At the moment Americans seem to agree that we’ve somehow lost our way. Beyond that, we quarrel. Some yearn for an imagined past – making America great again - forgetting that for many – women, people of color, immigrants – that past wasn’t so great. Others demand a future we can believe in, ignoring the complexity of that word we.
Indeed, both groups tend to assume that we simply means other people like them, who share a common outlook on life. Conflicting responses to the Orlando tragedy offer disheartening evidence to this effect. We seem unable to grasp that we is all of us. We’re stuck with each other; no one is backing down; no one is leaving. As Jesse Jackson once put it, “We came on different ships, but we’re all in the same boat.”
The Founders understood that. On July 4, 1776, Congress appointed John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson to devise a seal for the new republic. They enlisted the aid of artist Pierre Du Simitière, a Swiss immigrant, who proposed including the words E Pluribus Unum – out of many, one.
As historian John MacDonald argues, Du Simitiere’s inspiration probably came from The Gentleman’s Magazine, a popular monthly digest of news and commentary. At year’s end, editors combined twelve issues into one volume and put on the cover a picture of a hand holding a bouquet of flowers with the inscription e pluribus unum. This represents a co-existence of individual entities rather than a melting pot blending everything together.
The phrase reflected the challenge the founders faced: how to bring thirteen independent entities together willingly into a functioning union. The symbolism of the bouquet illustrated the problem: Which was more important: the flowers, or the hand holding them? Clearly both – the bouquet wouldn’t exist otherwise.
It’s too bad the bouquet didn’t make it onto the Great Seal along with the motto, for today we apparently believe e pluribus unum is fact. We are one.
We aren’t; never have been. Bringing the many into one was and remains aspirational. We is many people, not one gathering of other folks like us.
If we can accept that we may indeed have a chance to make America great with a future we – all of us – can believe in.
Happy Birthday!
