The West is in a crucial cultural moment. Protesters burned a 140-year-old town hall in France, a disquieting testament of denigration. Many argue that America has no unique culture, or if it does, it is not one worth preserving.
Even as America celebrates its 250th birthday, it seems we no longer know—and so don’t understand—what defines our nation. The Heritage Foundation’s new First Principles essay, “People, Place, Principles: This Is America,” aims to provide some guidance.
Our exceptional country is composed of a triumphant triad: people, place, and principles. These components uniquely add to the American project and intertwine to become an inseparable reality.
James Madison’s theory of separation of powers and checks and balances provides a helpful analogy. Each branch of government has its own responsibilities. But they are not strictly quartered off from one another. In exercising the presidential veto, the executive reaches into the legislative function. This dynamic ensures that all act with fidelity for the good of a coherent whole.
The same is true of people, place, and principles. Each component is invaluable and holds pieces of the others.
People
What coheres Americans as a people are the things we have in common: a shared culture, language, rituals, manners, and history, to name a few.
That unity was first laid in the British tradition, itself reliant on the larger Western tradition, that introduced notions like the rule of law and separation of powers. But Americans soon came to define themselves more particularly.
The colonists formed their own charters, like the Mayflower Compact, and institutions, like the Virginia House of Burgesses, and for 150 years governed themselves before they declared independence.
The stirrings of the revolution often spread through churches to the estimated 70% to 80% of colonists who attended service regularly. Pamphlets also played a crucial role, benefiting from and further fostering a remarkably literate and participatory society.
A common language enabled that citizen engagement and deliberation, but even the English language was further Americanized. Founding lexicographer Noah Webster declared in 1789 that, “Now is the time, and this the country, in which we may expect success, in attempting changes favorable to language, science and government. … Let us then seize the present moment, and establish a national language, as well as a national government.”
Against these commonalities are the more human elements that bind a people and enable harmony: sentiments like goodwill and benevolence and the duties of gratitude. Such connections are built through the ties of families, everyday interactions with neighbors, and the gathering of citizens in civic association.
Sympathies towards one another encourage an attachment to and love of the common good. As George Washington wrote in 1783, the “prevalence of that pacific and friendly Disposition among the people of the United States” would “induce them to forget their local prejudices and policies, to make those mutual concessions which are requisite to the general prosperity, and, in some instances, to sacrifice their individual advantages to the interest of the Community.”
Place
A people is not confined to one generation but sustains over time. America as a place helps with that continuity.
We have cities, homes, parks, and monuments built by past generations that compose the civilization we have inherited. That gift—and the willingness to take up the obligations of stewardship—threads Americans together as a people of political ancestors, contemporaries, and posterity.
As James Madison wrote: “The improvements made by the dead form a charge against the living who take the benefit of them,” and such a debt “can no[t] otherwise be satisfyed than by executing the will of the dead accompanying the improvements. Debts may be incurred for purposes which interest the unborn, as well as the living.”
The assumption of that debt is aided by the embodiment of human beings; we instinctively love our home as our own and find comfort in familiar traditions and stories.
While America as a place tangibly bounds the nation, our homeland has always made possible our principles and character. In Federalist 10, James Madison lays out his novel theory of how America’s physical territory lessens the dangers of factions and encourages justice and deliberation.
Factions, groups adverse to the common good, are a byproduct of human liberty, but they are also the downfall of republics. Because America is physically large, the factions it contains will be numerous. Instead of one being able to win the day through force, citizens will have to persuade one another to gain the majority, making it more likely that justice will prevail.
As a result, America as a physical place has permanently elevated the centrality of deliberation, an essential feature of self-government and the American national character.
Principles
America’s principles are most fully, though not exclusively, laid out in the Declaration of Independence. The maxim of human equality is a reflection on the dignity of the person and situates human beings in an ordered universe.
As John Adams wrote of equality, it “really means little more than that We are all of the same Species: made by the same God: possessed of Minds and Bodies alike in Essence: having all the same Reason, Passions, Affections and appetites. All Men are Men and not Beasts. … The blind are Men, and not Insects, the deaf are Men and not reptiles, the dumb are Men and not Trees. All these are Men and not Angells.”
Because human beings have free will, reason, and conscience, we are responsible for our decisions and capable of great achievement. But we are also subject to passion and must learn to order our reason above our impulses: to govern ourselves.
That is not the only definition of self-government put forth by the Founders. The aspirations of self-government not only help us to judge our own conduct but also inform how we ought to treat one another and the contours of America’s political institutions.
Inalienable rights come with requisite duties. Self-government on the institutional level means that Americans, through mechanisms like voting, have a real say in how our government operates.
These principles define the soul of America and are necessary for the components of people and place.
In “City of God,” St. Augustine wrote that a people is “an assembled multitude of rational creatures bound together by a common agreement as to the objects of their love … the better the objects of this agreement, the better the people.”
Common beliefs and loves set bounds to behavior, which introduces the possibility of trust and paves the way for goodwill, harmony, and friendship. For example, a people that does not respect the dignity of human life will easily splinter and degrade into chaos and violence.
Conclusion
People, place, and principles all contribute and come together to form America. A people is sustained by what they hold in common, including shared principles. Among the principles that define Americans are human equality and self-government. Deliberation and citizen participation are essential for self-government, and America as a place makes possible and reinforces those aspects of the American character.
Understanding America, and what it means to be an American, requires attention to at least these three elements. Modern Americans are the inheritors of a rich and remarkable heritage, and it is our obligation to acknowledge it as such, as we strive to contribute to and sustain it.
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[ H/T The Daily Signal ]
