Dreams Of A More Perfect Union

In a brilliantly conceived and elegantly written book, Rogan Kersh investigates the idea of national union in the United States. For much of the period between the colonial era and the late nineteenth century, he shows, "union" was the principal rhetorical means by which Americans expressed shared ideals and a common identity without invoking strong nationalism or centralized governance. Through his exploration of how Americans once succeeded in uniting a diverse and fragmented citizenry, Kersh revives a long-forgotten source of U.S. national identity. Why and how did Americans perceive themselves as one people from the early history of the republic? How did African Americans and others at the margins of U.S. civic culture apply this concept of union? Why did the term disappear from vernacular after the 1880s? In his search for answers, Kersh employs a wide range of methods, including political-theory analysis of writings by James Madison, Frederick Douglass, and Abraham Lincoln and empirical analysis drawing on his own extensive database of American newspapers. The author's findings are persuasive—and often surprising. One intriguing development, for instance, was a strong resurgence of union feelings among Southerners—including prominent former secessionists—after the Civil War. With its fascinating and novel approach, Dreams of a More Perfect Union offers valuable insights about American political history, especially the rise of nationalism and federalism. Equally important, the author's close retracing of the religious, institutional, and other themes coloring the development of unionist thought unveils new knowledge about the origination and transmittal of ideas in a polity.

Cities today are the weakest link of both democracy and modern affluence. Their explosive sprawl wastes land that promotes both urban social crises and environmental decay through mass auto movement on outrageously costly freeways--contradicting the inherent role of cities to minimize even the need to travel. The immense sprawl unnecessarily assures human isolation (with the consequent dependence upon television), undermines sustainable ecology, and abandons huge areas of the old inner city. Consequently cities are waste-generating environments that arbitrarily promote production and consumption for purposeless and endless economic growth that can never satisfy human "needs". As basic organizers of life in society, cities can become inspired environments of human development. But they must be built compactly to preserve large, accessible open spaces for recreation, parks, and natural areas. Then they can underwrite an unprecedented human efficiency comparable to productive efficiency. To build such cities, a major shift is required to control their structure and eliminate urban development as merely a promotional waste by real estate speculation. Urban development authorities are required to build cities through principles of land conservation, urban spaciousness, minimal need for transportation, human efficiency, and highly congenial human spaces.

This book describes a fiscal plan designed to balance the federal budget without austerity or endangering the entitlement programs. It does this primarily through increasing income taxes on the wealthy by raising rates and eliminating deductions. It calls for significant savings in the cost of health-care delivery without diminishing services and an end to government waste and inefficiency. It largely eliminates poverty through raising the minimum wage, and a full employment program in which the government serves as the employer of last resort. This program is paid for by a new net-worth tax on the wealthiest 1 percent. The plan intends to improve economic equity and preserve political democracy by reducing the income/wealth disparity which exists today. The plan extends Medicare to all, eliminates payroll taxes, and funds entitlements out of the general fund. State and municipal costs are significantly reduced by absorbing Medicaid patients into Medicare, thus freeing up capital for necessary infrastructure repair and the expansion of education funding for preschool through college. Working- and middle-class families will see their first real increase in disposable income in almost thirty years through the elimination of the payroll taxes, the reduction in the personal cost of health care and the increase in the minimum wage. The full employment program and the increase in disposable income for so many will serve to stimulate the economy, bring about business expansion, and increase employment. The cost of doing business in America will be reduced by eliminating company contributions to the payroll tax, ending the need for company-paid health insurance and a reduction in the corporate tax rate. These savings will motivate bringing jobs home from overseas and increase the profit margins for American companies providing capital for research and development, modernization, and expansion.

America is at a pivotal crossroads. The soul of our nation is at stake and in peril. A new public narrative is needed to unite Americans around common values and to counter the increasing discord and acrimony in our politics and culture. The process of healing and creating a more perfect union in our nation must start now. The moral vision of Martin Luther King Jr.'s Beloved Community, which animated and galvanized the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, provides a hopeful way forward. In A More Perfect Union, Adam Russell Taylor, president of Sojourners, reimagines a contemporary version of the Beloved Community that will inspire and unite Americans across generations, geographic and class divides, racial and gender differences, faith traditions, and ideological leanings. In the Beloved Community, neither privilege nor punishment is tied to race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, or economic status, and everyone is able to realize their full potential and thrive. Building the Beloved Community requires living out a series of commitments, such as true equality, radical welcome, transformational interdependence, E Pluribus Unum ("out of many, one"), environmental stewardship, nonviolence, and economic equity. By building the Beloved Community we unify the country around a shared moral vision that transcends ideology and partisanship, tapping into our most sacred civic and religious values, enabling our nation to live up to its best ideals and realize a more perfect union.

Race, from the beginning and more than any other element, has shaped America's institutions, its economics, politics, laws, social structures, and political attitudes. Congressman Jackson considers race to be the focal point of America through the language of the economy because "the economy is the hearing aid through which Americans hear all political dialogue." In this thought provoking work, Jackson provides ample documentation and insightful analysis of the inextricable link between race and economics. More important Jackson proposes a radical economic strategy and program of new human rights that would build A More Perfect Union for all Americans and put them in a better position to come to grips with this enduring American legacy.

After Senator Barack Obama delivered his celebrated speech, "A More Perfect Union," on March 18, 2008, New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd noted that only Barack Obama "could alchemize a nuanced 40-minute speech on race into must-see YouTube viewing for 20-year-olds." Pundits established the speech's historical eminence with comparisons to Abraham Lincoln's "A House Divided" and Martin Luther King Jr's "I Have a Dream." The future president had addressed one of the biggest issues facing his campaign-and our country-with an eloquence and honesty rarely before heard on a national stage. The Speech brings together a distinguished lineup of writers and thinkers-among them Adam Mansbach, Alice Randall, Connie Schultz, and William Julius Wilson -in a multifaceted exploration of Obama's address. Their original essays examine every aspect of the speech-literary, political, social, and cultural-and are punctuated by Boston Globe columnist Derrick Z. Jackson's reportage on the issue of race in the now historic 2008 campaign. The Speech memorializes and gives full due to a speech that propelled Obama toward the White House, and prompted a nation to evaluate our imperfect but hopeful union.

America is at a spiritual and political crossroads. A new narrative is needed to counter the discord in her politics and culture, a new way forward rooted in Martin Luther King Jr.'s vision of community. A More Perfect Union calls for a shared vision that transcends partisanship to live out America's best ideals and realize a more perfect union.