One Nation, Indivisible?
April 2022 Imperfect Union
On April 6, 1797, Uriah Tracy wrote a letter to Alexander Hamilton. Tracy was a senator from Connecticut and an ardent Federalist. A few weeks prior, news reports had arrived that the French Directory had kicked Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, the American Minister, out of the country. Outraged, many of the High Federalists (the more extreme faction of the party) began calling for war. Republicans (not the same party as today, instead the Jeffersonian Republicans or Democratic Republicans) urged peace and reconciliation.
I will have a whole lot more on this subject in the next book (currently writing away!), but Tracy’s letter stopped me in my proverbial writing tracks. Maybe some of the words a bit antiquated, but these same sentiments could have been written today. A few nuggets:
“The Southern part of the Union is increasing by frequent importations of foreign scoundrels as well as by those of home manufacture, their country is large & capable of such increase both in population & number of States—that in both houses of Congress, the Northern States will soon be swallowed up, & the name & real character of an American soon be known only as a thing of tradition; add to this the explosion which must sooner or later derive itself from their Slaves,”
This section is valuable for a couple of reasons. First, Tracy complains that immigrants are being imported for political purposes. That old trick. In some ways, Tracy’s concerns were accurate. Sort of. Most immigrants, whether they be French or Irish, did vote for Republicans in overwhelming numbers. But Republicans weren’t importing them for votes.
Next, Tracy indicates that he is aware of the population imbalance facing the nation, largely driven by a growing enslaved population. An enslaved population that provided additional representation for the South, while keeping the same people in bondage. Eighteenth-century Americans knew how divisive slavery could be, which inherently means that not everyone was on board with slavery. Which is important to keep in mind when someone says “let’s judge people based on their standards, not ours.” Tracy’s letter also reveals that he had a sense of the trouble slavery might cause for the Union down the road.
With all these concerns—immigration, slavery, and undue French influence among certain parties—Tracy writes,
“All these, & many more painful facts induce me to believe a separation absolutely necessary to preserve an independence in a part, which could not be done united. We are really so different in manners in opinion and in activity & exertion, that the Northern States have been a number of years carrying the Southern on their backs…In this view of the subject, I cannot be brought to regret a separation.”
If you find the eighteenth-century writing style confusing, Tracy is essentially saying that the North and South are so different that they should be separate nations.
This section really stood out because just a few days prior, I had seen this tweet from Michael Beschloss:
“Some people on Twitter are now saying that in light of what we now know, Lincoln should have simply allowed the South to secede in 1861. Anyone wish to react to this?”
My friend, Kevin Levin, wrote a piece about why this tweet is problematic for the Civil War:
…Tracy’s letter shows it’s nothing new. While the concept of splitting the states in half might have worked in the 1797 (although not really because the same concerns that applied in 1860 per Kevin’s post above, also applied in the 1790s), the idea is even more insane today. From a practical perspective, how do you cut out cities like Dallas, Austin, Chicago, Denver, or Cleveland from the more conservative areas surrounding them? How do you cut out conservative areas like Orange County or the southwestern portion of Virginia from more liberal states? Not to mention, if you were going to put the blue states into one nation, how do you connect California with New York?
We should also reject these notions from an ideological position. More moderate politicians, like George Washington and John Adams, knew that the nation was better as one unit than thirteen countries or even a few regional blocs. In previous posts, I’ve written about Washington’s Farewell Address and this argument was one of the main themes. He reminded readers, and future generations, that the states needed each other to flourish economically. The South needed the merchant marine in the North to sell its goods, and the North needed the South’s good to sell on its ships. The states needed each other for national defense—alone or in groups they would be prey to whims of European empires.
But most importantly, Washington argued, Americans had more in common than not. Sure, they might disagree on which nation should be the closest ally. And they might bicker over politics. But there was a national identity around which Americans should rally. At least a tiny baby one in 1796.
To be sure, in 2022, we have lots of divisions. I’ve lived all over the nation and sometimes it feels like there are tons of different countries. I get it. But there is an American identity, an American history, and an American ideal. We rarely meet that ideal and the history is often messy. But we should keep striving for it anyway. The phrase “to form a more perfection union” is apt. It’s never been and never will be perfect, but we can keep trying.
I think about that unity a lot at moments like the one we are living through. We are witnessing a deadly fight of democracy versus autocracy in Ukraine and the bravery and dedication of the Ukrainian people is inspiring. I really believe they aren’t just fighting for their nation; they are fighting for democracy and self-government everywhere. Yet a lot of Americans (and a lot of public officials) seem more consumed by the opportunity to score a political point off the crisis. (Looking at you Josh Hawley, see Heather Cox Richardson’s Letter from an American):
Now, more than ever seems like a good opportunity to rally around the flag, rather than try to tear it down.