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AMERICA FOR AMERICANS
By Theodore S. Wills
We see through the media darkly the dawning of a new continental order, a tectonic shift pregnant with possibility, in the best of cases for fraternal progress and in the worst of cases for fratricidal disaster. For as we now embark upon the 500th anniversary of the encounter of the two worlds East and West (New and Old), how surprised we are to find ourselves gravitating towards another earth-shattering encounter, namely, that between the two worlds North and South (Rich and Poor) as typified by the emerging relationship between the United States of America and the United States of Mexico.
It is indeed noteworthy that at this very same moment in time we American are in the midst of another important anniversary, that being the bicentennial of the Office of the Presidency. Row fitting it is that as we commemorate the discovery of the New World, we simultaneously should be celebrating the discovery and implementation of a new model for popular self-government, a model which has since come to mean such a great deal to every lover of liberty.
Do these chronological alignments bear within themselves some message for us as we approach the close of the Second Millennium? Do they represent nothing more than the product of pure chance or do they perchance auger the onset of a new birth of Freedom? Until such time when we can unravel these mysteries, we must be alert and ready. We must not be found asleep on the watch. Therefore, how might we best prepare ourselves and our posterity in response to this portent?
I. What is to be done?
In times of uncertainty, prudence counsels caution as well as flexibility. We would do well to develop a team approach towards this new continental order which is grounded upon sound principles and common sense. Certainly, this is no time for fighting amongst ourselves. We must gather the wagons around what is most beloved by all, that being our families and our common values.
So let us now undertake a serious reflection on the basic tenets of the American civil religion. For it is through these popularly held beliefs that the many might be as one. The American civil religion has the power to bring us together. In this spirit of reflection may we heed the words of one towering Texan, who at another historic juncture quoted Holy Writ before the U.S. Congress, saying, “Come, let us reason together”. Let us not be bound by prejudice, by political convention or by passing sentiment. As another Texan (by adoption) has advised his ministers of late, let us also “Think big”. How big? As big as possible. As big as one can imagine. As big as the America dream, that enterprise which knows no geographical limitation, that boasts no racial frontier, that admits no form of
religious or socio-economic or sexual discrimination.
A worrying world casts its gaze upon the hemisphere of hope. For if by some miracle the citizens of Canada, Mexico and the United States were to really reconcile their historic differences and arrive upon a mutually beneficial understanding about their intertwined destinies, that is to say, a meeting of hearts and minds more profound than that which any one piece of statecraft might obtain, then it might be said with confidence that the authentic discovery of America and what America can do for humanity in this, the American Century, has only just begun.
How fortuitous it is, therefore, that the leaders of Canada and Mexico have already made the necessary arrangements and are ready to do business with us as partners in progress. In the case of Mexico, for example, the governments of Presidents Miguel de la Madrid Hurtado and Carlos Salinas de Gortari have acted in an exceptionally visionary and
entrepreneurial manner despite the enormous political risks inherent in such an approach to their northern neighbor. Should we fail them we will have surely failed ourselves.
And may it be made perfectly clear to every American politician and union leader that the Mexican people have no interest in leaving Mexico if they don’t have to. The Mexican people have no interest in robbing American jobs or in receiving federal charity. On the economic plane, all they want is a level playing field. In other words, they want us Americans to behave as Americans in our relations towards them. So from here on in, let Mexico be Mexico. Let Canada be Canada. And let North America be America! In sum, America for Americans!
II. Who the People?
Undoubtedly, what is absolutely fundamental to the success of such a new continental order is the definitive resolution of the issue of personhood and, consequently, the rights and responsibilities of American citizenship. It may be argued that no question has proved more essential and more problematic to the American undertaking than the question of precisely who qualifies as a person and precisely who merits equality before the law.
The debate over personhood has always enjoyed a privileged place in European discourse, but the abstract question took on a more pressing and even geopolitical dimension upon the unexpected discovery of the so-called “Indians” by Columbus and his fellow explorers. The ensuing debate ranged from the august lecture halls of the University of Salamanca to the unpretentious town meetings of New England.
As history bears abundant testimony, the Europeans of that age came to different conclusions. In the case of the Catholic Church, it is to her glory that she declared dogmatically that the “heathen” were indeed human. Her only problem was to convince her land-hungry faithful of the same. In the case of the European colonists in North America, the response was as varied as the population itself: from heartfelt reverence and consequent efforts in education and social welfare as in the case of Dartmouth College to heartless racism and subsequent activities aimed at subjugation and/or systematic extermination as implemented by a good number of less enlightened individuals and communities.
In due course the authentically American response came forth, appropriately enough, from the city of brotherly love, Philadelphia, the original capital of the New Nation. There the signatories to the Declaration of Independence proclaimed to a wondering world their belief that all men and women are created equal. Obviously, their understanding of personhood was conditioned and circumscribed by their cultural and socio-political reality. Nevertheless, it is truly remarkable how much progress the Founders made on behalf of human liberty despite the many serious obstacles in their own environment, especially with regard to the horrid scandal of chattel slavery.
III. Better Men Than We Are
It is to their eternal credit, therefore, that the Fathers resolved to pursue this high ideal in an orderly and democratic fashion. These revolutionaries launched a revolution which had little to do with what we moderns understand to be the meaning of revolution, in other words, violence, destruction and the spoilt omelettes of mass dehumanization. For the Founders had no longing to impose some
monstrous man-made heaven on earth. The Fathers were no ivory tower ideologues. They did not worship their Will and the whip which is sooner or later wielded by every worldly Messiah.
The faith of our Fathers has nothing to do with fanaticism. For the faith of our Fathers springs from a heavenly source: a common creed harkening back to that momentous meeting on Mount Sinai where an omnipotent God deigned to parley with a powerless peasant, to that backwater burgh where an infinite God willed to be counted by a curious Caesar, to that place of skulls outside the Holy City where an ever-loyal Father desired to be crucified by us His undependable children, to that empty tomb and that crowded Cenacle, to that unidentified figure on the beach and His formidable and unforgettable farewell.
The Founders were as much men of faith as they were men of the world. They were merchants and land-owners, family men and civic leaders. As a consequence, with regard to political philosophy they were men of common sense. These men were determined to build something useful rather than simply tear down an archaic colonial system which didn’t work. The Founding Fathers, therefore, employed their rich knowledge of Holy Scripture and classical philosophy so as to implement a perennial revolution in human affairs - a revolution not of guns or rubbers but a revolution of the human spirit, a revolution of popular self-control.
It was for the sake of this revolution in human affairs that our father in faith, George Washington, the indispensable man, sacrificed his life, his fortune and his sacred honor. How well deserved is his place within the Capitol Dome, represented there in apotheosis en route to Olympus. In later years it fell to his successors, most notably, to that humblest of men, Abraham Lincoln, to labor mightily to preserve the Union as the one and only defender of our collective reason for being.
Through the course of our history, forty-one men have borne George Washington’s burden: good men, bad men, great men, mediocre men. This diversity of talents and virtue would have come as no surprise to Mr. Madison and his colleagues. Quite to the contrary, the Founders designed their ingenious mechanism of “checks and balances” with precisely this eventuality in mind. For the Founding Fathers were no strangers to human nature or to the sad history of earlier experiments in representative democracy. They would brook no George IV in their great republic.
Our Fathers’ foresight is the explanation why the Presidency has not evolved, as Mr. Adams feared and as Mr. Hamilton pined, into
presumptuous Popery. The system works. In addition, apart from these many internal safeguards, we are blessed with a popular civic spirit which is ever vigilant lest any one component of this juridical triad might ever pretend to over-reach its proper function within the whole.
IV. Mr. Lincoln’s Nightmare
More than a century and a half ago, Mr. Lincoln confided to us what was his greatest nightmare concerning America’s future. He had no fear of foreign invaders. What frightened him was our own capacity for self-destruction: that a leader might arise from among the American people who would be bent upon the undoing of America. How is it possible that when we are so close to the realization of what America is all about we would be hearing the siren call of isolationism from certain key American leaders? As if the people of the United States would ever even conceive of turning humanity’s last, best hope into a fairy-tale fortress of solitude or an impregnable intensive care unit!
Name the American who has paid the supreme sacrifice so as to hoard the blessings of liberty from others less fortunate. You will not find a one. Much to the contrary, hundreds of thousands of Americans have valiantly fought and died for the sake of the American dream upon the field of arms, or in the preservation of the public welfare or, just as laudably, in the never-ending and never sufficiently honored mission of the formation and education of our youth.
Are we now to believe that that mighty torrent of blood, sweat and tears was spilt but for the sake of “enlightened” self-interest and elitist “realpolitik”! That this one bright shining masterpiece might be convoluted into a cesspool of selfishness! Should these essentially anti-American forces of xenophobia ever obtain a decisive voice in the U.S. government, I would dare to say that those many dead had died in vain.
In this regard, let us but remember the Iwo Jima Memorial and the sight of those few, prototypical servicemen struggling to implant the banner of Freedom in the face of fierce enemy fire. These men and their compatriots harbored no ambitions to conquer foreign lands or peoples. They had no appetite for the spoils of war. They shared but one simple wish: to get the job done and get back home. Search the chronicles of civilization for another people so dedicated and so determined. Truly, these are the spiritual descendants of those warrior saints Judas Maccabeus, King Alfred and King Louis IX.
V. Preserving the Pax Americana
As the Third Millennium looms on the horizon, let us heed that noble call which went forth to every part of the globe only a generation ago, “Here on earth, God’s work must truly be our own”. May we be a priestly people wholly consecrated to the twilight struggle of preserving and protecting the nearly half-century-old “Pax Americana”. May this peace be for all men and women a peace with honor. A peace with dignity. A peace with progress. May our every thought and word second the plea of one of the greatest saints of this century, Pope Paul VI, who cried out before the United Nations in assembly, “No more war!”
Although it must be admitted that our political leaders have sometimes succumbed supinely to the dogs of war, have no fear, my fellow Americans, there is rain enough in the sweet heavens to wash us white as snow. If we but bow our stubborn knees in pious imitation of the anguished Cincinnatus at Valley Forge, the Almighty will hear us. The Almighty will heal us. The Almighty will help us. And so, may no Robber Baron or Rumor Baron ever supplant that love of peace and justice which beats in the heart of every true American. Heaven forbid that any faction or interest group might be able to transform our New Rome into another Babylon.
On the occasion of these various anniversaries, therefore, insofar as our worldly vision has been obscured by the tumult of nations, let us look to that unfailing beacon, that wonder of the modern world, that civil religion which reflects the dazzling rays of the Truth that sets men free. We must not miss this opportunity for peace in our time and on our continent. Let us come to terms with our neighbors. Let us open wide our imagination and our energy to the exciting and meritorious work that awaits every American’s free and responsible participation. America for Americans!
May the God of our Fathers, the Lord of Life, Liberty and everlasting Happiness, give us the strength and the courage to be worthy of our ancestors and the priceless inheritance which they have entrusted to us.
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