My blog-brother, Shaun Kenney, has hit it out of the ballpark!
To announce one's citizenship as an American citizen used to be a calling card to the world. Like the British Empire before us, Americans uniquely enjoyed the status of all things attributed: wealth, power, but a naivete and simplicity that presented the opportunity to appeal to our revolutionary spirit.
But unlike the British, ours was intended to be an empire not of culture and commerce, but of liberty.
Announcing one's citizenship to the world is a calling card, and depending on the circumstances it implied many different things. For the Romans, it meant death. Byzantines, protection. Russians, violence. British, culture.
For Americans, the announcement of one's status as an American was formerly in the vein of missionary zeal. In a Jeffersonian sense, it was the defense of innate human rights. In a Lincolnian sense, one did not belong to a man, but to Divine Providence. In a Wilsonian sense, men had the right to govern themselves.
Go read. NOW.
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