E Pluribus Unum

Vol 1                                               Issue 8

           A NATION OF SETTLERS

Here individuals of all nations are melted into a new race of men, whose labours and posterity will one day cause great changes in the world.                           

              J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur

                                                                                                                                   

In 1654, a 29-year- old Englishman named Thomas Norman arrived in Stafford,Virginia. He was one of three indentured servants of Major John Anders. It is estimated that as many as two-thirds of the English colonists who came to America between 1610 and 1700 were indentured servants.  In exchange for passage to America, Thomas Norman agreed to work without wages for five years. He was a blacksmith by trade.  Little more is known of Thomas Norman except that at his death 1,000 acres of Virgina farmland was divided among his five children.  Thomas Norman was no immigrant.  He was an Englishman who was willing to give up a measure of his freedom in exchange for an opportunity for a better life in the English Colony in Virginia. His children were born in America.  His grandson took up arms, serving with General Nathaniel Greene in the American Revolution.  I am not descended from immigrants.  My forefathers are Americans.

The late Harvard professor, Samuel Huntington observes that Americans trace their ancestry not to immigrants but to settlers. "In its origins, America was not a nation of immigrants; it was a society, or societies of settlers, who came to the New World in the 17th and 18th centuries."  Our origins as "an Anglo-Protestant settler society have, more than anything else, profoundly and lastingly shape American culture, institutions, historical development and identity."

From this culture emerged distinctly American values.  Honesty, hard work, respect for others, sanctity of the home, self-sacrifice, commitment to community, human equality and freedom from government interference - are hallmarks of the American Society. At the core of the American soul is found fierce individualism tempered by an abiding faith in God that has produced a common sense of morality.  Similarly, there is the belief that ambition coupled with hard work is the formula for turning opportunity into success.  Collectively Americans believe that this nation has been set apart from other nations. We share a unique destiny and a corresponding responsibility within this world. 

The fabric of this distinctly American culture has been shaped by many immigrants, but such threads are tightly woven into an existing and clearly understood tapestry.  Throughout the history of our nation, the American culture has remained fundamentally unchanged. This shared identity formed the foundation upon which freedom and economic opportunity have flourished.  At no time in the history of the world have such ethnically diverse people been blessed with such material abundance and personal freedom.  As Professor Huntington observes: "The core of our identity is the culture that settlers created, which generations of immigrants have absorbed..."

Over the last thirty years, under the guise of racial and ethnic tolerance, a different view of America has emerged.  America is now seen through the lense of multiculturalism.  Rather than celebrating the richness of the diversity of the American people, proponents of this new vision of America often discard the common history of the nation.  A new hyphenated American has been created and accepted by many as their cultural identity.  The hyphen no longer defines a heritage of the past but proclaims a divided allegiance in the present.

The nation's motto is the Latin phrase - "E Pluribus Unum".  It is translated:  "Out of many - One".  It stands for the proposition that from many people, we have one united country.  Regardless of race or ethnic background each of us have renounced former allegiances and are first and foremost Americans.  In 1994, Vice President Albert Gore advanced an altered translation of the motto reflective of a different America.  While advancing the cause of diversity, he proclaimed the motto to mean:  "Out of one - many."

Unique among all people of the world, an Almighty God has allowed the creation of a nation from unusually diverse individuals. One such person is Hilbert Caesar.  He was born in Guyana.  "I left Guyana when I was 11 years old. My family wanted me to have better opportunities in the United States."  His heart was always American but for most of his life his passport told a different story.  That changed in August 2006.  Standing with the assistance of a cane in a sweltering Immigration Office in Arlington, Virginia, Hilbert Caesar took the oath of citizenship and became an American.  Sergeant Hilbert Caesar lost his leg in Iraq defending the country he adopted as a small boy.  He observed that day:  "I knew I was an American before this. I've always been an American."

All of us should from time to time pause to consider what it means to be an American.  As we pledge allegiance to one nation, under God, we must count the cost of freedom.  Dedicated to the promotion of liberty, and the advancement of justice for all people, citizens of this indivisible nation must reaffirm the principles that form the foundation of our Republic.  These are the very same principles the grandson of an indentured servant fought to establish and the Guyana born soldier has offered his blood to preserve.