“Let our answer be this: America, with the same voice which spoke herself into existence as a nation, proclaimed to mankind the inextinguishable rights of human nature, and the only lawful foundations of government. America, in the assembly of nations, since her admission among them, has invariably, though often fruitlessly, held forth to them the hand of honest friendship, of equal freedom, of generous reciprocity. She has uniformly spoken among them, though often to heedless and often to disdainful ears, the language of equal liberty, of equal justice, and of equal rights. She has, in the lapse of nearly half a century, without a single exception, respected the independence of other nations while asserting and maintaining her own. […]
But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. She will commend the general cause by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example. She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force. […] She might become the dictatress of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit. […]
[America’s] glory is not dominion, but liberty. Her march is the march of the mind. She has a spear and a shield: but the motto upon her shield is, Freedom, Independence, Peace. This has been her Declaration: this has been, as far as her necessary intercourse with the rest of mankind would permit, her practice.”
This is an American project worth defending. It focuses above all on being American — on cultivating the virtues of friendship, freedom, generosity, reciprocity, equality, liberty and justice. Being American means having a certain kind of character — it means living one’s values. This is both much harder and much easier than being a global empire, with hands and interests in every conflict and a demand that other countries submit to our interests.
After our victory against the Axis powers alongside the Soviet Union in World War II, the United States became a global empire on a historically unprecedented scale. This led us to do the opposite of what Adams exhorted; we overextended ourselves militarily, economically, and politically in a way that undermined the traditions of liberty, friendship and generosity that guided our character as a people. We have ballooned our national debt and destroyed millions of well-paying jobs, progressively impoverished our people and sowed domestic unrest. In our foreign policy, we have often behaved in ways utterly inconsistent with our founding values. This has disillusioned generations of young Americans who believed in their country and wanted to serve it only to discover that their government’s actions did not conform to its stated ideals. Psychologists call this “moral injury”, a kind of psychological trauma experienced as a profound personal violation akin to rape or assault.
In order to re-found America, we must remember who we are. America and Americans stand for liberty, not dominion. This call for re-founding is therefore a calling for us to become better people — and for others, whose autonomy and independence we respect, to become better as well, on their own terms. Americans will lead by example, not by force. In this way, we can again uplift our own people and transform the world.
The only question is; are we the people who can do it?
