As we ask anew in these troubled times what it means to be an 
American, You, the People provides perspective by casting its eye 
over the answers given by past U.S. presidents in their addresses 
to the public. Who is an American, and who is not?

    Since the founders first identified the nation as “we, the people,” 
the faces and accents of U.S. citizens have changed dramatically. 
Yet on various occasions U.S. presidents have had to speak as 
though there were one monolithic American people. Here Beasley 
traces rhetorical constructions of American national identity in 
presidents’ inaugural addresses and state-of-the-union messages 
from 1885 through 2000. She argues convincingly that while the 
demographics of the voting citizenry changed rapidly during this 
period, presidential definitions of American national identity did not. 
Chief executives have consistently employed a rhetoric of American 
nationalism that is simultaneously inclusive and exclusive; Beasley 
examines both the genius and the limitations of this language.

    For all those who are puzzling over the nature of citizenship and 
whether there are new limits in post-9/11 America, Beasley offers 
an explanation of how political community can endure in an 
increasingly multicultural era.

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VANESSA B. BEASLEY teaches at Vanderbilt University in Nashville.


Number Ten: Presidential Rhetoric Series