The Man Without a Country
From Biocrawler, the free encyclopedia.
The Man without a Country was a novel by Edward Everett Hale, published anonymously in the Atlantic Monthly in 1863. Although the events of the novel were set in the early 1800s in Mississippi, much of the story was allegorical to events preceding the American Civil War (especially in Ohio), and it was intended to satirize those who expressed an interest in renouncing the United States.
The protagonist of this story was a young lieutenant at Fort Adams named Philip Nolan, who struck up a friendship with the visiting Aaron Burr. When Burr was tried for treason (a scenario borrowed from an actual historical event), Nolan was tried as an accomplice. Bitter, Nolan renounced his nation, angrily shouting "D--n the United States! I wish I may never hear of the United States again!" (When the novel was first published the word "damn" was considered too obscene for publication.) The judge thus granted Nolan his wish: he was made to spent the rest of his life on US warships, with no right of ever again setting foot onto the United States' soil, and with no mention ever again made to him about the United States.
