In 1806, when Noah Webster published A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language, [see also the Wikipedia entry on Webster's Dictionary] purists were horrified. Webster Americanized the British spellings in Samuel Johnson's famous dictionary, turning "defence" and "honour" into "defense" and "honor." Webster included new American words like "subsidize" and "caucus," and left out hoary Britishisms like "fishefy." John Quincy Adams, the future president, was shocked by the "local vulgarisms."

Webster's Compendious Dictionary, which was published 200 years ago this month, defied the skeptics to become a success, and it was the forerunner to his much larger 1828 American Dictionary of the English Language. Webster is remembered today almost exclusively as America's great lexicographer, but he was also a founding father of the first rank. The dictionaries he wrote actually helped shape the kind of nation America would become.

Webster was a brilliant polymath, in the style of Ben Franklin. His great passion, though, was politics, and he held many views that now seem surprisingly modern. He kept religion and God out of his spelling books. He argued that the Constitution should include universal compulsory education and abolish slavery.

When the new nation formed, British culture was still dominant, and it was not yet clear what it meant to be American. Webster thought it was vital to shake off "foreign manners" and build an independent national culture. He believed that his dictionaries could contribute to this homegrown culture by reflecting the language that Americans were actually speaking. It was especially important, he thought, for America to define its own institutions.

A National Language as a Key to National Unity

Webster's other political purpose in writing his dictionaries was promoting national unity. He was disturbed to find, in his travels, that Southern whites, blacks, old-line Yankees and newly arrived immigrants were in many cases unable to talk to each other. He believed a "federal language" could be a "band of national union."

But he also knew that linguistic efforts would not be enough. He was troubled by the sharp political divisions he saw: North vs. South, rural areas vs. cities and, above all, his Federalist Party vs. Thomas Jefferson's Democratic-Republicans. During the bitter battles over the Embargo Act of 1807, Webster called on the parties to "renounce their present warfare, and unite on some general points of policy."

The United States has more than achieved the cultural independence Webster dreamed of. He would be amazed to see that it now not only controls its own culture, but also exports it to the world — including Britain.

His hopes for national unity have proven more elusive. Today's red-state-blue-state divide, and Washington's vicious partisan battles, are an uncanny parallel of the war over the 1807 embargo.

If Webster were here, he would be clamoring for leaders willing to look beyond party affiliation. The great wordsmith was never more eloquent than in his screeds against excessive partisanship. "The party which, while in a minority, will lick the dust to gain the ascendancy," he warned, "becomes, in power, insolvent, vindictive and tyrannical."