American nationalism

American nationalism has found expression throughout American history. The first Naturalization Act of 1790 passed by Congress and signed into law by George Washington defined American identity and citizenship on racial lines, declaring that only "free white men of good character" could become citizens, and denying citizenship to enslaved black people and anyone of non-European stock; thus it was a form of ethnic nationalism. Some American scholars have argued that the United States government institutionalized a civic nationalism founded upon legal and rational concepts of citizenship, being based on common language and cultural traditions, and that the Founding Fathers of the United States established the country upon liberal and individualist principles.

History

Colonial

The United States traces its origins to the Thirteen Colonies founded by Britain in the 17th and early 18th century. Residents identified with Britain until the mid-18th century when the first sense of being "American" emerged. The Albany Plan proposed a union between the colonies in 1754. Although unsuccessful, it served as a reference for future discussions of independence.

American Revolution

Soon afterward, the colonies faced several common grievances over acts passed by the British Parliament, including taxation without representation. Americans were in general agreement that only their own colonial legislatures—and not Parliament in London—could pass internal taxes. Parliament vigorously insisted otherwise and no compromise was found. The London government punished Boston for the Boston Tea Party, and the Thirteen Colonies united and formed the Continental Congress, which lasted from 1774 to 1789. Fighting broke out in 1775 and the sentiment swung to independence in early 1776, influenced significantly by the appeal to American nationalism by Thomas Paine. His pamphlet Common Sense was a runaway best seller in 1776, read aloud in taverns and coffee houses. Congress unanimously issued a Declaration of Independence announcing a new nation of independent states had formed, the United States of America. American Patriots won the American Revolutionary War and received generous peace terms from Britain in 1783. The minority of Loyalists (loyal to King George III) could remain or leave, but about 80% remained and became full American citizens. Frequent parades along with new rituals and ceremonies—and a new flag—provided popular occasions for expressing a spirit of American nationalism.

The new nation operated under the very weak national government set up by the Articles of Confederation, and most Americans prioritized their state over the nation. Nationalists led by George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, and James Madison had Congress call a constitutional convention in 1787. It produced the Constitution for a strong national government which was debated in every state and unanimously adopted. It went into effect in 1789 as the first modern constitutional liberal democracy based on the consent of the governed, with Washington as the first President.

Westward Expansion

In an 1858 speech, future President Abraham Lincoln alluded to a form of American civic nationalism originating from the tenets of the Declaration of Independence as a force for national unity in the United States, stating that it was a method for uniting diverse peoples of different ethnic ancestries into a common nationality:

If they look back through this history to trace their connection with those days by blood, they find they have none, they cannot carry themselves back into that glorious epoch and make themselves feel that they are part of us, but when they look through that old Declaration of Independence they find that those old men say that "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal", and then they feel that moral sentiment taught in that day evidences their relation to those men, that it is the father of all moral principle in them, and that they have a right to claim it as though they were blood of the blood, and flesh of the flesh of the men who wrote the Declaration, and so they are. That is the electric cord in that Declaration that links the hearts of patriotic and liberty-loving men together, that will link those patriotic hearts as long as the love of freedom exists in the minds of men throughout the world.

— Abraham Lincoln, address to Chicagoan voters, July 10, 1858

American Civil War

White Northerners increasingly felt alienated; they saw themselves as becoming second-class citizens as aggressive slaveholders (and their Northern allies) tried to block their access to the fast-growing western territories. Meanwhile, Southerners questioned whether their loyalty to the nation trumped their commitment to their state and their way of life since it was so intimately bound up with slavery and whether they could enslave people. A sense of Southern nationalism was starting to emerge; however, it was rudimentary as late as 1860 when the election of Lincoln was a signal for most of the slave states in the South to secede and form a new nation. The Confederate government insisted the nationalism was real and imposed increasing burdens on the population in the name of independence and nationalism. The fierce combat record of the Confederates demonstrates their commitment to the death for independence. The government and army refused to compromise and were militarily overwhelmed in 1865. By the 1890s, the white South felt vindicated through its belief in the newly constructed memory of the Lost Cause of the Confederacy. The North came to accept or at least tolerate racial segregation and disfranchisement of black voters in the South. The spirit of American nationalism had returned to Dixie.

Reconstruction, Gilded Age and Progressive Era

The North's triumph in the American Civil War marked a significant transition in American national identity. The ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment settled the fundamental question of national identity, such as the criteria for becoming a citizen of the United States. Everyone born in the territorial boundaries of the United States or those areas and subject to its jurisdiction was an American citizen, regardless of ethnicity or social status (indigenous people on reservations became citizens in 1924, while indigenous people off reservations had always been citizens).

In the early 20th century, one of the highest-profile advocates for American nationalism was Theodore Roosevelt. Roosevelt's policies both at home and abroad, which came to be known as the New Nationalism, included an element of a strong national identity. He insisted that one had to be 100% American, not a hyphenated American who juggled multiple loyalties.

With a fast-growing industrial economy, immigrants were welcome from Europe, Canada, Mexico, and Cuba, and millions came. Becoming a full citizen was easy, requiring the completion of paperwork over five years. However, new Asian arrivals were not welcome. The U.S. imposed restrictions on most Chinese immigrants in the 1880s and informal restrictions on most Japanese in 1907. By 1924, it was difficult for any Asian to enter the United States, but children born in the United States to Asian parents were full citizens. The restrictions were ended on the Chinese in the 1940s and on other Asians in 1965.

World Wars and interwar period

After the United States entered World War I, nationalism surged. Americans enlisted in the military en masse, motivated by propaganda and war films. There was very little resistance to conscription.

By the First World War, many native-born Protestants were skeptical of recent immigrants to the United States, who were often Catholic or Jewish and spoke languages other than English in their daily lives. There was a strong belief among many in favor of "one hundred percent Americanism", in contrast to "hyphenated Americanism". This was exemplified by the film The Birth of a Nation in 1915 and the rise of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1910s and 20s. In the early- to-mid 20th century, public school education became compulsory in many jurisdictions, with parochial schools being restricted or outlawed. The school day typically began with the Pledge of Allegiance. It was in this milieu that the Immigration Act of 1924 was passed to regulate immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe. However, during this period, citizenship was also extended to Native Americans, both on- and off-reservation, for the first time.

World War II led to unprecedented nationalism in the United States. After the 1941 Attack on Pearl Harbor, many Americans enlisted in the military. During the war, much of American life centered on contributing to the war effort, mainly through volunteer efforts, entry into the labor force, rationing, price controls, and income saving. Citizens willingly accepted these sacrifices out of a sense of nationalism, feeling they were for the greater good. Even members of anti-war groups like the pacifist churches, anti-war movement, and conscientious objectors abandoned their pacifism for the sake of the war, feeling that World War II was a just war.

Cold War

Following World War II and beginning with the Cold War, the United States emerged as a world superpower and abandoned its traditional policy of isolationism in favor of interventionism. With this, nationalism took on a new form in the U.S., as Americans began to view their country as a world police with the ultimate goal of eradicating communism from the world. This nationalist fervor was fueled by US involvement in the Korean War, Vietnam War, Bay of Pigs Invasion, and many other conflicts.

Modern era

The September 11 attacks of 2001 led to a wave of nationalist expression in the United States. The start of the war on terror was accompanied by a rise in military enlistment that included not only lower-income Americans but also middle-class and upper-class citizens. This nationalism continued long into the War in Afghanistan and Iraq War.