, the contemporary 'one nation' concept didn't come along until the 1850's, when a socialist preacher wrote the Pledge of Allegiance.
Our society might be fractured, but we all have a common factor: each of us has a God-given soul. All souls are of equal value to God, regardless of age, talents, or skin color. We need to be careful how we treat each other. God is watching.
The Constitution was ahead of its time imo.
Hypothetically speaking, if the Founding States had drafted and ratified the Constitution in the Internet age then citizens would probably have better understood that it’s main purpose is to limit (cripple) the federal government’s powers.
Instead, most citizens evidently only understand the corrupt media version of the Constitution, the “Hollywood” version based on rumors, gossip, hearsay, and whatever the anti-constitutional republic Progressive Movement want misguided, low-information citizens to think about it.
The bottom line is that smart crooks discovered long ago that getting themselves elected to federal office to make unconstitutional tax laws that steal citizens’ hard-earned money beats robbing banks for a living.
From my perspective which second generation eastern European Prussian/Austrian family settled in Chicago’s southside neighborhood known as Bridgeport. Families were tightly knit structures which came here in the 1870’s. Not just brothers and sisters but cousins relied on each other for support. German was our second language but English was the first. Religion played an important role.
During that period early 19th century. First generation Catholics when settling here were grouped around churches which retained their respective nationalities. Creating parishes which retained and sustained that identity. Bridgeport for example to the uninitiated was never really an “Irish” neighborhood. Although they were first to settle there that myth was created during the lengthy term of the Daley family. There were but two Irish parishes Saint Bridget and St Gabriel in that neighborhood.
The parishes there and the edifices constructed bespoke differently. Saint Anthony and All Saints; Italian, St John of God , St Jerome; Hervat (Croation), Saint George; Lithuanian, Saint Barbara, Our Lady of perpetual Help;
Polish, Immaculate Conception; German along with a number of Lutheran parishes; Gloria Dei, Holy Cross, and Holy Trinity. With the exception of two Lutheran parishes all those parishes maintained primary schools to 8th grade
and the two Polish parishes ran high schools. Until 1960 the third largest school system in the country was the Catholic school system of Chicago
Prior to WWI Services were conducted in those respective languages including German. After the outbreak the use of German was discontinued. But the identity to nationality continued until WWII. It was that war and our focus on it when those subjective nationality differences which I don’t go into here because of time constraints no longer mattered and we became one people, American.
Whatever, we are divided now.
Leeches and producers.
But compare the US in 1914 to Austria-Hungary or Russia or Turkey in the same year, and we were more united or unified than any of those empires, even taking the various regions and ethnic minorities into account.
The author (Rockwellite toilet scum) sets an unrealistic standard of unity and then complains that America never measures up to it. But look through the telescope from the right end.
We are never going to be as united or as homogeneous as Wales or Denmark, yet America in the post-WWII period held together very well indeed, for a country composed of so many varied groups.