What Makes a Nation Strong?

What makes a nation strong and great?

In one of life's ironies, my wife Hannah, who is a British immigrant, is the founder and instigator of our block's annual Fourth of July party.

We usually sing a patriotic song or two with our neighbors. Every year, the second verse of "America the Beautiful" hits me hard: "America! America! God mend thine ev'ry flaw, Confirm thy soul in self-control, Thy liberty in law."

Each year, we also choose something patriotic to read aloud. Of course, we've read the Declaration of Independence, but also things like letters between John and Abigail Adams. Maybe one year we'll do an excerpt from Tocqueville.

This year, we chose a poem by William Ralph Emerson (not to be confused with his more famous older cousin, Ralph Waldo Emerson).

What makes a nation strong and great? Here's Emerson's answer:

What makes a nation's pillars high
And its foundations strong?
What makes it mighty to defy
The foes that round it throng?

It is not gold. Its kingdoms grand
Go down in battle shock;
Its shafts are laid on sinking sand,
Not on abiding rock.

Is it the sword? Ask the red dust
Of empires passed away;
The blood has turned their stones to rust,
Their glory to decay.

And is it pride? Ah, that bright crown
Has seemed to nations sweet;
But God has struck its luster down
In ashes at his feet.

Not gold but only men can make
A people great and strong;
Men who for truth and honor's sake
Stand fast and suffer long.

Brave men who work while others sleep,
Who dare while others fly...
They build a nation's pillars deep
And lift them to the sky.