If we’re going to have a reasonable political discourse in this country we have to acknowledge that success is in the eye of the beholder. A successful America for Democrats is far different from that of Republicans and Libertarians. So it makes no sense to talk about success and failure independent of the definition held by the respective parties and factions.
Today is the anniversary of the birth of George Washington. Of all the great men of the revolutionary era to whom we owe our freedom, Washington's greatness was the rarest and the most needed. At this remove in time, it is also the hardest to comprehend.
Take, for example, Washington's contribution to the Constitutional Convention of 1787. Washington's mere presence lent the undertaking and its handiwork the legitimacy that resulted in success. The convention's first order of business was the election of a presiding officer. Washington was the delegates' unanimous choice.
There are three basic reasons America is the most charitable country on earth. First, we are the most religious people of any leading modern economy. Secondly, we respect the freedom and ability of individuals and their associations to make a difference. The third reason is that philanthropy is an important part of our nation's business culture.
Regarding the religious aspect: Americans who attend church or synagogue or another form of worship once a week give three times as much to charity as a percentage of their income as do those who rarely attend religious services. Annually, about $100,000,000,000 goes to religious institutions of all faiths. These same donors also give more to secular charities than those who never or rarely attend religious services. The book, Who Really Cares, by Arthur C. Brooks, thoroughly documents amounts, percentages and types of giving (including blood donations and volunteer hours) to support this concept. A review of the book, here, summarizes many of the key findings.
This post is the first of three discussing the generosity of Americans. This section covers charitable giving in general, the American history of giving and who gives. The second post will describe reasons Americans are generous and the third will discuss the threats to American philanthropy.
The basis of this information is a speech given in Washington, D.C. on January 8, 2010 by Adam Meyerson, President of The Philanthropy Roundtable. My source is Imprimis, a publication of Hillsdale College. (A free publication - go here to register to get your monthly articles.)
Today is of course the anniversary of the birth of America's greatest president, Abraham Lincoln. As a politician and as president, Lincoln was a profound student of the Constitution and constitutional history. Perhaps most important, Lincoln was America's indispensable teacher of the moral ground of political freedom at the exact moment when the country was on the threshold of abandoning what he called its "ancient faith" that all men are created equal.
In 1858 Lincoln attained national prominence in the Republican Party as the result of the contest for the Senate seat held by Stephen Douglas. It was Lincoln's losing campaign against Douglas that made him a figure of sufficient prominence that he could be the party's 1860 presidential nominee.
At the convention of the Illinois Republican Party in June, Lincoln was the unanimous choice to run against Douglas. After making him its nominee late on the afternoon of June 16, the entire convention returned that evening to hear Lincoln speak. Accepting the convention's nomination, Lincoln gave one of the most incendiary speeches in American history.
Today is the ninety-ninth anniversary of Ronald Reagan's birth. At NRO's Corner, Paul Kengor relates the following anecdote provided by Bill Clark, "Reagan's close friend and most significant adviser." Kengor writes:
Clark was serving as Reagan's national-security adviser. He had previously been deputy secretary of state, and would later be appointed secretary of the interior. His driver all this time was a man named Joe Bullock, a Georgia native who had moved to Washington during the Great Depression. Joe was a victim of the cruel Jim Crow laws that afflicted the South. He went to Washington for a better life.
Joe first found employment as a mule driver. He eventually began chauffeuring various senior people in the federal government, some of whom, including a high-level figure in the Carter administration, didn't treat him well; in fact, that previous cabinet secretary didn't speak a word to Joe in three years.
When Martin Luther King, Jr. brought his nonviolent campaign against segregation to Bull Connor's Birmingham, he laid siege to the bastion of Jim Crow. In Birmingham between 1957 and 1962, black homes and churches had been subjected to a series of horrific bombings intended to terrorize the community. In April 1963 King answered the call to bring his campaign to Birmingham. When King landed in jail on Good Friday for violating an injunction prohibiting demonstrations, he took the opportunity to meditate on the counsel of prudence with which Birmingham's white ministers had greeted his campaign. King's "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" was the result.
Reading the "Letter" nearly fifty years later is a humbling experience. Perhaps most striking is King's seething anger over the indignities of segregation:
When Michael Barone invoked the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 to place the struggle over Obamacare in historical context, I briefly took a look back at Abraham's Lincoln's great Peoria speech of October 1854 on the subject. There is nothing quite like the Peoria speech in the Lincoln corpus.
In view of his study of Republics Ancient and Modern, Professor Paul Rahe is one of the academy's foremost authorities on the history of republics. Although his recent work on soft despotism is not far from his Thanksgiving reflections this year, so also is his older work on republics:
On Thanksgiving, it is customary that Americans recall to mind the experience of the Pilgrim Fathers This year, it is especially appropriate that we do so--as we pause, in the midst of an economic maelstrom, to count our remaining blessings and to reflect on the consequences of our election of a President and a Congress intent on "spread[ing] the wealth around."
We have much to learn from the history of the Plymouth Plantation. For, in their first year in the New World, the Pilgrims conducted an experiment in social engineering akin to what is now contemplated; and, after an abortive attempt at cultivating the land in common, their leaders reflected on the results in a manner that Americans today should find instructive.
During the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln delivered the address at the dedication of the Soldiers' National Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, on the afternoon of Thursday, November 19, 1863:
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
Hillsdale College Professor Paul Rahe writes on the celebration of the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall today from which President Obama has chosen to be absent:
Today marks the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. To those in my generation, this seemed an almost miraculous event. Berlin had long been the flashpoint in East-West relations.
Not many speeches are mighty deeds. When Ronald Reagan stood in front of the Berlin Wall at the Brandenburg Gate on June 12, 1987, he performed a mighty deed by giving the speech he gave. Our friend Peter Robinson was the man who wrote the speech. He tells the story behind the speech in his memoir How Ronald Reagan Changed My Life. On the occasion of its twentieth anniversary, Peter recalled the events leading to the speech for Power Line readers in a form condensed from his book. As we celebrate the fall of the Wall today, we remember:
From LINCOLN’S YARNS AND STORIES by Alexander Kelly:
SENT TO HIS “FRIENDS.”
During the Civil War, Clement L. Vallandigham, of Ohio, had shown himself, in the National House of Representatives and elsewhere, one of the bitterest and most outspoken of all the men of that class which insisted that “the war was a failure.” He declared that it was the design of “those in power to establish a despotism,” and that they had “no intention of restoring the Union.” He denounced the conscription which had been ordered, and declared that men who submitted to be drafted into the army were “unworthy to be called free men.” He spoke of the President as “King Lincoln.”
I'm hoping that someone here can help me identify the person to whom a certain quote can be attributed. I can only paraphrase the quote, which is no doubt why I have been unable to find the original anywhere on the Internet, but I love the ideal being expressed. I am fairly certain that the speaker was a notable politician, probably from the 19th century, when we still had a republic ["if you can keep it," according to Ben Franklin]. The statement was made when this politician was told that a particular bill under consideration would spend taxpayer money in a way that would benefit his constituents -- no doubt one of the earliest instances of earmarking. If we can identify the speaker, then perhaps we can persuade other politicians to heed his wisdom and, if not, to persuade a majority of citizens of the wisdom of replacing their politicians. Here is the paraphrased quote:
"I am told that to vote for this expenditure of money taken from all our citizens would be in the interests of my constituents. But, since I am informed that the principal interest of my constituents is in freedom, I can serve no other." Who said it, and why aren't all Republicans saying something like it today?
A student town hall discussion at the University of Minnesota will be held with U.S. Representative Michele Bachmann (MN) and Dr. Ron Paul (TX) at Northrop Auditorium on Friday, September 25, 2009 at 7:00pm CT. This event is free and open to the public.
With this post, Professor Paul Rahe continues his series on the the present discontents - in which he has discussed the tyrannical ambitions of the Obama administration (posted here), the danger a consolidation of government poses for the people of the United States (posted here), the psychological disposition that makes democratic peoples vulnerable to servile temptation (posted here), the institutions that once in some measure shielded Americans from these propensities (posted here), and the gradual disappearance of that shield (posted here).
When my book, Soft Despotism, Democracy's Drift, was published some months back, Mark Steyn wrote an appreciative review for the New Criterion, which ended with a single caveat. Where I had suggested that it might be possible to reverse democracy's drift and reclaim a measure of state and local power from Washington, he feared that we might have to settle for a gradual, gentle descent into servitude - or for something worse.
I will not willingly cede more power to anyone, not to the state, not to General Motors, not to the CIO. I will hoard my power like a miser, resisting every effort to drain it away from me. I will then use my power, as I see fit. I mean to live my life an obedient man, but obedient to God, subservient to the wisdom of my ancestors; never to the authority of political truths arrived at yestereday at the voting booth.
Brookhiser adds: "All we would have to change is that General Motors is the state."
Everything that I have learned about American politics derives more or less from reading the works of Harry V. Jaffa and his most frequent subject, Abraham Lincoln. Jaffa's Crisis of the House Divided on the Lincoln-Douglas debates began the restoration of the understanding Lincoln's political thought. Historian Allen Guelzo observed in the bibliographic essay that concludes his highly regarded biography of Lincoln that Crisis is "incontestably the greatest Lincoln book of the [twentieth] century." (I think that makes it the greatest Lincoln book period, as Andrew Ferguson avows.)
Professor Paul Rahe continues his timely series of posts for us on democracy's drift in America :
Two weeks ago, I posted on Power Line a piece, contending that President Obama's health care proposals presuppose the administrative state's assuming a power over our lives and well-being that is nothing less than tyrannical, and tracing the argument for its assumption of such powers to the Progressives' repudiation of the American founding.
President BHO enlisted the support of our forefathers against their will in his 4th of July radio address.
He said the same “unyielding spirit” that drove the pioneers and Depression-era workers was needed now to push for a national health care overhaul, make major energy policy changes, and deal with a struggling economy, he said in his weekly address.
“We are not a people who fear the future. We are a people who make it,” he said. “And on this July 4th, we need to summon that spirit once more. We need to summon the same spirit that inhabited Independence Hall two hundred and thirty-three years ago today.”
Yeah, I am pretty sure our forefathers, having fled tyranny, taxation without representation, and the plundering and ravaging of Great Britain were thinking big government, a huge national debt, unfair and burdensome tax codes, an administration seeking to usurp “checks and balances,” post-modern moral relativity, and “dialogue” with the enemies of freedom and human rights. That’s not what drove them to endure the hardships of an oceanic voyage and a revolutionary war.
On July 9, 1858, Illinois Senator Stephen Douglas gave a campaign speech to a raucous throng from the balcony of the Tremont Hotel in Chicago. Abraham Lincoln was in the audience when Douglas prepared to speak. Douglas invited Lincoln to come join him on the balcony to watch the speech. In his speech Douglas rang the themes of the momentous campaign that Lincoln and Douglas waged that summer and fall for Douglas's Senate seat.
Douglas paid tribute to Lincoln as a "kind, amiable, and intelligent gentleman, a good citizen and an honorable opponent," but expressed his disagreement with Lincoln's June 16 speech to the Illinois Republican convention that had named him its candidate for Douglas's seat. In that speech Lincoln had famously asserted that the nation could not exist "half slave and half free." According to Douglas, Lincoln's assertion was inconsistent with the "diversity" in domestic institutions that was "the great safeguard of our liberties." Then as now, "diversity" was a shibboleth hiding an evil institution that could not be defended on its own terms.
It is a paradox that every dictator has climbed to power on the ladder of free speech. Immediately on attaining power, each dictator has suppressed all free speech except his own.
Barack Obama's message to the Muslims provides a specimen of what passes for liberal higher wisdom with unique Obamian twists. So much good commentary on it has already appeared, including that of Paul Mirengoff here, I wish only to record a few tentative reactions and impressions, subject to correction and refinement, in the spirit of Toby Harnden's "10 mistakes in Cairo."
1. If Obama were General-Secretary of the United Nations, the speech might have been passable. Coming from the president of the United States, it was an embarrassment. Obama runs down the country he represents while puffing himself up as a transcendent figure. He humbles the United States while glorifying his personage. This aspect of the speech seemed to me indecent.
American Legion Post 118, Heritage Park, Wayzata, Minnesota, May 25, 2009
I believe in the United States of America as a government of the people, by the people, for the people; whose just powers are derived from the consent of the governed, a democracy in a republic, a sovereign Nation of many sovereign States; a perfect union, one and inseparable; established upon those principles of freedom, equality, justice, and humanity for which American patriots sacrificed their lives and fortunes.
Were he alive, the greatest president of my lifetime, and by far the best of the last half of the Twentieth Century, would be 98 years old today.
I’ve been writing about Reagan - who, along with PJ O’Rourke, Solzhenitzyn, Dostoevskii and Paul Johnson is the reason I’m a conservative today - as long as this blog has been in existence. His eight years were not perfect, and I’ll resist the urge to beatify my presidents, even if they’ve been out of office for twenty years (to say nothing of in their first month of service). His last term wasn’t as stellar as his first, and his last two years were very difficult.
This article on the history of Thanksgiving as an annual recognized national event really piqued my interest, and hopefully you'll enjoy it, as well; and it will give you perspective on the true meaning and spirit and intent of Thanksgiving. The more I learn about the Founding Fathers, the more I am in awe of them. I believe it is true Providence that so many brilliant, noble, courageous, principled, honorable, wise men all congregated in the colonies, and worked together to define the freedom of our nation; to define a new form of government; and to give their fortunes, lives, and sacred honor to defend this new nation.
Today is Veterans Day, time set aside to honor those who have served in our military. Yesterday I posted the "Soldiers Poem" which aptly summarizes the gratitude we owe our soldiers.
In today's world, there are many who think all war is bad, peace at any cost, and have no clue as to how badly humans can behave when they either are a thuggish dictator or under the thumb of one. I was sent this reminder by Vets for Freedom. This quote by John Stuart Mill says it all:
"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things; the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks nothing worth a war, is worse." The moment we believe our freedoms inevitable, we cease to live in history and sour the soldier's sacrifice. Our freedoms--purchased on the battlefield--are indeed "worthy of war."
In his third debate with Stephen Douglas, Abraham Lincoln quoted a resolution from 1850 in which the principles of the Ordinance of 1787 received "the sanction of Thomas Jefferson, who is acknowledged by all to be the great oracle and expounder of our faith." Jefferson's authority derived from the fact that, as Lincoln observed in his 1859 letter to Pierce, he was "the man who, in the concrete pressure of a struggle for national independence by a single people, had the coolness, forecast, and capacity to introduce into a merely revolutionary document, an abstract truth, applicable to all men and all times."
On Monday Thomas Jefferson turned 265; April 14 was the 265th anniversary of Jefferson's birth. The anniversary was marked by President and Mrs. Bush with a reception in the East Room of the White House. Harking back to Lincoln's remarks on Jefferson, President Bush observed: "With a single sentence, Thomas Jefferson changed the history of the world."
"One of the most valuable lessons that history has to teach us is that after the most terrible frustration and discouragement, sometimes change can come so quickly and so unexpectedly, it surprises even those who have made it happen. This is particularly true in Washington. One Cabinet member in a former administration put it very well: 'The toughest job in Washington,' he said, 'is being able to tell the difference between the tides, the waves, and the ripples.' Well, actually that's been the problem with the perceptions of many of the experts and the pundits; they concentrate so much on the ripples, they can’t see the waves and the tides."
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate—we can not consecrate—we can not hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from 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.
During the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln delivered the address at the dedication of the Soldiers' National Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, on the afternoon of Thursday, November 19, 1863:
