What actually makes America special? It’s not any specific religion, country of origin, ethnicity, or economic status. But some people talk about immigration in terms of who should be allowed into the US based on these random categories. They would say you cant have a successful nation without some commonality in those things.
This was a concern during colonial times, but amongst the various colonies as they considered each so different.
John Adams put those differences into perspective in a letter to Hezekiah Niles: “The Colonies had grown up under Constitutions of Government, So different, there was so great a Variety of Religions, they were composed of So many different Nations, their Customs, Manners and Habits had So little resemblance, and their Intercourse had been so rare and their Knowledge of each other So imperfect, that to unite them in the Same Principles in Theory and the Same System of Action was certainly a very difficult Enterprize. The compleat Accomplishment of it, in So Short a time and by Such Simple means, was perhaps a Singular Example in the History of Mankind. Thirteen Clocks were made to Strike together; a perfection of Mechanism which no Artist had ever before effected.”
So what was the unique value? What brought the disparate people together despite those differences?
Adams wrote,”This radical Change in the Principles, Opinions Sentiments and Affection of the People, was the real American Revolution.”
The shared value was every human’s natural rights. And to form a country, for the first time in history, built to purposefully limit government in order to protect those rights–this was unique.
The spirit of the revolution was flushed out for the early Americans in Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, which was so widely bought and circulated that it outsold every book but the bible in its time. Just a few months later, Jefferson wrote the most famous break-up letter in world history–citing those same rights to declare independence from Britain.
The spirit and legal foundation of America was not shared demographics of any kind. It was the self-evident rights we all possess as humans. And from this philosophical formula (personal freedom + economic freedom = prosperity), America grew faster and more prosperous than any country that had ever existed.
Any person from any country was welcome–regardless of country of origin, ethnicity, or religion. They were not offered equality of outcomes–only equality in their opportunities.
That’s the uniqueness of America. That’s what has worked so well for over 200 years–not any certain type of person or specific government program. Its that government got out of the way, and allowed every person to pursue their natural rights to life, liberty, and happiness.
We have been abandoning this uniqueness for decades now. Its time to change course.
Thanks to Perplexity AI for image.
