You, the People: American National Identity in Presidential Rhetoric (review)

You, the People: American National Identity in Presidential Rhetoric, by Vanessa B. Beasley, addresses the president's role in shaping the country's notion of national identity. As she points out, the United States is one of the most diverse nations on earth, and the task of bringing together such disparate elements into a unified whole is not an easy one. But as the only national leader, it generally falls to the president to make an effort to define what is meant by the term "American," and Beasley examines presidential inaugural addresses and state of the union speeches to look for trends in how presidents have talked about the political community that is the United States. She ultimately finds that, between 1885 and 2002, the time period she studies, there has been significant uniformity in the way presidents have constructed a national identity. Specifically, Beasley finds that presidents often link identity with civil religious themes, which has sometimes made it possible for presidents to exclude certain people from the national community because they do not possess the proper American ideals.

Beasley addresses the issue of national identity with respect to three specific issues that were important during the time period she studies: immigrants, race, and women. She is interested in how presidents have managed to include (or exclude) these groups in their own notion of the American people. For all three, she finds that presidents are somewhat contradictory in how they talk about the collectivity. On the one hand, presidents tend to emphasize the common values shared by all Americans as one strategy to include everyone under the umbrella of "Americanism." On the other hand, she finds that frequent references to civil religious themes suggest that only certain citizens qualify for membership in the group. For instance, in her discussion of how presidents address gender issues, she demonstrates that presidential rhetoric often excluded women from active membership in the polity because they were supposed to protect the home and raise children. While that theme changed as women's role in society evolved, she quotes a passage from George H. W. Bush's inaugural address in which he says that young women "need our care, our guidance, and our education," suggesting that the theme of women as existing outside the sphere of active citizenry remains significant (147).

You, the People offers a nuanced examination of presidential rhetoric as it applies to notions of national identity. Beasley is persuasive in demonstrating how presidential rhetoric can simultaneously embrace the diversity in the United States and subtly exclude immigrants, minorities, and women. Given her reliance on state of the union addresses and inaugural addresses, however, it is hard to see that she would find otherwise. As she points out in her introduction, these genres are the most formal and visible examples of presidential rhetoric. It seems that, whatever their private policy inclinations, presidents have to talk about national identity in broad inclusive terms in these types of addresses. It might have been more revealing to look at other types of presidential speech to see whether presidents followed the lofty principles in more informal and less visible settings. It is likely that state of the union addresses and inaugurals are not the best representation of any president's understanding of national identity.

It is interesting that Beasley chose to focus on immigrants, minorities, and women for her argument. While these three groups are clear examples of citizens who have experienced exclusion, there is one very important group that is not included in the study. Beasley mentions at one point that "organized laborers and farmers did not share in this plenty," referring to the prosperity of the 1920s (137). I would have been interested in learning more about how presidents fit this type of group into their definitions of national identity. In other words, one of the most enduring divisions in this country has been economic—the haves versus the have-nots. There have...