Now that I have concluded that rather clumsy introduction, I should make clear that I have no proper experience or training in analyzing presidential speeches. I have never completed a political science, psychology or sociology course. I simply think about things, and allow my thoughts to go where they may. No one will ever accuse me of being a proper scholar, to be sure.
Ah, Jim, get to the point, will you? You ramble on so. Sigh, if I must. I took some time recently to begin a foray into some select presidential speeches, starting with Abraham Lincoln's first inaugural address given March 4, 1861. I had to remind myself of the context and the time in which the speech was given. Between the election and the inauguration, several states seceded from the Union and established the Confederacy. The war between the states had not yet begun, the Emancipation Proclamation had not yet been issued, and Constitutional amendments ensuring the rights of all men regardless of race had not yet been conceived. Some speeches are timeless, while others are issued for the moment or the circumstance. It is abundantly clear that Lincoln's first inaugural address is written for the moment. And yet, as I pondered some of the prose within its paragraphs, I admit that my mind did stray from the context of the moment, into the context of now.
Before entering upon so grave a matter as the destruction of our national fabric, with all its benefits, its memories, and its hopes, would it not be wise to ascertain precisely why we do it? Will you hazard so desperate a step while there is any possibility that any portion of the ills you fly from have no real existence? Will you, while the certain ills you fly to are greater than all the real ones you fly from, will you risk the commission of so fearful a mistake?So what is this national fabric that so blankets our Union, and what truly are the threats to it today? In Lincoln's day, the social contract between the government and the governed, birthed in the ideals of liberty, was being torn asunder by the issues of slavery and the extent of federal authority over the states. Today, states rights is largely a dead issue. For other than the occasional attempts to revive the notion of federalism by conservatives and certain Republican politicians looking to make a splash, the social contract is now more than ever a matter between the federal government and the people of the nation directly. The battle lines being drawn today are positioned between the citizen and the State (federal), not between the states and Washington D.C. As has been said elsewhere, we are no longer a union of states. We are simply a union. Which begs a question for another day: can the Constitution stand long without federalism?
The national fabric is worn and frayed, yet below the surface it still retains threads of priceless value and appeal. In the battle to set the boundaries of federal authority and individual liberty, advocates on both sides would do well to consider "our national fabric, with all its benefits, its memories and its hopes" before continuing too far down this dangerous game. Despite the all too human tendency towards earthly kings, the advance toward authoritarianism is not inevitable. Both sides need to understand that:
... no organic law can ever be framed with a provision specifically applicable to every question which may occur in practical administration. No foresight can anticipate nor any document of reasonable length contain express provisions for all possible questions.The expansion of federal authority appears to operate from the premise that proper regulation can indeed govern or address every question that impacts the individual citizen. What cannot be done by statute is perpetrated by regulation that carries the weight of law. It should not be a surprise that the most demonstrative pushback against such regulation and expansion of federal authority carries the moniker derived from the Boston Tea Party in our pre-republic history. Lincoln went on to dissect the nature of our controversies, most notably constitutional controversies, as the classic confrontation of the majority and the minority:
If the minority will not acquiesce, the majority must, or the Government must cease. There is no other alternative, for continuing the Government is acquiescence on one side or the other. If a minority in such case will secede rather than acquiesce, they make a precedent which in turn will divide and ruin them, for a minority of their own will secede from them whenever a majority refuses to be controlled by such minority.In other words, something has to give, or the controversy will persist indefinitely and potentially to our great detriment. But this is true only as long as the debate adheres to the protocols enforced. Should either side suddenly choose to quit the game, (secede, as it were), then the seceding side places itself at mortal risk. Several of the Occupy camps contained those who elected for themselves to stop adhering to laws associated with use of public property. In time, as each Occupy camp tried to become more internally organized, they fell into even smaller cliques at war with each other over control of the movement. When the rebel finally acquires authority, he has to constantly look over his shoulder lest his former rebel compatriots renew the insurrection impulse. What remains unclear, as far as the trajectory of our republic, is the identity of the majority, the identity of the minority. Each side often lays claim to the majority, and the media often take it upon themselves to tell us what "the people" believe and what they think. Whichever the case:
A majority held in restraint by constitutional checks and limitations, and always changing easily with deliberate changes of popular opinions and sentiments, is the only true sovereign of a free people. Whoever rejects it does of necessity fly to anarchy or to despotism. Unanimity is impossible. The rule of a minority, as a permanent arrangement, is wholly inadmissible; so that, rejecting the majority principle, anarchy or despotism in some form is all that is left.Get that? The rule of a minority over a majority cannot survive long without the exchange of liberty for despotism or tyranny. Lincoln also said:
This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing Government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it.I'm not sure I have anything to add to that statement, other than all parties, whether citizen class or political class, would do well to contemplate its meaning.
By the frame of the Government under which we live this same people have wisely given their public servants but little power for mischief, and have with equal wisdom provided for the return of that little to their own hands at very short intervals. While the people retain their virtue and vigilance no Administration by any extreme of wickedness or folly can very seriously injure the Government in the short space of four years.This alone is worth several paragraphs of exposition. I'll spare you that, if even you have read this far. Suffice it to say the operative phrase emphasized in bold text above is the linchpin. For I don't wonder that most of us believe that our public servants have demonstrated a great proclivity for mischief. We may elect politicians for short intervals, but we seem to elect them perpetually, leaving us with career politicians who feel entitled to rule rather than serve. Furthermore, it may yet be proven that quite a bit of damage can be done to the republic in the space of four years, or even eight years. Could it be that the simple reason for this is that the people no longer retain their virtue and vigilance? I think we know that answer to that query. But it is not irreversible.
The tenor of our national dialogue is slipping ever so fast into a cesspool. The national fabric is in danger of being ripped apart by the teeth of our poisonous rhetoric, where discourse dissolves into incoherent raving. I do not mean to suggest that anger cannot be justified at times. I firmly believe it can. But the anger that seems to agitate within our society succumbs too easily to irrationality. Our politics have become personal, because we have made it so, and as a consequence we have come to view those with different ideas and principles as adversaries to be destroyed. Or so it seems, some days. Rational dialogue is often ignored, or ridiculed, rendering the attempt fruitless. But such rational dialogue must be pursued, because lost in the rage, is the still critical issue that must be addressed: where is the boundary between federal authority and individual liberty, and where should it be?
We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.With this, Lincoln concluded his speech. I cannot help but wonder whether our passions have rent beyond repair the bonds of our national affection. I can only hope, in these perilous times of national angst, that the better angels of our nature would once again be manifest, before we devour ourselves.
