What Is America All About?
A Perspective From "America The Beautiful"

by Richard Bayer, Ph.D.

T he author, Katharine Lee Bates, was born at Falmouth MA. August 12, 1859, daughter of the Congregational Church pastor. The family moved to Wellesley when she was young and she graduated from the high school there, and from Wellesley College in 1874. She was a professor of English at the college until 1925.

Surprised by the song’s immediate and lasting success, Katharine Lee Bates wrote: “That the hymn has gained, in these twenty odd years, such a hold as it has upon our people, is clearly due to the fact that Americans are at heart idealists, with a fundamental faith in human brotherhood.” The text was written in 1893 and had its final revision in 1913. The hymn offers a profound snapshot at how Americans understood themselves and their country.

I would like to look at just a few key verses here.

…God shed his grace on thee
And crown thy good
with brotherhood…

The text asks for God’s grace so that the “good” (read ‘common good’) may include brotherhood. In other words, the common good-that which is in the interests of all people-does not just include freedom, and/or equality as they are popularly understood today. The common good must include brotherhood. This is a strong challenge to much contemporary thinking that allows for excessive individualism and the attitude of the “me generation.” 

God mend thine every flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control,
Thy liberty in law!

 The dictionary describes “self-control” as restraint of one’s actions, feelings, etc. To exercise self-control is to deny one part of the self in favor of another part. Self-control puts the intellect and wisdom ahead of one’s feelings and emotions. It keeps us from being slaves to our momentary passions.

But being slaves to our momentary passions is precisely what some parts of American culture today expect and encourage. For example, advertisers want us to feel that we should “buy their products now” for various emotion-related reasons. Television commercials want us to yield to impulse. Through music and images of glamorous people and products, they promise excitement and happiness-if only we buy the advertised products right away. The movies are full of uncontrolled sex and violence. Uncontrolled sex promises happiness; uncontrolled violence brings release through the destruction of ‘the bad guy.’ But as our hymn understands, uncontrolled behaviors don’t really bring much hope and happiness to the soul.

To confirm liberty in law seems at first to be a paradox. Aren’t liberty and law opposed? If something is illegal and therefore not permitted, how does it confirm liberty? There are two common understandings of liberty, however. In fact, one is a misunderstanding of liberty, because it holds that liberty exists in the absence of law and restraint. 

But the second understanding makes more sense, because it sees the positive connection between liberty and law. Good laws can actually enhance liberty and make freedom possible in the realm of daily life. For example, my liberty to drive is protected by stop signs, traffic lights, speed limits, and other rules (laws), which regulate my behavior behind the wheel, as well as the behavior of others. Otherwise, it would be dangerous to drive and I would not feel very ‘free’ to do much driving--especially with loved ones in the car! So good laws promote liberty, when we consider that our actions must be coordinated with the actions of others! Thus, confirm thy liberty in law makes perfect sense, because true liberty is not license.

…God shed his grace on thee
Till selfish gain no longer stain
The banner of the free!

The hymn implores God’s grace to fight selfishness. To be selfish is to be committed to oneself, concerned primarily with one’s own well being, interests, benefits, etc., without regard for one’s brothers and sisters. Selfishness is a stain upon the banner of the free! Bates understood that “Americans are at heart idealists, with a fundamental faith in human brotherhood.”

Liberty and equality amount to very little without brotherhood.