David Warsh’s Economic Principals is a thin blogospheric vein of gold. Much recommended. This week, he’s reviewing Daniel Aaron’s memoir The Americanist which concludes:

“[I] find myself a citizen of two Americas. One of them is the country of Uncle Sam, an America, in the words of Herman Melville, intrepid, unprincipled, reckless, predatory, with boundless ambition, civilized in the externals, but savage at heart. The other is its blessed double, home of heroes and clowns and the cheerful and welcoming democratic collective – the place where I was born.”

For all his schooling in Puritan doctrines of original sin and the ubiquity of evil, writes Aaron, it is the second America to which he feels “culturally and temperamentally attuned.” And so do I. But this Labor Day, more than most, it is useful to be reminded that we are dual citizens.