E. Pluribus Unum

E Pluribus Unum In any group, no matter how homogeneous, diversity exists. This has been the reality within the United States from the very beginning. The Latin phrase E Pluribus Unum (out of many, one) found on American coinage illustrates the recognition and balance of plurality and unity. Throughout the history of the United States the motto E Pluribus Unum has been interpreted in numerous and sometimes even contradictory ways. This ideal is based on the hope that one nation can be simultaneously supportive of diversity and be sufficiently unified. Attempts at balancing these conflicting values have been seen in various political and cultural debates, with each side wrestling for domination. In a unitary system, like that with which the colonists were familiar in England, government entities strive for national unity and in the process suppress individual or regional identities, resulting in a unum, or totalizing, government. In a confederated system such as the one established by the Articles of Confederation, local government agencies dominate, thus emphasizing the pluribus, or many. By contrast, the federal system as established in the Constitution is designed to balance the needs of the states with the needs of the country by balancing the many and the one. Historical Background The Congress of 1776 appointed Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson to draft the design of the Great Seal of the United States. These Founding Fathers employed three Latin phrases within the design: Annuit Coeptis (God has favored our undertaking), Novus Ordo Seclorum (a new order of the ages), and E Pluribus Unum (out of many, one). All three Latin phrases possess both a religious and a political connotation that significantly are blended together. There is some debate on the literary source of E Pluribus Unum. Some attribute the phrase on the Great Seal, E Pluribus Unum, to a poem, Moretum, attributed to Virgil, in which a farmer mixes various ingredients together to form a relish. A more likely candidate for the origin of the phrase is Saint Augustine. The phrase, “out of many, one,” is a classical Catholic ecclesiological principle stressing the universal nature of the Catholic faith. It is used by Saint Augustine to describe the ties of brotherly love and friendship in book IV of his Confessions (397 A.D.). By just examining the three Latin phrases of the Great Seal, in both their likely sources and intended meanings, one finds a high degree of religious reference and significance. The case is made only stronger when one considers the multiple religious symbols incorporated into the design of the Great Seal (such as the Eye of God, cloud of God’s glory and olive branch). Ethnicity The response to the 19th-century influx of immigrants was called Americanization, made famous by the “melting pot” analogy whereby the cultural sludge of religion and ethnicity would melt off newcomers, forming one national character of a “true” American. To be American was to speak English, be white, and be Protestant. The government, schools, and churches participated in this effort to form a unified patriotic national identity. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, European immigration to the United States began to increase substantially in numbers. Beginning in the 1880s, large numbers of Catholics immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe such as the Italians, Russian and Poles arrived. These immigrants were met with intense hostility. The dominant WASP culture forced them into ethnic “ghettos” in the larger cities. Adopting a social Darwinism Nativists felt too many “undesirables,” in their view, culturally inferior immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe, had already arrived. Nativists wanted to severely restrict foreign influence on the culture of the United States. Resulting in a series of immigration laws in the 1920s which established the principle that the number of new arrivals should be small, and, apart from family reunification, the inflow of new immigrants should match the ethnic profile of the nation as it existed at that time. National quotas were established that discouraged immigration from Poland, Italy and Russia, and encouraged immigration from Britain, Ireland and Germany. The sociological pendulum has swung in the opposite direction as modern struggles with immigration reject such complete assimilation, and instead minimize characteristics required to identify one as an American. It is assumed today that there is no single American identity but rather each ethnicity is equally valued. Instead of a melting pot, America is more often compared to a tossed salad wherein each component is distinct. Religion To what degree was the United States founded as a religious nation? The answer to this question involves the interpretation of history and has become central to the modern culture wars. Scholars who argue that the United States was founded as an experiment in limited government in pursuit of the freedom of religious expression point to numerous examples of government support of religious ideas, symbols, and expressions. Even prior to the American Revolutionary War, evidence indicates there was a high degree of religious consciousness within the society. By popular demand the inscription “In God We Trust,” was formally adopted as the official national motto on July 30, 1956. Advocates of a secularized American history describe the Founding Fathers as varying in their attitudes toward religion from merely suspicious to openly hostile. They contend that America was founded as a secular or religion-free society but incrementally over time religion was injected or forced into our culture. Advocates of secularity prefer the phrase E Pluribus Unum to the national motto “In God We Trust,” applauding the prior phrase’s absence of reference to the divine and envisioning an America made up of distinct cultures. Biff Rocha Independent Scholar See Also: American Revolution; Americanization; Citizenship; Culture; Know Nothing Movement; Melting Pot; Nativism; WASPs. Further Readings Gerstle, Gary and John H. Mollenkopf. E. Pluribus Unum: Contemporary and Historical Perspectives on Immigrant Political Incorporation. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2005. Written for Multicultural America (eds.) Carlos E. Cortes and J. Geoffrey Golson. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, (2013). “E. Pluribus Unum”