April 6, 2005
A Recipe for Freedom
From the start America may have been wrapped in the cloth of red, white and blue, but its inner lining was tartan.
I really liked this particular article, and am sharing the entire thing here.
America and Scotland: peoples linked from the startPosted by Ithildin at April 6, 2005 1:16 PM | PROCURE FINE OLD WORLD ABSINTHEWILL SPRINGER
IT’S TIME for Scotland to swagger like its American cousins. Many of us look up to the United States as the icon of democracy and everything cool and creative. But were it not for Scotland and the hundreds of thousands of its people who planted their feet on its soil, America would have been a much different place – a country craving character.
Scotland was more than a pinch of salt when America was being kneaded into a nation – many of the main ingredients were derived from the Saltire State. Young and old, man and woman, Scots came to the New World in search of greater freedom and opportunity. They brought with them not only hope and desire, but brains and leadership.
They were a philanthropist and a naturalist. They were leaders in military and political arenas. They put their name to the Declaration of Independence, they pursued religious freedoms, they shared cultural traditions and brought ideas and innovation to bear.
Woodrow Wilson, America’s 28th president and son of a Scottish Presbyterian minister, said it best of his native people: "Every line of strength in American history is a line coloured with Scottish blood." An exaggeration? Perhaps, but not by much.
Wilson is one of 23 US presidents with Scottish extraction. Nearly half of the signers of the Declaration of Independence – including Princeton University founder John Witherspoon and Supreme Court associate justice James Wilson - were of Scottish descent. The governors in nine of the original 13 colonies were of Scottish ancestry.
From the start America may have been wrapped in the cloth of red, white and blue, but its inner lining was tartan.
The first Scottish president in America was James Monroe, the great-grandson of a Scots Covenanter who had arrived in the US in chains. Monroe threw the Spanish out of Florida and established the Monroe Doctrine that excluded European powers from the Americas.
In 1927, the head of the American consulate to Scotland addressed members of the Rotary Club in Edinburgh. In his speech, Wilbert Bonney paid tribute to the untold number of Scots immigrants who made contributions to America’s development. Bonney’s list of heros and heroines went on and on.
Flora MacDonald, best known for protecting Bonnie Prince Charlie from bounty-hunters after the failed Jacobite Rising, lived in North Carolina for ten years with husband Alexander. She, like many of her fellow Scots, saw the opportunity “to begin the world again, anew, in a new corner of it.”
Among the many others to make significant contributions in the States were John Muir, creator of the National Parks Service; John Paul Jones, founder of the US Navy; and Alexander Hamilton, a trusted friend of George Washington and Treasury secretary.
The person with Scottish heritage who arguably made the greatest contribution to America was Andrew Carnegie. Making his fortune in steel, the Fife-born Carnegie retired as the world’s richest man before proceeding to become the world’s greatest philanthropist. Adopting the motto "the man who dies rich dies disgraced", he left an indelible mark on a young nation through his generous contributions to foundations, trusts and charities.
In his 1889 book The Gospel of Wealth, Carnegie wrote of his belief in philanthropy and asserted that that all personal wealth beyond that required to supply the needs of one's family should be regarded as a trust fund to be administered for the benefit of the community. He enthusiastically set about his philanthropic endeavours, providing money for over 2,500 libraries throughout the English-speaking world and more than 7,600 pipe organs for churches. He established a variety of trust funds and foundations that still operate to this day. By the time of his death in 1919 he had given away $350 million to good causes.
And these are only some of the names and some of their accomplishments. It would require thousands of words more to convey the impact made by others of Scots descent, whose theories and theorems, decisions and designs helped mould America into what it is today.
