Mark Twain supposedly said that history doesn’t repeat; it rhymes. The point is that history doesn’t reappear. But that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t produce similar things. For something to rhyme, something similar must already exist.
At its core, the study of history is the study of our shared past. It’s the study of the events and people that shaped, for better or worse, the times we live in. As such, it’s an endless source of rhymes.
On a personal level, one’s past defines who they are. Their experiences matter. How could they not? We walk because we were taught to walk. We don’t jog into traffic because we know we could get hit by a car.
Experiences matter. The past matters.
If you’re shaped by your past, it naturally follows that a country is also shaped by its past. America—any country—is made up of people. And those people believe things, make choices, and pursue actions that have consequences.
America was founded on grand ideals, first principles, that all are born free and equal and have natural rights that government is instituted to preserve and perpetuate. The story of America is the story of maintaining and realizing those principles.
It’s also the story of overcoming obstacles. These obstacles come in many shapes—fear, bigotry, tyranny, crisis. From the arrival of European settlers to the present day, America hasn’t always lived up to its ideals. It has struggled and been pulled simultaneously by the better and worse sides of our nature.
The America that declared all free and equal is also the America that preserved slavery and refused to extend the right to vote to African Americans and women. The forces of good have always been met by the forces of evil. This struggle is the greatest rhyme of all.
But we endure and overcome. We learn from the past and even use its wisdom to choose what Lincoln called “the better angels of our nature.”
American history is a collection of similarities, of Twainian rhymes, all working toward some end. Whether that end reflects our better or worse sides is up to us.
“American Insights” is a column about our shared past. The triumphs and tragedies that define who we are as a people and what America is as an idea.
Three weeks a month, I will take a story from our past and extract its lessons to deepen our understanding of ourselves and America.
Thomas Jefferson and John Adams believed that the American Revolution—our Genesis 1:1 moment—was not a military conflict but a revolution of principles that started in the minds and souls of people.
Only by reflecting on the rhymes of the past can we gain the insights necessary to understand and continue such a revolution.
Only then can we truly know ourselves.
Dakoda Pettigrew