Abstract
Alexis de Tocqueville referred to these types of patriotism as “instinctive” and “reflective” patriotism. The juxtaposition resembles the difference between ethnic and civic nationalism, between a primeval loyalty to the nation, “unadulterated” by any values on which that nation might have been founded, and a loyalty to that community’s specific ideals.2 As such, the dichotomy perfectly describes imperialist and anti-imperialist disagreements about patriotism. The imperialists enlisted de Tocqueville’s instinctive patriotism and asked for their compatriots’ support because the nation was at war and national unity and determination were allegedly required to win.3 Dissent was defined as “unpatriotic” because it undermined unity. The anti-imperialists, by contrast, relied on a “reflective” patriotism, defining their loyalty to the United States in terms of its democratic ideals. This definition was essential in order for the critics to justify dissent itself as a patriotic endeavor. This subdebate on patriotism and the right to dissent once again captured the emphases on “nation” and “democracy.”
There is a patriotism which mainly springs from the disinterested, undefinable, and unpondered feeling that ties a man’s heart to the place where he was born … Like all unpondered passions, this patriotism impels men to great ephemeral efforts, but not to continuous endeavor. Having saved the state in time of crisis, it often lets it decay in time of peace … There is also another sort of patriotism more rational than that; less generous, perhaps less ardent, but more creative and more lasting, it is engendered by enlightenment, grows by the aid of laws and the exercise of rights.
Alexis de Tocqueville (1835/1840)1
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Notes
Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, ed. J. P. Mayer, trans. George Lawrence (1966; rpt. New York, Grand Rapids: Perennial Library, 1988), 235–7.
Compare Jonathan M. Hansen, The Lost Promise of Patriotism: Debating American Identity, 1890–1920 (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2003), 8–9;
Susan Brewer, Why America Fights: Patriotism and War Propaganda from the Philippines to Iraq (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 12–3.
John Bodnar, “The Attractions of Patriotism,” in John Bodnar, ed., Bonds of Affection: Americans Define Their Patriotism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996), 3–17;
Liah Greenfeld, Nationalism: Five Roads to Modernity (Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press, 1992), 11.
Tocquevilles “reflective” patriotism was the first type to emerge after the French Revolution; Eric J. Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism since 1780 (2nd ed.; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 87.
Contrary to Cecilia O’Leary, I would argue that this “chauvinist variety of patriotism” already asserted itself before World War I, in the imperialism debate. It is a type of “wartime patriotism,” designed to rally the people around the flag; Cecilia O’Leary, To Die For: The Paradox of American Patriotism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999), 8.
On censorship, see Stuart Creighton Miller, “Benevolent Assimilation”: The American Conquest of the Philippines, 1899–1903 (New Haven, CT, and London: Yale University Press, 1982), 82–8.
The Atkinson episode in Robert L. Beisner, Twelve Against Empire: The Anti-Imperialists 1898–1900 (1968; rpt., 2nd ed.; Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1985), 99–101;
E. Berkeley Tompkins, Anti-Imperialism in the United States: The Great Debate, 1890–1920 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1970), 206–10.
Edward Atkinson, “The Thinking Bayonet,” Letter to the Editor of the New York Times, June 14, 1899; rpt. Atkinson, The Anti-Imperialist 1 (July 4, 1899), 42; Zeisler, “Democracy or Tyranny,” CAIL, Chicago liberty Meeting, April 30, 1899 (Chicago: CAIL, 1899), 29.
E. L. Godkin, “Suppression,” The Nation 68 (May 25, 1899), 388;
William G. Sumner, “The Predominant Issue,” International Monthly 2 (November 1900): 504–5.
Theodore Roosevelt, “The Strenuous Life,” in State of New York, ed., Public Papers of Theodore Roosevelt, Governor—1899 (Albany: Brandow Printing Co., 1899), 297; Roosevelt, “Response to the Toast ‘The State of New York,’ at the Lincoln Club Dinner, New York City,” February 13, 1899, ibid., 265;
John R. Procter, “Hawaii and the Changing Front of the World,” Forum 24 (1898), 45;
William McKinley, “Speech at Banquet of the Ohio Society of New York,” March 3, 1900, in William McKinley, Speeches and Addresses of William McKinley, from March 1, 1897 to May 30, 1900 (New York: Doubleday & McClure, 1900), 364.
Fabian Hilfrich, “Manliness and ‘Realism:’ The Use of Gendered Tropes in the Debates on the Philippine-American and Vietnam Wars,” in Jessica Gienow-Hecht and Frank Schumacher, eds., Culture and International History (New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2003), 60–78.
Albert J. Beveridge, “The Star of Empire,” in Albert J. Beveridge, The Meaning of the Times and Other Speeches (Indianapolis: Bobbs Merrill, 1908), 141–2;
McKinley, “Address at Minneapolis, Minnesota, October 12, 1899,” Speeches and Addresses, 262–9; F. M. Kail, What Washington Said: Administration Rhetoric and the Vietnam War, 1949–1969 (New York and Evanston: Harper Torchbooks, 1973), 218–9.
Lyman to Roosevelt, September 25, 1898, Reel 3, Roosevelt Papers; Beveridge, The Balance Sheet, Speech at Minneapolis, September 27, 1900, Box 297, Beveridge Papers. On shifting blame, see Maria C. Lanzar, “The Anti-Imperialist League,” PSSR 3 (August 1930), 31.
Sharing contemporary imperialist opinion is John M. Gates, “Philippine Guerrillas, American Anti-Imperialists, and the Election of 1900,” PHR 46 (February 1977), 51–64.
McKinley, “Speech at Denison, Iowa, October 11, 1898,” Speeches and Addresses, 97–8; Beveridge, The Balance Sheet, Speech at Minneapolis, Sept. 27, 1900, Box 297, Beveridge Papers. On Bryan’s motivations to pass the peace treaty for fear of being branded a traitor otherwise, see Paolo E. Coletta, “Bryan, McKinley, and the Treaty of Paris,” PHR 26 (May 1957), 131–46.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, “The Soldier’s Faith,” Commencement Address, Harvard University, May 30, 1895, Richard Posner, ed., The Essential Holmes: Selections from the Letters, Speeches, Judicial Opinions, and other Writings of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), rpt. Harvard Regiment Website, http://harvardregiment.org/holmesfa.htm [accessed February 3, 2011]. Roosevelt was supposedly so impressed that he eventually nominated Holmes to the Supreme Court. Speech of Attorney General Griggs at Evansville, IN, October 11, 1899, Reel 83, McKinley Papers.
Thomas Jones, Address before the Varick Lyceum, Washington, D.C., n.d., rpt. Washington Bee (May 7, 1898), 4; compare “The Negro in the Impending Crisis,” Colored American, March 19, 1898; “Destiny of the Negro,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 14, 1898; “War Has Been Declared,” Broad Ax, April 30, 1898. The ideal of the citizen-soldier discussed in Manfred Berg, “Soldiers and Citizens: War and Voting Rights in American History,” in David K. Adams and Cornelis A. van Minnen, eds., Reflections on American Exceptionalism (Staffordshire, UK: Ryburn Publishing, 1994), 188–225.
Booker T. Washington, “The Better Part,” Address at the Peace Jubilee, Chicago, October 16, 1898, in Robert I. Fulton and Thomas C. Trueblood, eds., Patriotic Eloquence Relating to the Spanish-American War and its Issues (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1900), 331. For this discussion during the Philippine-American War, see Editorials, Colored America, September 16, 1899; “Negro Troops for Philippines,” Washington Bee, April 29, 1899; Resolution of the Western Negro Press Association in “Voice of the Western Press,” Broad Ax, October 8, 1898.
On black officers, see Willard B. Gatewood, Jr., Black Americans and the White Man’s Burden, 1898–1903 (Urbana, Chicago, and London: University of Illinois Press, 1975), Chapter 4.
Grover Cleveland, “Good Citizenship,” Commencement Address at Lawrenceville School, June 21, 1898, excerpts in New York Times, June 22, 1898; William Graham Sumner, “The Conquest of the United States by Spain,” 1898, rpt. Sumner, War and Other Essays (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1919), 301 (emphasis mine);
Carnegie, “The Presidential Election—Our Duty,” NAR 171 (October 1900), 497.
Beveridge, “Grant, the Practical,” Meaning of the Times, 38; compare General Wheeler, Speech excerpt in Springfield Republican, May 30, 1899. For Schurz’s comment in 1872, see Hans L. Trefousse, Carl Schurz: A Biography (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1982), 180; in the imperialism debate, see Schurz, “The Policy of Imperialism ” Address at the Anti-Imperialist Conference in Chicago, October 17, 1899; rpt. CR, 56/1, 1900, Appendix: 163.
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© 2012 Fabian Hilfrich
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Hilfrich, F. (2012). The Right to Dissent and the Meaning of Patriotism. In: Debating American Exceptionalism. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230392908_8
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