Teach Them Well.

Making Patriots, by Walter Berns (Chicago, 150 pp., $20)

America is built on a creed, a system of ideas that are universal. But patriotism-one of the most important factors in ensuring any country's continuing vigor-is a devotion not to abstract ideas but to a particular place. In his thought-provoking and obviously heartfelt new book, constitutional scholar Walter Berns of the American Enterprise Institute explores how we can foster the ancient value of patriotism in what remains even after 225 years a novus ordo seclorum, a new kind of country.

Berns begins by acknowledging that we Americans cannot be a new version of the ancient Spartans, who have come to symbolize the traditional understanding of patriotism. In Sparta, the good of the individual was identified with the good of the state: A man's gods are the city's gods, and he achieves his own glory by expanding the city's glory. Not coincidentally, Sparta was a militaristic society; the struggle for national glory was waged in the theater of international conflict.

The American Founding, with its dramatic assertion of the rights of the individual, put the world on notice that the new nation wanted no truck with this traditional concept. We were to be a mercantile republic, with each citizen worshipping his own gods and pursuing his own happiness-in the confidence that these individual pursuits would conduce, generally, to the happiness of the nation. Just how drastic a departure this would be from European precedent is clear from George Washington's historic words to the Hebrew Congregation of Newport, Rhode Island:

It is now no more that tolerance is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights, for, happily, the government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.

Berns quotes these words for two reasons. First, they demonstrate how ingrained in the American tradition is the concept of natural individual rights. Other countries had magnanimously declared that they would "tolerate" even those of their fellow citizens who were Lutherans, or Catholics, or Jews. There is no question of that kind of cultural arrogance in the United States: Here, one can be a Baptist, or a Catholic, or a Jew, or anything else one chooses, not on the sufferance of one's fellow citizens, but because one is a human being endowed by God with natural rights and freedoms deserving of all protection by a just society.

This idea is America's great legacy to the world. But Washington's statement is important for a second reason. In asking that all those who benefit from living in the enlightened republic "demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support," it raises the question of how that "effectual support"-a vigorous and fervent kind of citizenship-can be preserved in a country in which individuals are not just permitted, but actually encouraged, to find their happiness in cultivating their own gardens.

Berns points to Abraham Lincoln as the poet of freedom, the statesman who put into enduring words the reasons why, in this new kind of country, we can and do remain true citizens: not just atomized individuals, but patriots. In an extemporaneous speech on August 22, 1864, thanking Ohio soldiers for their service to the Union, Lincoln said that he wanted to

impress upon them . . . the importance of success in this contest. It is not merely for to-day, but for all time to come that we should perpetuate for our children's children this great and free government, which we have enjoyed all our lives. I beg you to remember this . . . It is in order that each of you may have through this free government which we have enjoyed, an open field and a fair chance for your industry, enterprise and intelligence: that you may all have equal privileges in the race of life, with all its desirable human aspirations. It is for this the struggle should be maintained, that we may not lose our birthright. . . . The nation is worth fighting for, to secure such an inestimable jewel.

Berns comments that everything Lincoln said to the Ohio soldiers is true: "Their interests were bound up with the country's interests; in a way, their interests, if not identical with the country's interests, were dependent on them."

For each man to do his duty, however, he needs to be inspired with a sense of love; and that's why Lincoln spoke of a "birthright." Traditionally, a birthright pertains to a plot of land or other tangible, inheritable property; Lincoln applies the word to freedom itself, and the happiness that freedom makes possible. It is said that what makes patriotism different from nationalism is that patriotism expresses itself as a love of one's own country, while nationalism manifests itself more as the dislike of other countries. Lincoln's genius was in understanding-and expressing in memorable words-that the Union is genuinely "our own" in a way that can inspire passion. The freedom of American citizens has become a tangible reality, something we can treasure as our own; it is in our bloodstream, uniting us every bit as much as other nations are united by a common race or language.

This is a birthright indeed, one that future generations of Americans should be taught-at home and in school-to cherish. Berns points out that in recent years, we have not been doing an especially good job of civic education. But he also notes that some 70 years after Alexander Hamilton worried that the mercantile republic would not have much military spirit, we waged a Civil War in which 1.8 percent of our population was killed. When freedom is at stake, Americans can rise to the occasion. Berns's book is a brief but stirring hymn to America, not just as an idea but as a reality that moves the hearts of its citizens.