In his Fourth of July column, Pat Buchanan, as usual, asks some provocative questions:
“In the first line of the Declaration of Independence of July 4, 1776, Thomas Jefferson speaks of ‘one people,’” Buchanan notes. “The Constitution, agreed upon by the Founding Fathers in Philadelphia in 1789, begins, ‘We the people…’
“And who were these ‘people’”?
“In Federalist No. 2, John Jay writes of them as ‘one united people … descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government, very similar in their manners and customs…’
“If such are the elements of nationhood and peoplehood, can we still speak of Americans as one nation and one people?”
