Defining Americans: The Presidency and National Identity

Andrew Jackson spoke to Americans in ways that reflected the concerns of a young nation. Grover Cleveland helped citizens redefine themselves after the havoc of the Civil War era. FDR confronted widespread hardship with hope and determination, while Eisenhower spoke to our fears of the Communist menace. Throughout our history, presidents by their very utterances have shaped our sense of who we are as Americans. As Mary Stuckey observes, presidents embrace, articulate, and reinvigorate our sense of national identity. They define who Americans are - often by declaring who they aren’t. In this book, she shows how presidential speech has served to broaden the American political community over the past two centuries while at the same time excluding others. Ranging broadly from Andrew Jackson to Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, Stuckey demonstrates how presidents accomplish the dual enactment of inclusion and exclusion through their rhetorical and political choices. Our early leaders were preoccupied with balancing the growing nation; later presidents were concerned with the nature and definitions of citizenship. By examining the political speeches of presidents exemplifying distinctly different circumstances, she presents a series of snapshots which, when taken together, reveal both the continuity and the changes in our national self-understanding.