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What is patriotism? Let’s think of our own country, the United States. Patriotism is probably most simply defined as love of one’s own country. But it is more than just getting a good feeling when one sees the flag go by in an Independence Day parade. It is loving that country through knowing its history, participating in its political and cultural life, and using one’s head as well as one’s heart. It is praying for that country to be better than its faults and to live up to its founding ideals. The Man Without a Country, written by Edward Everett Hale, is a story about a man who at first hated the United States but who came, through great suffering, to love his country and to be a real patriot in the sense I have given above.
Edward Everett Hale (1822 to 1909) published his best-known story in 1863 in the Atlantic Monthly literary magazine. He was an American writer and Unitarian minister. He had interesting family connections. Nathan Hale, his great-uncle, was a spy for General George Washington during the early years of the American Revolution and who was caught and executed by the British. Edward Everett, Hale’s uncle, gave the least-remembered two-hour speech in American history – the address to the crowd attending the dedication of the National Cemetery at Gettysburg. This two-hour address is forgotten in history because it was given just before President Lincoln’s famous Gettysburg Address!
This edition of The Man Without a Country is made to look like a fairly thin picture book but it is not. The story is compelling. Philip Nolan, a US Army officer, was caught up in Aaron Burr’s attempt to split off a country from the US for himself around New Orleans. Tried for treason, Nolan shouts that he never wants to hear about the hated United States again. He is sentenced to exile on US Navy ships, where everyone is forbidden to talk to him about the United States or what is happening in it. He goes through years of sullen resentment then gradually repents and comes to love his country dearly, gleaning whatever information he can about its development. Philip Nolan’s story makes for a fascinating narrative, only about fifty pages long, and shows us what true, hard-won patriotism, really is.