Democracy’s ‘most important office’

If there was a single moment – a stroke of a quill, you might say – when the idea of America was hatched, it was this: While drafting the Declaration of Independence, in the section where he lists grievances against the distant British monarch King George III, Thomas Jefferson made a revision. He scratched out the word “subjects” and recast his compatriots as “citizens.”The word is central to American thought. But it is also a conundrum. As the historian William Novak observed, “The word citizen or citizens is found ten times at least in the Constitution of the United States, and no definition of it is given anywhere.” Another historian, Jill Lepore, devoted a lengthy chapter to the question in her book “These Truths,” chronicling how Congress and the courts jousted toward a legal definition in the decades after the Civil War that remains contested today.Yet, when disentangled from political expediency, lawyerly syllogism, and economic interest, which have beclouded Jefferson’s declaration of equality across centuries, the concepts of “citizen” and “citizenship” are expansive and perfectible. The American founders wrote of Cincinnatus, the Roman military leader and temporary dictator who returned to his plow. His ideal of civic purpose over public authority inspired George Washington, commander of the Army and later president. “Having now finished the work assigned me,” Washington declared, relinquishing his military commission, “I retire from the great theater of Action.” A century-plus later, future Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis observed, “The most important office, and the one which all of us can and should fill, is that of private citizen.” That is the subject we explore in this issue. At a time when Western democracies are churning over who is or isn’t a citizen, two prominent scholars of American civics – Harry Boyte and Trygve Throntveit – explore the meaning and obligations of citizenship. They trace the currents of shared good that course through American thought and action from the country’s founding to the present. Deepen your worldviewwith Monitor Highlights.Politics with respectGet political stories with respectful analysis.There‘s a world of new ideas in everyBooks newsletter.There‘s more to life, enrich yours withCulture & Learning weekly.Follow humanity‘s discoveries withScience & Nature stories in your inbox.Gain a spiritual perspectivefrom the stories in your inbox.Want to understand the deeper impact of critical events? Learn the Monitor‘s insight.Already a subscriber? Log in to hide ads. Their essay got us thinking about other words tumbling through public conversation, often without common understanding: polarizing terms such as socialism, oligarchy, and fascism, but also more unifying concepts such as community and intelligence. We think these are worth exploring, too, in future issues.In his first inaugural address, Jefferson extolled the civic virtue of common purpose. “Every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. We are called by different names brethren of the same principle,” he proclaimed. Drs. Boyte and Throntveit observe: “Citizenship has never been simply a legal tool for sorting and dividing the governed. It has always been, and remains, a station to which ‘We the People’ are called to meet our common challenges and improve our common lives.” ALREADY A SUBSCRIBER? LoginReal news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.The Christian Science Monitor was founded in 1908 to lift the standard of journalism and uplift humanity. We aim to “speak the truth in love.” Our goal is not to tell you what to think, but to give you the essential knowledge and understanding to come to your own intelligent conclusions. Join us in this mission by subscribing.