TOW #12: The American Patriot's Handbook (IRB #2, Part 1)

Recently I have been reading The American Patriot’s Handbook, a compilation of American historical documents arranged by George Grant. Grant is a proud patriot and a pastor at the Parish Presbyterian Church in Tennessee. Thus, I made the prediction before reading that the documents he compiled would be largely positive about America’s history, and that they would reflect the progression of American religious views. His purpose would then be to guide Americans to be proud of their country.

So far, the documents have reflected the ideas I predicted they would. One way Grant ensures that his audience will get the message he aims for them to receive is through giving each document a brief description, in which he often applies logical reasons as to why America is great. For example, in his description of The Mayflower Contract , he strategically places one significant line immediately before the document: “Thus the Pilgrim Fathers had anticipated the covenantal social contract seventy years before John Locke and 140 years before Jean Jacques Rousseau” (7). This asserts to the reader, through apparent fact or logical evidence, that Americans had developed the social contract theory before the Old World, thus making Americans superior. Though that last claim seems far-fetched, in the fleeting moment after reading the statement, there is some American pride evoked that makes one glad to be American rather than European. It is thus significant that this is immediately followed by the text itself. The last idea an American has before reading the document is that it had made them better, more democratic, more socially intellectual, than Europe.

Another way Grant ensures that his purpose is achieved is through his own descriptions of significant American figures. For about sixty pages, there are no documents, but rather descriptions of Americans written by Grant himself. The texts are factual, giving Grant support through rationality as to why one should be proud to be an American without ever directly stating it. However, he derives his support only from selected evidence, carefully omitting any fact that would break his logos. For example, in his description of John Jay, he hails the Jay treaty as having helped to “avert a renewal of hostilities with Britain” (156), but fails to acknowledge that the treaty was sabotaged by another founder, Alexander Hamilton, and that the treaty consisted predominantly of sly promises from Britain, such as that they would pay for recent impressments of Americans, but said nothing of future impressment. Such evidence would undermine presentation of early American strength.

For any American audience that is somewhat uninformed about the ins and outs of American history, Grant is likely successful in increasing their patriotism.