1. What is America? Poli 110J 3.1 The Nation as Crusade

2. Jacksonian Democracy Andrew Jackson – Hero of the Battle of New Orleans – President 1829-1837 – Man of the [white] people Bowed to the crowd at inauguration – Promoter of more direct democracy – Removal of the Cherokee & Trail of Tears – Favored strong states rights, Union

3. John L. OSullivan Defining the American community of belief Moral perfection and political exceptionality of US national identity Expansion of US is expansion of liberty Liberty as a political good of the first order States rights & strong sense of national mission and identity

4. John L. OSullivan 1813-1895 Democratic party activist Editor, literary critic, govt envoy to Portugal Influential in van Buren, Pierce administrations Founder, editor-in-Chief of United States Magazine & Democratic Review

5. United States Magazine & Democratic Review Politico-literary journal Nationalist project of culture Helped to launch Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Walt Whitman to prominence Central to Young America – Nationalism, democracy, expansion

6. The Nation as Crusade The high and holy democratic/voluntary principle (Introduction) – the fundamental element of [Americas] new social and political system Defining America – The best government is that which governs least – Let man be fettered by no duty, save His brothers rightlike his, inviolable

7. The Nation as Crusade A community of belief – full and free profession of the cardinal principles of political faith on which we take our stand – true and living faith

8. The Nation as Crusade US exceptional, world-historical importance All history has to be re-written; political science and the whole scope of all moral truth have to be considered and illustrated in the light of the democratic principle. All old subjects of thought and all new questions arising, connected more or less directly with human existence, have to be taken up again and re-examined in this point of view.

9. The Nation as Crusade The advent of the United States is a discontinuous break with history – Transforms not only the future, but also the past – Forces reinterpretation of all that has come before and that will come – Analogous to birth of Christ

10. The Nation as Crusade The American interest = the universal interest – Voluntary principle = democracy = United States = the cause of all mankind

11. The Nation as Crusade Defining the community: What about slavery? – Vague commitment to eventual extinction of slavery – slavery was not a political problem, but a moral and economic one, the decision of which must rest, voluntarily, with the slave states themselves. – Matter of intrastate commerce, not rights (Democratic Review 14, 4/44, p. 429)

12. The Nation as Crusade Defining the community: What about slavery? – Union composed of states, not individuals – Illegitimate to compel change in status quo – Would violate democratic principle

13. The Nation as Crusade Liberty > Equality – To be treated as an equal, one must be capable of self- rule. – Some can, some cant: – According to their knowledge of, and respect for, the rights of a citizen, shall their freedom from governmental restraints be measured out to them, and every privilege which they learn to exercise wisely, government will be forced to relinquish, until each man becomes a law unto himself. (Territorial Aggrandizement)

14. The Nation as Crusade To be considered an equal, one must first become free – Anglo-Saxon culture (not biology) makes whites most capable of freedom Until then, it is fair to regard the un-free individual as an inferior – Slaves are made incapable of being free because the brutality w/which they are treated has made them brute – Natives cannot be free because of their savagery & primitiveness – Mexicans cant be free because they are semi-barbarous, have an aristocratic Spanish culture. They may one day be educated enough that they can be free.

15. The Nation as Crusade To forcibly annex Mexico would make a mockery of the voluntary principle It would also taint the US w/people who were not prepared to rule themselves Thus, Mexico should be left alone (he changed his mind)

16. The Nation as Crusade The Great Nation of Futurity – we have, in reality, but little connection with the past history of any [other nations], and still less with antiquity, its glories, or its crimes. On the contrary, our national birth was the beginning of a new history. America is new, morally pure, and unstained by sins of the past A radical break from the past

17. The Nation as Crusade America is destined for better deeds. It is our unparalleled glory that we have no reminisces of battle fields, but in defence of humanity, of the oppressed of all nations, of the rights of personal conscience, the rights of personal enfranchisement. – America acts with pure motives, in the interest of all mankind by definition

18. The Nation as Crusade We have no interest in the scenes of antiquity, only as lessons of avoidance of nearly all their examples. The expansive future is our arena, and for our history. We are entering on its untrodden space, with the truths of God in our minds, beneficent objects in our hearts, and with a clear conscience unsullied by the past.

19. The Nation as Crusade The old, the past is to be repudiated For Americans, the only history that matters is future history – It is not what we have been or what we have done that makes us who we are, but what we will do and who we will be Americans are a people who are unmarked by sin

20. 60 seconds of theology What is sin? – Not being a bad person – Not doing bad things (individual sins) In Christian thought, the taint of original sin is a state of moral imperfection. – A person can be very good and still be stained by sin. – Makes forgiveness necessary – Separates humans from God For OSullivan, America is beyond sin

21. The Nation as Crusade We are the nation of human progress, and who will, what can, set limits to our onward march? Providence is with us, and no earthly power can. We point to the everlasting truth on the first page of our national declaration, and we proclaim to the millions of other lands, that the gates of hellthe powers of aristocracy and monarchy shall not prevail against it.

22. The Nation as Crusade Americas purpose, its telos is to spread democracy throughout the world – Telos: A purpose that is part of a things nature, forming what it is America is providentially destined to succeed in this mission. Failure is impossible. Voluntary principle = democracy = United States = the cause of all mankind = The will of God

23. The Nation as Crusade The enemies of the United States and democracy are enemies not only of all mankind, but of God – They are intrinsically evil, satanic The gates of hell shall not prevail against it – Matthew 16:18 – Refers to the Christian church – America, embodying the will of God, is the new church – By definition, the United States is a force of pure good and its enemies agents of pure moral and religious evil

24. The Nation as Crusade Because the American interest is identical with the universal human interest and the will of God, everything done in the name of the American interest is by definition good, acting to promote freedom and democracy By the same token, every opponent of the American interest is by definition an enemy of God and all mankind

25. The Nation as Crusade no lust for territory has stained our annals. No nation has been despoiled by us, no country laid desolate, no people overrun. – The indigenous would probably disagree. – But, they cannot for OSullivan be free, and thus are removed from consideration. Where they were, democracy will be.

26. The Nation as Crusade New York Morning News, Dec. 27, 1845: To state the truth at once in its neglected simplicity, we are free to say that were the respective arguments and cases of the two parties, as to all these points of history and law, reversedhad England all ours, and we nothing but hersour claim to Oregon would still be best and strongest. And that claim is by the right of our manifest destiny to overspread and to possess the whole of the continent which Providence has given us for the development of the great experiment of liberty and federated self-government entrusted to us.

27. The Nation as Crusade Manifest Destiny: manifest here means made apparent, revealed, obvious. Fated by Providence (the will of God) to spread across continent Americas moral & religious right and mission are prior to any existing legal claim.

28. The Nation as Crusade All this will be our future history, to establish on earth the moral dignity and salvation of manthe immutable truth and beneficence of God. For this blessed mission to the nations of the world, which are shut out from the life-giving light of truth, has America been chosen; and her high example shall smite unto death the tyranny of kings, hierarchs, and oligarchs, and carry the glad tidings of peace and good will where myriads now endure an existence scarcely more enviable than that of beasts of the field. Who, then, can doubt that our country is destined to be the great nation of futurity? (Great Nation of Futurity)

29. The Nation as Crusade The US is chosen by God for blessed mission to spread the life-giving light of truth (democracy) to the world – America does not have a mission, it IS a mission. It must redeem the world. Messianic Nation: Redeeming people of other nations, raising them to dignity of humans from bestial condition

30. Coming up Friday: Lincoln-Douglas Debates Monday & Wednesday: Lincoln Friday: Bryan