E Pluribus Unum

Maybe you, like me, have been watching the new documentary from Ken Burns, The American Revolution. Something that one of the historians said struck me and got me to thinking about unity — a theme for that era and our own.

We don’t hear much Latin spoken these days. I guess there’s a good reason it’s called a “dead language.” Actually, since no one speaks it as a native language, it’s been dead for centuries, but countless people have resurrected it for a variety of purposes.

Take the phrase “E Pluribus Unum,” which appears on the Great Seal of the United States (and was the nation’s motto until 1956, when it was replaced with “In God We Trust”). Even if you did not study Latin in high school, you may know that “E Pluribus Unum” means “Out of many, one.”

That phrase came back to me the other day after I watched the new documentary by Ken Burns, The American Revolution. In the first installment, which aired on PBS on Sunday, historian Christopher Brown makes an intriguing — and inspiring — observation about a force behind the revolution, which began in 1775 with the battles at Lexington and Concord:

“I’m not sure there is a state, anywhere in the world, in the late 18th century, that has as wide variety of people who inhabit it. And, so, it really is actually kind of remarkable, the way that that nation ends up cohering, not around culture, not around religion, not around ancient history. It was coming together around a set of purposes and ideals for one common cause.”

If you grew up in the United States, as I did, you may take such variety for granted, but it’s not all that common among nations over the course of history. When people live in relative isolation for centuries, they tend to share religious beliefs and cultural values, and, of course, they have the same ethnic backgrounds. Until the Reformation in the early 16th century, for example, several European countries were largely Catholic. Even as late as the eighteenth century, when the American Revolution took place, Britain was largely homogeneous in some respects. Although it had some Catholics and breakaway religious sects, such as the Quakers, roughly nine of ten Britons belonged to the Church of England. Despite some immigration — particularly by Muslims or Jews — Spain and Italy were almost entirely Catholic. In all of these countries, a very large percentage of the people were ethnically identical and spoke the same languages: English, Spanish, or Italian.

As Brown notes, the American colonies were different. Because of immigration from a wide variety of places, as well as the presence of indigenous peoples, the population consisted of hundreds of thousands — and eventually millions-of people with different beliefs, languages, and traditions.

The Reality Behind the Images

The heterogeneous nature of the colonial population is not evident from the traditional images of, say, the Mayflower Pilgrims or the Jamestown settlers (although even these two groups did not share religious beliefs). England was, indeed, the source of many of the colonists who settled in America in the seventeenth century, but things changed dramatically over the next century and a half. Historian Mildred Campbell explains:

In fact, after 1718 labor shortages at home induced the British government to place restrictions on emigration, especially of skilled artisans and other laborers needed in Britain’s nascent industries. It was this scarcity of emigrants from Britain that induced colonial authorities to permit the immigration of non-English nationalities.

Thanks to the pluralistic vision of William Penn, whom we saw in last week’s column, Pennsylvania was particularly heterogeneous, as historian Vincent Parrillo notes:

It was in Pennsylvania, the most heavily populated of the Middle Colonies with almost 300,000 residents, where the most ethnic and religious diversity existed on the eve of the Revolution. With its Quaker inspired religious tolerance and liberal land policies serving as important lures, Pennsylvania superseded all other colonies in attracting a mixed group of non-English immigrants.

As Parrillo points out, Philadelphia alone was home to immigrants from Denmark, the Netherlands, Finland, Sweden, France, Germany, Ireland, and Scotland.

The makeup of the various regions of the 13 colonies — New England, the Middle Colonies, and the South — varied, but all featured a wide variety of nationalities. In the South, Parrillo reports, the population in 1776 was 39.2 percent African, 37.4 percent English, 7 percent Scots, 3.9 percent indigenous, 3.8 percent Scots-Irish, and 3.5 percent German with a few other nationalities, as well.

Partly because of these different homelands, Americans’ religious beliefs and practices varied, as well. Among the residents of this new nation were Anglicans, Presbyterians, Quakers, Lutherans, Mennonites, Congregationalists, and Dunkers, along with indigenous and African peoples with their own beliefs.

These various national and religious backgrounds naturally meant that Americans had a variety of rituals, customs, and traditions, as well.

All of these differences can come between various peoples, and, in America, they did. Some of the conflicts — between European settlers and indigenous peoples, for example — were dramatic, and some were more modest. Ultimately, however, as Brown observes, enough people from different backgrounds managed to get on the same page to form a nation.

To use Brown’s word, that is indeed a remarkable fact, perhaps one of the most remarkable in the history of human politics.

Now, what do we do with it?

I have a thought.

Our Turn

The Latin of “E pluribus unum” may be dead, but the meaning of those words can and should remain alive. If millions of Americans of different backgrounds, beliefs, and traditions could come together then, when a nation was merely a notion, we ought to be able to do the same today.

Let us reflect on the sacrifices, the dedication, the unimaginably arduous work that we see in the men and women of the American Revolution and commit ourselves to sustaining what they began.

Out of many, we still can be one.

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