The Three Values That Are The Real Keys To America’s Greatness

The midterm postmortem will continue for some time. Conservatives need careful data analysis from people who can interpret the numbers and understand politics, and politicians who can respond to public opinion with prudence and guiding rhetoric.

But as The Daily Wire hosts noted, there is an even deeper problem that needs attention: no one has made a “robust argument for Americanism as an argument, a fully fleshed out argument.” What are the values that make America, America? What is the positive vision?

America as a nation is defined by the organic intertwining of people, place, and principles. Each contributes something unique, and they reinforce one another to form a whole even greater than the sum of its parts.

James Madison’s theory of separation of powers and checks and balances provides a helpful analogy. Each branch of government has particular responsibilities, but they are not strictly divided from one another. Instead, each branch holds pieces of the others. The president, for example, has the power to veto legislation, giving the executive branch a legislative function. With this dynamic, the three branches check each other to ensure that all act with fidelity and cohere as a single entity.

The same is true of the American nation of people, place, and principles.

People

America is a people sustained over generations by what Americans hold in common: language, history, traditions, and religion, to name a few. As John Jay wrote in Federalist 2:

Providence has been pleased to give this one connected country to one united people — a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government, very similar in their manners and customs, and who, by their joint counsels, arms, and efforts, fighting side by side throughout a long and bloody war, have nobly established general liberty and independence.

A shared culture binds Americans together and supports American principles. For example, speaking the same language allows neighbors to interact, thereby building goodwill and friendship. Communication also enables civic participation and deliberation, which are necessary for self-government.

Religious institutions have historically played a major role in that deliberation. Churches are gathering places and seedbeds for community activity; they are the most important civic associations. At the time of the Founding, 70–80% of American colonists attended services regularly, and the ideas of the Revolution, consistent with biblical principles, spread through sermons, pamphlets, and newspapers.

Religion is not the only way a people sustain itself. As George Washington wrote in his Farewell Address, an individual can develop a moral framework independently, but “reason and experience both forbid us to expect that National morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.” The Founders and ancient philosophers alike argued that a republic cannot survive without a virtuous people, and religious belief and practice are indispensable for morality.

Place

Human embodiment comes with an instinctive love of home. America’s physical wonders and gifts inspire awe and gratitude. A sense of reverence reigns over the places where many of our ancestors gave the last full measure of their devotion. And fondness builds in the communities where Americans practice civic rituals and raise posterity. These attachments are good and serious.

Yet America as a place is even more: it has fostered American principles and formed the national character.

From the outset, James Madison argued that America’s extended territory mitigates the problem of faction: groups adverse to the common good. America has numerous factions, which makes it harder for any single faction to gain a majority. Instead, people and representatives must work with one another and communicate to achieve their goals. That deliberative process slows things down and makes it more likely that justice will prevail.

John Jay further observed that America was composed not of “detached and distant territories” but of “one connected, fertile, wide-spreading country” with a “succession of navigable waters” almost made “to bind it together.” The Founders’ response to America as a place was consistent with democratic principles and reinforced the sovereignty of the people.

Through the Potomac River Project, which connected regions by roads and waterways, George Washington sought to bind the nation and the character of the American people. Thomas Jefferson led the repeal of primogeniture and entail laws in Virginia. The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 extended that vision to the frontier, and the taming of America’s heartland was given over to those who would steward the land, rather than left to be worked by the many and owned by a few aristocrats.

The frontier spirit is part of the American heritage as a result. Americans are adventurous, informal, resilient, industrious, and somewhat gritty. Both the yeoman farmer and the entrepreneur animate the American moral imagination, as America’s physical resources, free institutions, and the human capacity for creativity unleashed profound prosperity.

Principles

America is the experiment in self-government, and self-government has a multi-layered meaning.

Self-government at the institutional level means republican government, in which the people have a real say in the nation’s laws through mechanisms such as popular elections. As James Madison wrote, “no other form” of government “would be reconcilable with the genius of the people of America; with the fundamental principles of the Revolution; or with that honorable determination which animates every votary of freedom, to rest all our political experiments on the capacity of mankind for self-government.”

As Madison suggests, self-government at the individual level underlies republican government. Because human beings have reason and conscience, they are responsible for their actions and can order reason above their passions and impulses.

The maxim “all men are created equal” expressed in the Declaration of Independence recognizes the nature of human beings and situates mankind in an ordered universe. As John Adams wrote:

[Equality] 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…

America as a nation is dedicated to these principles, which define the American national character.

As distinguished Washington and Founding scholar Dr. William B. Allen has written, Lincoln and others believed that regimes are guided by “a shared view of justice that makes a people a people. This was a very old idea, one expressed by Plato, and Aristotle, and Cicero, and Aquinas, and even Jefferson.”

Shared understanding imposes limits on behavior and introduces the possibility of friendship, love, and goodwill. As a people, Americans have declared that “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” are inalienable rights, and that rights and duties are non-negotiable. Citizens can reasonably take for granted that neighbors will not use force or steal one another’s property, and those boundaries allow interaction and harmony.

Conclusion

Articulating a positive vision of the American nation helps identify policy solutions and cultural difficulties.

Challenges to self-government include the growth of the administrative state and the erosion of deliberation by instant communication.

This customizable and disembodied world erodes shared memories and experiences. Americans are less likely to gather for small-town parades and fireworks, as spending a solitary evening of Netflix and Uber Eats is more comfortable than eating a hot dog with a neighbor. For such reasons, preserving and defending the physical historic sites that transmit the American story and bring citizens together is even more urgent.

Political and legal decisions have driven religion out of the public square, and churches have lost parishioners as they have diluted doctrine and required less of the human person.

Immigration remains a concern as insular communities fail to assimilate into the American way of life. Explaining why others should assimilate requires educating the native-born population in the nation’s Founding principles, so its members can articulate why America is exceptional and worthy of loyalty.

The nation’s Founding story teaches Americans who they are: a people committed to the principles of self-government, rights and duties, human equality, and the dictates of the natural order.

These are just a few solutions that would reinforce people, place, and principles. Clarity about what constitutes the American nation guides policy prescriptions. Establishing that clarity is a necessary step in responding to the midterms.

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Brenda Hafera is the Assistant Director and Research Fellow in The Heritage Foundation’s B. Kenneth Simon Center for American Studies.