Writings in Scottish-American History

HE Scottish contribution to American development may seem, at first, a -well-worn theme1 and one on which there has been an unusual amount of agreement on both sides of Atlantic. American and Scottish writers have vied with each other in echoing Woodrow Wilson's dictum that every line of strength in American history a line colored with Scottish blood. So much attention, indeed, has been paid by such writers to these lines that they seem almost to assume warp and woof of an American national pattern looking very much like tartan itself. And the broadsword virtues of clan become, in their hands, origin and inspiration of American experience at its most distinctive and best: constitutional government, national and local democracy, business ability, technological genius, independent and common-sense spirit in all fields, religious and secular-in short, rugged individualism in church, state, and countinghouse. Yet phrase itself, the broadsword virtues of clan, taken from Stephen Vincent Benet's characterization of Old South, suggests that it is possible to look on Scottish influence on America from a less uncritical and one-sided viewpoint. One might come down from hilltops of national achievement into valley of shadow of Reconstruction to see another and less liberal Scottish influence at work at very birth of a nation. The title of Thomas Dixon, Jr.'s infamous work, which, in form of D. W. Griffith's film, The Birth of a Nation, has not helped to

History · Scottish History and National Identity

• National Tartan Day

  Open Access•Euan Hague•Scottish Affairs•2002

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• Imperial '45

  Jonathan Hawkins•The Journal of Imperial &…•1996

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