Patriotism
Patriotism,in the most elementary sense of the term (the word derives from the Latin patria or “fatherland”), suggests the loyalty that all citizens owe to their country or nation. With varying degrees of intensity, nearly all Americans claim to be patriotic citizens of the republic. But the term also has a narrower, more specific history, with sharper political implications. In the two centuries since the Revolutionary War, patriotism has tended to shift from a left‐wing to a right‐wing cause.
The term first achieved prominence in Anglo‐American politics during the second quarter of the eighteenth century. The British ministry of Sir Robert Walpole, which admitted only Whigs to office and castigated all Tories as disloyal to the Hanoverian dynasty, alienated a number of prominent Whigs, who took the name “Patriots” to distinguish themselves from the Tory opposition. But some prominent Tories, such...
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