Thoughts on American & European Identity

 From Charles Coulombe at The European Conservative:

Giving all possible honour to the contributions of the indigenous, African, and Asiatic peoples to the United States, the fact remains that these contributions—wonderful as they have been—were grafted on to a basic European foundation. With the exception of those elements invented by the Constitutional Convention in 1788-9, all of our State, County, and local governments reflect their European origins, from the Governors down to the Notaries Public. Our Common Law, dominant on the Federal level and in 49 States, comes to us from the Kingdom of England; the land law of our Southwestern States finds its origins in Spain, while Louisiana’s Civil Code derives from the French Code Napoleon. Religiously, when the Supreme Court ruled in the 1892 case Church of the Holy Trinity v. United States that the United States are “a Christian Nation,” the Justices did not only cite contemporary State Constitutions and the practices of then-contemporary everyday life, but also pointed out commissions and charters signed by Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain and Elizabeth I and James I of England. Our oldest National Guard units were raised under King Charles I, unless one includes Puerto Rico’s militia, whose founder was Spain’s Philip II back in 1598. Beyond the country’s official life, our folklore and folk culture has colonial roots, from the Child Ballads recorded in various Eastern States to the Santos of New Mexico.

Of course, the Europe of our pre-independence foundations, the Europe upon which all our post-independence national life has been built, was a far different place from the Europe of today. Even as the Spanish were entering Mexico and preparing to end centuries of bloody Aztec sacrifice, Martin Luther was beginning the revolt that would tear Western Christendom in two. Thus began the process of revolution and war that would end in the de-Sanctification and disenchantment—that is to say, the secularization—of the Mother Continent.

Grown in strength and size, and having struck down Spain in 1898, America contributed far more than our share to this development at Versailles and Yalta. The Altar and Thrones of the Europe; the Christendom; the Res Publica Christiana; the Occident that founded us; all are in deep eclipse. We Americans are separated from our places of origin not only by an ocean of space, but one of time. As Galadriel puts it in The Lord of the Rings:

But if of ships I now should sing, what ship would come to me,

What ship would bear me ever back across so wide a Sea?

What, indeed? For the American—or for that matter, Canadian, Australian, Mexican, Argentine, et cetera—who today returns to the Continents his ancestors left long ago finds only the same wasteland he himself left: a corrupt political and cultural leadership dedicated to murdering its subjects (and ultimately itself) via contraception, infanticide, gender confusion, euthanasia, and spitting upon the heritage of the past. With relatively few and honourable exceptions, a complaisant Church hierarchy is silent in the face of That Hideous Strength, with no few of its clergy aiding said strength to perform its hideousness; of course, those clergy who resist are often punished by their superiors. It is, to be sure, a bleak picture. (Read more.)

Share