The pathway marked out for a revival of national self-respect and confidence in the promise of self-government has been well indicated at the origins of the United States.
The pathway marked out for a revival of national self-respect and confidence in the promise of self-government has been well indicated at the origins of the United States.
Editor’s note: Following the release of “America’s Crisis of Self-Doubt,” National Review’s statement of affirming belief in America’s principles against growing doubts about them, on both left and right, National Review has invited signatories to the statement to elaborate on their own faith in America. You can find another entry here.
T he Florida Department of Education recently inquired what are the expectations of an upright and desirable citizenry. It sought contributions about the teaching of the Founding principles in the United States, foundations of civic virtue and self-government, respect for civil and military authorities, appreciation for the Constitution and the rule of law, and respect for exertions of prior generations to “secure the blessings of liberty.” In all this, it aimed to erect in-service training for public-school teachers.
I responded to this inquiry with a lecture on “the meaning and importance of American citizenship.” In this presentation, I drew largely on the guidance of George Washington and my own prior work on “the truth about citizenship” and “the making of citizens.” It occurs to me, however, that this discussion is highly relevant to the emergence of National Review’s statement on our present national crisis of self-doubt. For that project emerged simultaneously with the request from the Florida Department of Education — an aligning of stars, so to speak.
The National Review statement opens with the declaration that “we live in an age of increasing national self-doubt.” May we not also call it an age of national self-forgetfulness? For it is the dimension of forgetfulness that expunges from our classrooms any reliance on the Founding texts of the nation and confidence in the promises of secure liberty. In responding to the Florida Department of Education, effectively, I was performing — albeit unplanned — what I signed onto in the NR statement; that is, I “reclaimed a consensus view of America” from dismissive contestation and revived notions of human flourishing directly descending from the world-historical event that is the Founding.
I accomplished these objectives by returning to George Washington — most notably his “Circular Letter to the Governors and People of the Thirteen United States” of June 14, 1783. General Washington termed this “farewell” at the conclusion of the Revolutionary War his “political legacy,” and well may he have done so. For in this address, he spoke specifically to the very elements of moment in the NR statement.
Here we find articulately developed the notion of citizens’ responsibility for their own “happiness”; the imperative of just dealings; the reasons for national union and, hence, overcoming interested divisions; confidence in Providential provision for national well-being; advance beyond prior ages’ contempt for the capacity of mankind for self-government, an expectation of a “progressive refinement” of morals and manners, and a betterment of the human condition altogether. Moreover, Washington premised the entire architecture on the imperative of developing good character. He said, “we have a National Character to develop.” In saying that, he made clear that this character depended not merely on achieving a presence on the world stage with respect to national power. It depended still more on the development of sound character in the citizens themselves — a character of fortitude, industry, forbearance, and justice. All of these things stood behind the declaration President Washington made in his first inaugural address some eight years later that
the foundations of our national policy will be laid in the pure and immutable principles of private morality, and the pre-eminence of free government be exemplified by all the attributes which can win the affections of its citizens, and command the respect of the world. I dwell on this prospect with every satisfaction which an ardent love for my country can inspire: since there is no truth more thoroughly established, than that there exists in the economy and course of nature, an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness; between duty and advantage; between the genuine maxims of an honest and magnanimous policy, and the solid rewards of public prosperity and felicity: since we ought to be no less persuaded that the propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the external rules of order and right, which Heaven itself has ordained: and since the preservation of the sacred fire of liberty, and the destiny of the republican model of government, are justly considered as deeply, perhaps as finally, staked on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American People.
Nor did I fail to illustrate the manner in which Washington’s admonitions to his countrymen reflected the systematic development of his own character and the practices for which he became renowned in his own time. Anecdotes too numerous to mention fully portray Washington’s rectitude. I do not say “stuffiness,” because it was clear that he did not merely assume a pose. Rather, he acted consistently upon the basis of a soundly developed character. And it was instructive that his character was influenced by his exposure in youth to such instructions. We have his “Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation” as an index by which we can assess his own conduct in private and in public. And it was markedly the case that he reflected adherence to such maxims and guidelines. His writing them as a youth was a copybook exercise, yet he was affected by them. His preserving them among his papers (when he discarded so very much of purely private papers) testifies to the significance he attached to them.
We are entitled to conclude, therefore, that the pathway marked out for a revival of national self-respect and confidence in the promise of self-government has been well indicated at the origins of the United States. The “call to order” from National Review is a timely invocation of personal and public resolve to merit the confidence George Washington placed in his fellow citizens. In 1792, Washington wrote a letter to David Humphreys in which he described the people’s attributing their growing prosperity under the new government to Washington himself. Washington disclaimed the responsibility, pointing out to Humphrey that it was the people who were responsible. He implied that his main job was to make plain to them that it was they alone who bore that responsibility, a task that he claimed to have fulfilled in his penultimate “farewell” in 1796.