Speaking For Us
A few years ago my wife and I were up in the Catskills,
visiting our daughter in summer camp. We
stayed in a small fishing camp along the Delaware River. I was out one morning when I ran into an
older gentleman who was pulling on his waders.
He was probably in his seventies, great shock of white hair, weathered
but handsome features.
He told me that this was the first year he was there without
his wife. She has passed a few months
before, and he missed her terribly. She
didn’t much like fishing, but she always went along because she wanted to be
with him. He’d been a bit wild when he
was younger, but she stood by him, even when he didn’t deserve it. She was the one who went to church, and she
was the one who kept things together. Now
she was gone.
He seemed very alone, so we talked a little bit. I told him about my own father after we lost
my mother, way too soon. My Dad always
thought he would go first. He was the
unhealthy one; the small stroke, the quintuple bypass. They had worked and planned together all
these years, they had their first two grandchildren and another on the way, and
she had been stolen from him. After the shock of the funeral wore off, he kept
coming back to it, the injustice.
Finally, we found something that helped.
My Dad, by his own admission, was not without flaws, and not always an
easy man to live with. When his time
came, he would need someone to plead his case, someone who knew the inner good
in him, someone who could not be denied.
My mother, about as gentle a person as you could possibly find, would
speak for him.
The old man with the nice white hair and the sad face looked
up from his boots, shook his head and smiled at me. He reached up with his hand and touched my
open palm.
I thought about that man today. July 4, 2013 is the 237th
anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence and yesterday
marked the end of the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg.
We aren’t an old country at all. I have
a baby picture of me with my great grandmother, who was forty when she emigrated
from Russia in 1912. Born just a few
years after Gettysburg, at a time when there were still people alive who came
into this world as “Colonists.” Becoming
a citizen, she shared in the inheritance of the efforts and sacrifices of all
people, great and small, who preceded her.
Reading the whole text of the Declaration of Independence in
an interesting experience. 1333 words
long, it is as much a prosaic list of grievances; a lawyer’s bill of
particulars justifying separation from the Crown, as it is an expression of
great philosophical truths. It is
perhaps fortunate that what we remember of it is the essence; “We hold these truths to be self-evident,
that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with
certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit
of Happiness.”
Great and bold words for an uncertain time; 13 rag-tag
colonies revolting against the greatest power in the world and demanding recognition
as an independent republic. We tend to
forget that a great many colonists were either hesitant or opposed
outright. Jefferson, and the fifty-five
other signers of the Declaration, assumed the right to speak for everyone, and
in doing so, changed the world irrevocably.
87 years later, in November of 1863, Lincoln rose at an
event far less portentous, the dedication of a cemetery at Gettysburg to
memorialize those who had fallen in battle.
He was preceded by the great orator, Edward Everett, who spoke for two
hours. In 273 words, in a time so short
that no picture could be taken of him standing at the podium, Lincoln redeemed
the promise of the Declaration of Independence.
We are “a nation
dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” We are tested, but the men at Gettysburg had
proved equal to it. “(F)rom these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for
which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve
that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God,
shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the
people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
The essential human dignity that only freedom can confirm
was always in his thoughts. In 1858,
during the Alton debate with Stephen Douglas, Lincoln framed freedom in its
most elemental way. “That is the real
issue. That is the issue that will continue in this country when these poor
tongues of Judge Douglas and myself shall be silent. It is the eternal struggle
between these two principles -- right and wrong -- throughout the world. They
are the two principles that have stood face to face from the beginning of time,
and will ever continue to struggle. The one is the common right of humanity and
the other the divine right of kings. It is the same principle in whatever shape
it develops itself. It is the same spirit that says, 'You work and toil and
earn bread, and I'll eat it.' No matter in what shape it comes, whether from
the mouth of a king who seeks to bestride the people of his own nation and live
by the fruit of their labor, or from one race of men as an apology for
enslaving another race, it is the same tyrannical principle.”
At Gettysburg, when Lincoln rose to speak, not much was
expected of him. After Everett, perhaps
not much was desired. But he
demonstrated again how much he stands apart from the common run of politician
who whips you up, tells you what to think and how to feel, speaks at you.
Lincoln knew us. He knew the “new birth of freedom” was the unbroken
line from the Founders, to “the brave men, living and dead” at Gettysburg. Ultimately, it is to my great grandmother,
who led her family here for it, and to me.
He knew the better angels of our nature, and, at a critical
time, he spoke for us.
He still can, if we are willing to listen.
MM
