The Flag and the Cross: White Christian Nationalism and the Threat to American Democracy

by Philip S. Gorski

As for the 1776 Commission, where it saw rupture, we see repetition. In 1776, a more inclusive and egalitarian society once again appeared possible, if only briefly. Some whites—and many non-whites—took the founding ideals of liberty and equality to their obvious and logical conclusion: abolition.5 But the price of manumission was deemed too high, and national unity was bought at the expense of racial equality. That same pattern would repeat itself for a third time with the end of Reconstruction and a fourth time after the civil rights movement. Four times the dream of racial equality was sacrificed on the altar of (white) national unity.