Union

Nineteenth-century contemporaries held their Union created from the American Revolution as the pinnacle of modern political accomplishments. In a monarchical, aristocratic, and oligarchic world, the Union stood as a unique experiment in democratic self-government, restrained by constitutional procedure and popular deference. To destroy the Union was thus to obliterate the American citizenry’s providential calling to display the virtues of liberty to a world governed by tyranny. The Union was nevertheless a striking paradox: it was a republic of liberty and slavery, a nation of democratic inclusion and racial and ethnic exclusion. Marginalized, subordinate, and enslaved Americans thus charged the nation with rank hypocrisy. They employed exceptionalist rhetoric to protest and advocate for equal inclusion in a more perfect Union. Only then, they argued, could the United States be a truly exceptional nation.