Since our founding, a strong union has been the lodestar guiding the nation’s path

GOVERNMENT

This past July 4, our 246th, some celebrated with drinks, fireworks and music. Others abstained, seeing little to rejoice in, and beset by doubts about our future as a nation. It is to this second group that these words are addressed.

Granted, there’s reason for concern. In the last three presidential elections, red and blue contingents matched up pretty evenly, suggesting a near-perfect polarization. Gone are political centrists like Nelson Rockefeller, Tip O’Neill and Ted Kennedy, makers of backroom deals with their political opponents. Compromise seems impossible. Right and left, urban and rural, rich and poor, digital and analog, religious and unreligious — all are pitted again each other.

Hardline Republican conservatives disparage Democrats as socialists eager to surrender all prerogatives to government and blind to what has made this country great. Democrats, conversely, contend that Republicans are naïve brutes, unable to understand complex problems, and attached to an era of American life both antiquated and inequitable. Republicans ridicule Democrats for campaigning on critical race theory, the alleged subversion of our electoral process, the evils of secure borders, and considering gender a matter of choice, not biology.

Democrats are appalled at Republican ascendency in the courts and the determination to defend the rights of the unborn while insisting on the availability of guns (especially assault rifles) in the face of numerous school shootings.

Such heated, divisive rhetoric makes it difficult for either party to govern effectively. Meanwhile, systemic issues pull everyone apart: continued economic dependency on carbon, dangerous weather patterns, rampant inflation. Small wonder that many despair the center cannot hold, that the nation is likely to break apart at the seams. Some actually welcome this prospect, saying the country is too mottled to bring its disparate cultures together.

This last notion is misguided. A balkanized United States comprising separate regional republics would resemble the warring fiefdoms of the Middle Ages. How could such an arrangement improve our security or our economy?

During the Civil War, both sides considered forming alliances with various powers in the old world. Had this occurred, the U.S. would have faced a perpetual risk of colonization. We would neither have emerged as a dominant world power nor fought on behalf of freedom in both World Wars and the Cold War.

In truth, union has always been an abiding American strength. That’s not to say it has been easy to achieve.

Alexander Hamilton, in Federalist 85, echoes David Hume’s warning that to balance a large state or society is “a work of great difficulty.” Our revolution almost failed in 1776 due to the states’ different visions of the aims of independence and how much each state should contribute to the larger whole.

Thomas Jefferson believed that states should maintain rights and power, with only limited federal intervention. Hamilton, in contrast, thought that without a strong central government, the country would be weak and subject to invasion. Using Great Britain as a model, he advocated for such things as the Constitution, a funded national debt, national defense and the means to keep state governments in check.

Since our founding, a strong union has been the lodestar guiding our path. Abraham Lincoln chose to preserve the Union. Ulysses S. Grant fought to achieve that aim. Closer to our time, union has been the goal of Presidents Franklin Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson, Gerald Ford, George W. Bush, and now Joe Biden. All recognized it as the bulwark of liberty and made corresponding sacrifices.

America has advanced the idea of union more persistently and successfully than any other nation. We recognize that our country is large enough in size and spirit to enable peoples of diverse backgrounds, outlooks and lifestyles to abide in it peacefully. That is why we have the First Amendment. And that is why our Constitution makes no provision for an established church.

Our first president spoke often of the promise of the new American Republic as ensuring every citizen the right to sit under the shade of his own vine and fig tree in security, able to think and talk openly and free from fear of his neighbor.

It is hard to imagine Washington’s vision could have been realized — as it has for millions for more than two centuries — if not by virtue of our strong union. Esto perpetua: May she endure forever.

Paul Forte is CEO of Portsmouth-based FedPoint.