Guest columnist Wrestling partisanship is the American way
THE partisan battles tearing us asunder in America today raise a fundamental question that has reverberated throughout our history — who are we as a people? Are we a community that places the good of the whole first, or a gathering of individuals who value first and foremost each person's ability to determine their own fate.
The choice is artificial, of course. Each day, our lives represent a mix of the two. But looking at our history in light of these competing values can illuminate the choices before us.
When the Puritans arrived in Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630 in search of religious freedom, their leader John Winthrop delivered a sermon titled "A Modell of Christian Charity." Winthrop said their mission was to create a "city upon a hill," a society that embodied values so noble that the entire world would emulate them.
Winthrop wrote, we would need to strengthen, defend, preserve, comfort and love each other, and bear one another's burdens. "We must delight in each other, make others' conditions our own, rejoice together, mourn together, labor and suffer together, always having before our eyes the community as members of the same body."
Massachusetts was governed in its early decades by a sense the communal good must prevail. "Just prices" were prescribed for goods, and punishment was imposed on businesses that sought excess profits.
Soon enough, a surge of individualism challenged such regulations. Entrepreneurs viewed communal rules as shackles to be broken so they could pursue individual aspirations — and profits. The "just price" was discarded.
While religion remained a powerful presence, secularism ruled everyday business life, and Christianity was restricted to a once-a-week ritual. Class distinctions proliferated, economic inequality increased, and the values of laissez-faire individualism displaced the once enshrined "common wealth."
Not surprisingly, these tensions between the good of the community and the freedom of the individual have continued through history. Thomas Jefferson sought to resolve the conflict in the Declaration of Independence by embracing the ideal of "equal opportunity" for all. But he did so in the context of celebrating the "inalienable" rights of every citizen to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." Note that he did not champion equality of results, only equality of opportunity.
Still, Americans have rallied to support the value of the common good against special interests, or unbridled individual freedom. The nation fought a Civil War to erase the contradiction that slavery posed for the dream of equal citizenship.
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they challenge us to find an answer to: "Who are we? And which direction do we wish to go in?" William H. Chafe is the Alice Mary Baldwin Professor of History at Duke University, and the former president of the Organization of American Historians.
Whatever one thinks of Mr. White's general outlook, there is no denying his scholarship, as one would expect from a past president of the Organization of American Historians, and a history professor at Stanford University (whose founder Leland Stanford
Here, Professor Ballard Campbell, an expert in American political history, discusses how the political divisions of the 1860s continue to resonate in our politics. Campbell is a Distinguished Lecturer for the Organization of American Historians.
Editor's Note: The Organization of American Historians sent out a mass email to its membership today requesting that they act TODAY, June 22, by calling or faxing their representatives and/or the Committee chair of the House Appropriations Committee,
"The Organization of American Historians & The Writing and Teaching of American History," edited by Richard S. Kirkendall (Oxford University Press, $29.95). This book, a collection of 42 essays by American historians, examines the century-long history
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Manages collaborative projects with outside public history agencies; cultivates new projects by publicizing OAH’s work in public history, making new contacts, and proposing ideas for collaboration to upper management; assists in negotiating terms of OAH’s involvement in public history projects, prepares initial budget projections, identifies researchers for projects and negotiates their terms; solves any problems related to projects; and facilitates the timely completion of contracted projects by monitoring deadlines and anticipating setbacks.
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Organization of American Historians, Program of the ninety-second annual meeting, April 22-25, 1999, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Organization of American Historians, Program of the ninety-first annual meeting, April 2-5, 1998, Indianapolis, Ind.; The West Hotel, Indiana Convention Center and Hyatt Regency Hotel
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