Queen Elizabeth II reached one more unprecedented milestone this 12 months when she became the primary British monarch to reign for 70 years. The official celebrations of what was dubbed Her Majesty’s Platinum Jubilee occurred over 4 days in June and, in keeping with Reuters News, included: 1,400 parading soldiers, 200 horses and 400 musicians; 71 planes, which soared over Buckingham Palace in a flypast salute; 3,500 beacons, which were lit across Britain and the capitals of the Commonwealth of Nations; 2,000 guests at a service of thanksgiving at Saint Paul’s Cathedral in London; 22,000 attendees at a “Platinum Party on the Palace”; and greater than 15,000 official street parties from Edinburgh to Brighton.
A very magnificent spectacle for a singular sovereign!
As I watched the pageantry unfold—I reluctantly admit that I tuned in to an excellent chunk of it—I used to be full of a curious feeling of wistful bemusement. All of it seemed an excessive amount of and yet not enough at the identical time. An excessive amount of within the sense that it appeared like an incredible extravagance for a single one who is, in spite of everything, merely a figurehead. And yet not enough, for that very same extravagance looked as if it would suggest that Elizabeth II is an incredible deal greater than a figurehead: She is the mother of the nation, a unifying role she will be able to perform only because she is a figurehead. The leaders of each major political party in Britain, in addition to every living former prime minister, attended the service at Saint Paul’s. Who else or what else (wanting an enemy attack) could unite a rustic in this manner?
“The current age of polarization has unleashed essentially the most ferocious forces, which seem hellbent on making a narrow unity only through cynical division…”
I felt wistful because I seem to recollect a time when republics could do that too—generate great moments of national pride and unity—moments when our partisanship would yield to our patriotism. I believe of many a Memorial or Veteran’s Day, but above all I believe of the values and conventions—now under severe threat—which have long undergirded the constitutional order of our own country. There was a time when such values and conventions would compel even essentially the most partisan amongst us to act for the greater good or within the national interest. We celebrated such moments, priding ourselves, for instance, on every peaceful transfer of power, every triumph of the rule of law over the wayward hearts of human beings.
Such moments matter, for they enable us to take care of a continuous national identity amid the vicissitudes of national life. “There’s a serious lesson to be learned within the U.S. from the spectacular celebration Britain has just staged,” Gerard Baker recently wrote in The Wall Street Journal. “The queen’s jubilee, marking the longest reign of any monarch in English history, reminds us of the importance of unifying institutions and symbols for a badly fractured country in perilous times…. [N]ational cohesion requires a minimum of something that commands national legitimacy.”
Indeed it does. The current age of polarization has unleashed essentially the most ferocious forces, which seem hellbent on making a narrow unity only through cynical division, a factionalizing of our citizenry that’s contrary to the letter and the spirit of e pluribus unum. And yet without this national unity, with no shared sense of national purpose, of a greater good that inspires us to rise above our baser instincts, then this great republic of ours cannot have for much longer to live, for we may have rid ourselves of 1 tyrant only to seek out ourselves within the grip of one other a mere two and a half centuries later. “The alternate domination of 1 faction over one other,” George Washington said in his farewell address, “sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in several ages and countries has perpetrated essentially the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism…and eventually the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the needs of his own elevation, on the ruins of Public Liberty.”
King George III was said to have told John Adams, the primary U.S. ambassador to Great Britain, that he prayed that the brand new United States of America would “not suffer unduly for its want of a monarchy.” Perhaps, in a way, we’ve suffered, or we’re a minimum of indirectly suffering now.
I’m not calling for the restoration of an American monarchy. However the restoration of those values that safeguard our national life, in addition to the spirit of the American Revolution, is an urgent national necessity. We’d do well to recollect this July 4 that here in America, within the absence of a monarch, the Structure is sovereign. Yet as Elizabeth II just showed us, sovereigns reign only so long as they elicit the love and loyalty of their subjects.
