Joe Biden and History

Today, Oct. 21, Joe Biden gave a very special and lovely speech in the Rose Garden and in it mentioned the importance of America becoming "one America again." It comes at about 9:58 minutes into this clip.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2DLP4Dj-uQ

Would people care to list those times in our history when we were "one America."?

I can not bring any particular periods to mind.

1776 was certainly a time of great division.

WWII maybe but that time saw more strikes than is realized today:

1940s

Mooloya estate strike wave (1940, Sri Lanka)
Allis-Chalmers Strike (1941, U.S.)
Captive Coal Miners' Strike (1941, U.S.)
Detroit Michigan, Hate Strike against Black Workers (1941, U.S.)
February Strike (1941, Netherlands)
International Harvester Strike (1941, U.S.)
New York City Bus Strike (1941, U.S.)
North American Aviation Strike (1941, U.S.)
Quit India movement (1942, India)
1942-43 musicians' strike (U.S.)
Bituminous Coal Strike (1943, U.S.)
Detroit Michigan, Hate Strike against Black Workers (1943, U.S.)
Detroit Michigan Race Riot (1943, U.S.)
Hollywood Black Friday (U.S.)
Philadelphia Transit Strike (1944, U.S.)
Port Chicago mutiny (1944, U.S.)
Kelsey-Hayes Strike (1945, U.S.)
Strike wave of 1946 (1945-1946, U.S.)
New York City Longshoreman's Strike (1945, U.S.)
Montgomery Ward Strike (1945, U.S.)
Oil Workers' Strike (1945, U.S.)

I am of the opinion that America has always be tremendously fractious; sometimes more so and at others less so.

So by all means tell me of the times I missed when "America was one."

9/11/2001 but it was over by the 13th.

Thank you; I never thought of that time frame. It was unique.

James Monroe's administration (1817-1825) is remembered as the "Era of Good Feelings." My perception is that Monroe benefited from a cresting wave of postwar nationalism that coincided with a lull in partisanship as the Federalist Party (Washington, John Adams) finished bleeding to death and Jefferson's Republicans dominated the scene. (They are not the same as our present-day GOP, founded ca. 1855.)

The nationalism had a lot to do with the country extricating itself from a very foolish war with the British Empire (1812-1815). The Americans scored one spectacular win in overtime at New Orleans. There was also one stout resistance at Fort McHenry that helped balance the burning of the White House (and inspired our unsingable national anthem). These episodes, plus some brilliant naval fighting on the Great Lakes, helped everyone overlook the fact that the rest of the war had been a fiasco.

Another factor had to be the fact that millions of acres of Indian land were violently opened to settlement in the course of the war. The national population and the number of states were increasing at an absurd rate, mostly due to natural increase in the insanely fertile white population. These seemed like promising developments.

There was some scary tension between the North and South over slavery and the disposition of the western territories. But it was not yet scary enough to seem insoluble, and the country was still being governed by a Founding Father (the last to serve as president). And at the tail end of Monroe's administration, the elderly Marquis de Lafayette toured every state in the union, giving Americans everywhere a sense of reconnection to the sainted Washington and the Spirit of '76, as well as a sense that their revolution was an inspiration to the whole world and an epoch in history.

All this kumbayah feeling came to an abrupt end with the 1824 presidential campaign, pitting John Quincy Adams against Andrew Jackson. Even though both men ran as members of the same party — and Adams had been a consistent advocate for Gen. Jackson within the Madison and Monroe administrations — their presidential contest was exceptionally nasty. When the close contest ended up in the House of Representatives, where Adams was selected, Jackson's people began a non-stop smear campaign against Adams and all he undertook.

Four years later, Jackson was in the White House and with him, a new party system that didn’t even pretend to subordinate party interest to principle. Well, except when it came to the defense of slavery. Both southern Democrats and southern Whigs were ardent about putting that principle above all others.

Fun times.

Re the OP, I found this of interest...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_incidents_of_civil_unrest_in_the_United_St...

>5 Urquhart: There is a lot missing from that list. It is also very light on facts about what caused them. I am judging based on what I know about Cincinnati riots.

6>TLCrawford

Thanks very much for the evaluation.