The Genesis of America: U.S. Foreign Policy and the Formation of National Identity, 1793–1815 by Jasper M. Trautsch (review)

The United States remained a land of confusion at the end of the War of Independence. While the hastily built union of thirteen disparate states had managed to prosecute a protracted war against their former colonial master, the conflict had failed to create a strong sense of national identity among Americans. The United States did not have a hold on the heart of most Americans in 1783.

Jasper Trautsch's new book argues that partisan debates about U.S. foreign policy played a key role in the emergence of national identity in the United States. The Genesis of America seeks to understand how Americans came to conceive of their national community being distinct from the other nations of the world. For Trautsch, U.S. nationalism was not the product of navel gazing among the Founders, but, instead, it was a "process of external demarcation" in which "the American nation needed external enemies to create a sense of national particularity" (9).

The Genesis of America explores the emergence of American national identity by focusing on U.S. foreign relations with Great Britain and France. Trautsch justifies his selection by arguing that Britain and France were the two most powerful nations of the time and that they represented the "essential foils against which America's national identity could be forged" (17). The author's decision to exclude Spain from his analysis reflects Trautsch's conviction that most Americans viewed their western neighbors as a "decaying empire," despite the recurring western crises centered on navigation rights on the Mississippi River (17).

In Trautsch's formulation, conflict lies at the heart of American national identity. Because American nationalism depended on emphasizing difference between the United States and the two leading European powers, U.S. policymakers pursued a "confrontational" foreign policy. Moreover, diplomacy became a key battleground for protean partisan politics, as Americans fought about national identity. The Genesis of America charts the course of these political battles by looking at the interaction between policymakers and the partisan press. Building on the work of Jeffrey L. Pasley, Trautsch argues that the relationship between politicians and newspaper editors was not a one-way street, where the press served as a mouthpiece for the powerful.¹ Rather, policymakers and the press both participated in a creative process by which national discourse on identity helped to shape diplomatic decisions taken in the national capital.

The Genesis of America follows a conventional narrative of the political history of the early republic. The radicalization of the French Revolution in 1793 transformed the nascent partisanship of U.S. politics, with Federalists and Republicans aligning their competing visions of U.S. nationality with Great Britain and France, respectively. The proto-parties looked for ways to discredit their rival's vision of national identity and its association with one of the belligerent powers. The Republicans attempted to precipitate war with Great Britain during the Jay Treaty debates in 1795, while the Federalists succeeded in prosecuting a limited war with France in 1798–1799. The Quasi-War forced Republicans to drop their positive references to France. In their place, Jefferson and his followers articulated a uniquely American identity, grounded in democratic egalitarianism.

The War of 1812 was a turning point in the formation of U.S. national identity. Trautsch argues that the conflict finally discredited Federalists' appeal to Britain as a foundation for American nationalism. The Genesis of America challenges Alan Taylor's depiction of the conflict as a thoroughly divisive civil war in which Americans and Britons fought on both sides.² Trautsch does not deny that Federalists were opposed to the conflict at the beginning, but he argues that Federalists never countenanced serious opposition to the war, and, by 1814, they actually supported a defensive war. Trautsch's revisionism is most...