American Exceptionalism: Land of Liberty, Foundation of Slavery - Part 15
Part 15 of this Series
America’s Lodestar
“Everybody’s askin’ that. What we comin’ to? Seems to me we don’t never come to nothin’. Always on the way.”
- Casy in John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath
Contrary to many of this country’s origin stories, the first European settlers did not happen upon an empty wilderness. They landed on the edge of a vast continent inhabited by millions of people, whose land they took. They soon established on much of it a plantation system anchored in slavery, and over the next 400 years, America’s sins left a stain on the landscape – from the Trail of Tears to Wounded Knee, from Gabriel’s Rebellion in Virginia to the Pettus Bridge in Selma, from Homestead, Pennsylvania to Love Canal, New York – and beyond, to Nagasaki, to My Lai, to Guantanamo.
So, what then do we make of Winthrop’s “city on a hill”, of Jefferson’s “self-evident truths”, of Lincoln’s “new nation”, of King’s “dream deeply rooted in the American dream”? How can we reconcile their lofty rhetoric with a reality of dreadful crimes?
First, we must confront our history and own it. We cannot claim these atrocities did not happen or that somehow they don’t represent who Americans really are. The evidence is overwhelming: this is who we are. But it is not all that we are, and it is not who we have to be.
The path forward lies neither in seeking some non-existent middle ground, nor in clinging to one image of America and demonizing the other, but in forging a new synthesis that recognizes the power – and the truth – of the contradictions that have defined us from the beginning. We are a land of liberty; we were built on a foundation of slavery. We have failed in our mission from the beginning, but we haven’t yet given up on our ideals. Perhaps this is our calling . . . not to be the most powerful nation in the world, nor the richest nor the greatest, but to strive to be better than we are – to at once accept and transcend our history in pursuit of universal and self-evident truths. Although we’ll probably never get there, it’s when we cease to try that our experiment in nationhood will end.
In every century since European settlement, an American Jeremiah has stepped forward to remind us of that calling, to reproach us for our failures, and to stir us, in King’s words, to “rise up and live out the true meaning of [our] creed.” Every century, that is, but this one. In the wake of the wreckage of the last several years, it’s time for a new summons to our best selves. For it is only by embracing the whole of it – our aspirations and our failures – that we can begin the process of reconciliation. Flag wavers and flag burners – what makes America exceptional is that we are defined by both.
The term American Exceptionalism has been through many incarnations. It has been battered at home and derided abroad, but it will not go away because it says something essential about America to Americans . . . and to the world. It is not a portrait of who we are but an aspiration of whom we might become. By insisting that we live up to our country’s avowed ideals, American Exceptionalism offers the last, best hope of holding us together as a nation. It is King’s promissory note, Lincoln’s unfinished work, Jefferson’s not-so-self-evident truth, Winthrop’s city on a hill. It is America’s lodestar.