# A patriotic slogan transferred to the cosmos

Commentary on Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton.

On [CH05.P008](https://glosses.org/orthodoxy/pg16769-r1/CH05.P008/#char=396,422): "My cosmos, right or wrong."

The substitution of 'cosmos' for 'country' adapts the patriotic formula 'Our country, right or wrong,' traditionally associated with Stephen Decatur's Norfolk toast of April 1816. Its currency in Chesterton's own year is independently visible in Captain C. G. Calkins's September 1908 article, which calls it a maxim apparently summing up Decatur's character. This is a contemporary witness to the formula, not evidence that Chesterton read Calkins. See [Calkins, opening discussion](https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/1908/september/deacatur-and-coleridge).

The familiar wording should not be presented as an uncontested transcript of Decatur's actual words. George Holbert Tucker reports that two contemporary Norfolk newspapers instead ended the toast with a wish that the country be 'always successful, right or wrong.' His account identifies the *American Beacon*, 5 April 1816, and the *Norfolk Gazette & Public Ledger*, two days after the dinner; those newspaper originals have not been inspected here. See [Tucker, chapter 29](https://www.historicforrest.com/norfolkHistoricalSociety/highlights/29.html).

Chesterton is parodying the familiar formula rather than quoting an identified speaker. In its cosmic form, allegiance becomes an obligation to defend whatever happens to exist. The next paragraph's distinction between loving a place and defending its particular features explains why he regards this as a failure of reform: attachment to the whole ought to permit criticism of its present condition. [*Orthodoxy*, chapter V](https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/16769/pg16769-images.html#CHAPTER_V)

## Sources

- [C. G. Calkins, 'Deacatur and Coleridge'](https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/1908/september/deacatur-and-coleridge), Proceedings, September 1908, vol. 34/3/127; opening paragraphs, beginning 'Yet it remains impossible'
- [George Holbert Tucker, Norfolk Highlights 1584–1881, 'Decatur Drinks a Famous Toast'](https://www.historicforrest.com/norfolkHistoricalSociety/highlights/29.html), Chapter 29, opening three paragraphs and paragraph identifying American Beacon, 5 April 1816
- [G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy](https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/16769/pg16769-images.html#CHAPTER_V), Chapter V, paragraphs beginning 'The evil of the pessimist' and 'We say there must'; Gutenberg #16769, later John Lane witness with reprint history through 1934; work first published 1908

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