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Guest column by Bev Jackson-Cotter

Did you know that our first federal highway was built in 1670 for easier travel, commerce and mail delivery, and for uniting the original colonies? It was initiated by the colonial governors and approved by King Charles more than a hundred years before the Revolutionary War. The highway ran from Boston, Massachusetts, to Charleston, South Carolina, and connected 10 of the original 13 colonies. The key word here is “connected.”

I am reading “The Men Who United the States” by Simon Winchester. It is stories of the explorers, inventors, eccentrics and pioneers, the brave souls who believed in the United States from Atlantic to Pacific, from the 49th parallel to the Rio Grande, people whose fortunes were made and fortunes were lost. They had full confidence in a country that is brave, strong and a world leader. To connect the east and west, north and south and to make civilization out of wilderness, they built trails for covered wagons, and later canals and railroads, telegraph lines and highways.

These men used all their resources, financial, physical and mental, to explore new lands, to reach into the unknown, to combat the hostilities of the natives, English authorities, French fur traders and Spanish explorers who had come before them, each group claiming ownership and willing to fight and die for the land they occupied. Yet the new Americans were determined to succeed, to unite the states.

From the beginning there have been divisive issues, sensible, logical, issues — what to do about the natives: They were here first, but … Should we separate from England? Shall we expand across the Appalachians, then the plains, the Rockies and to the West Coast? What do we do about slavery, and even years later prohibition, and the Vietnam War. There have always been divisive issues, major issues, matters of life and death, self respect, health and territorial questions. These topics make sense to me.

My question is “What would those folks who worked so hard to unite our states and solve our differences think of the U.S. today — so divided.” Is the problem only the news media, corporate tycoons seeking to increase their viewership and their profits?

Maps show the U.S. separated into red and blue states, seemingly as divided as when the Southern states seceded from the union. For what reason? For political issues? Does that make sense?

Can’t we disagree without breaking the country up into sections? When we meet new people and even old friends, we hesitate to introduce political affiliation into the conversation for fear of an immediate sense of divisiveness. Why should a die-hard Democrat hesitate to wear her favorite red jacket, or a strong Republican hesitate to purchase a blue pickup? What would people think?

How stupid!

I don’t get it. Whatever happened to people who combined their knowledge and inventiveness and beliefs and common sense to join us together? What happened to respecting a difference of opinion and working out a compromise? What issue is so dominant that it is causing this current of antagonism? This antagonism that some have even argued is a reason for another civil war.

Where is this anger really coming from?

The men who united the states must be rolling over in their graves, wondering where are the leaders who believe in honesty and hard work and caring for others and respecting the law, the men and women who believe in the future of this country as a united people, a United States?

What is happening to us? What did those men in 1670, 353 years ago, understand that we do not?

Bev Jackson-Cotter is an Albert Lea resident.