Beyond Rhetoric: The Demands of Citizenship

American leaders have called for patriotism since our country was first imagined, and the populace has generally risen to the call. But for just as long, the nature--even the desirability--of patriotism has been hotly debated. The following excerpts from the writing of Americans past and present examine patriotism and the demands it makes on thoughtful citizens.

The true patriot ... will enquire into the causes of the fears and jealousies of his countrymen; and if he finds they are not groundless, he will be far from endeavoring to allay or stifle them. On the contrary, he will by all proper means in his power foment and cherish them. He will, as far as he is able, keep the attention of his fellow citizens awake to their grievances; and not suffer them to be at rest, till the causes of their just complaints are removed.

--Samuel Adams, essay in the Boston Gazette, 1771

Honor, justice and humanity call upon us to hold, and to transmit to our posterity, that liberty, which we received from our ancestors. It is not our duty to leave wealth to our children: but it is our duty, to leave liberty to them. No infamy, iniquity, or cruelty, can exceed our own, if we, born and educated in a country of freedom, entitled to its blessings, and knowing their value, pusillanimously deserting the post assigned to us by Divine Providence, surrender succeeding generations to a condition of wretchedness, from which no human efforts, in all probability, will be sufficient to extricate them.

--John Dickenson, Resolutions of Committee for the Province of Pennsylvania, 1774

These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in the crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly; ‘tis dearness only that gives everything its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price on its goods; and it would be strange indeed, if so celestial an article as freedom should not be highly rated.’

--Thomas Paine, “The American Crisis,” 1776

Patriotism in the female sex is the most disinterested of all virtues. Excluded from honors and from offices, we cannot attach ourselves to the state or government ....Even in the freest country our property is subject to the control and disposal of our partners, to whom the laws have given a sovereign authority. Deprived of a voice in legislation, obliged to submit to those laws which are imposed upon us, is it not sufficient to make us indifferent to the public welfare? Yet all history and every age exhibit instances of patriotic virtue in the female sex; which considering our situation equals the most heroic of yours. A late writer observes that as citizens we [women] are called upon to exhibit our fortitude, for when you offer your blood to the state, it is ours. In giving [the state] our sons and husbands, we give more than ourselves. You can only die on the field of battle, but we have the misfortune to survive those whom we love most.

--Abigail Adams, wife of the country’s second president, John Adams, from a letter to her husband, 1782

The name of American, which belongs to you, in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of patriotism, more than any appellation derived from local discriminations.

--President George Washington, farewell address, 1796

Each must for himself alone decide what is right and what is wrong, and which course is patriotic and which isn’t. You cannot shirk this and be a man. To decide it against your convictions is to be an unqualified and inexcusable traitor, both to yourself and to your country, let man label you as they may. If you alone of all the nation shall decide one way, and that way be the right way according to your convictions of the right, you have done your duty by yourself and by your country--hold up your head! You have nothing to be ashamed of.

--Mark Twain, “Papers of the Adam Family,” c. 1900

Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the president or any other public official save exactly to the degree in which he himself stands by the country. It is patriotic to support him insofar as he efficiently serves the country. It is unpatriotic not to oppose him to the exact extent that by inefficiency or otherwise he fails in his duty to stand by the country.

--President Theodore Roosevelt, 1908

Indeed, conceit, arrogance, and egotism are the essentials of patriotism. Let me illustrate. Patriotism assumes that our globe is divided into little spots, each one surrounded by an iron gate. Those who have had the fortune of being born on some particular spot, consider themselves better, nobler, grander, more intelligent than the living beings inhabiting any other spot.

--Emma Goldman, speech, 1911

The flag is the embodiment, not of sentiment, but of history. It represents the experiences made by men and women, the experiences of those who do and live under the flag.

--President Woodrow Wilson, speech, 1915

The notion that a radical is one who hates his country is naive and usually idiotic. He is, more likely, one who likes his country more than the rest of us, and is thus more disturbed than the rest of us when he sees it debauched. He is not a bad citizen turning to crime; he is a good citizen driven to despair.

--H.L. Mencken, “Prejudices,” 1919

He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would fully suffice. This disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once. Heroism at command, senseless brutality, deplorable patriotism, how violently I hate all this.

--Albert Einstein, “Ideas and Opinions,” 1954

Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.

--President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, inaugural address, 1961

No matter that patriotism is too often the refuge of scoundrels. Dissent, rebellion, and all-around hell-raising remain the true duty of patriots.

--Barbara Ehrenreich, “The Worst Years of Our Lives,” 1991