No One Asked Me But… (June 2, 2021)

By DR. LARRY MOSES

No one asked me but… We, as a diverse nation, have forgotten how to converse with each other in our diversity. Instead of accepting the value of diverse thought, we have vilified those who differ with our opinion.

Members of Congress reminds me of members of rival street gangs as they have become bitter enemies. We sat and watched in fascination as the leader of the opposing party tore up a copy of the President’s address to the nation. For four years, we suffered through mid-night tweets from a President who delivered nasty personal attacks on political friends and foes alike. We take a position and those who oppose it are not merely people who disagree with us, they have to be Nazis, racist, homophobes, sexists or whatever other derogatory term we can conjure up. When the country is desperately calling unity, we get only discourse.

President George Washington had warned the nation about the development of political parties. The growth of the party system which pitted Federalists against Democrat-Republicans was in his view the worst enemy of good government and a fire that could not be quenched. The election of 1800 proved Washington right, and the political blazed started at that time has grown to an all-consuming fire endangering the very existence of the America.

Patrick Henry, when America politics was based on region rather than party, stated: “The distinctions between Virginians, Pennsylvanians, New Yorkers, and New Englanders, are no more. I am not a Virginian, but an American.” However, the greatest call for unity is probably found in Thomas Jefferson’s first Inaugural Address.

The election of 1800 which pitted the Democrat-Republican Thomas Jefferson against the Federalist John Adams saw character assassination as the order of the day. Federalist accused Jefferson of all sorts of infidelities. Theophilus Parsons called him the “great arch priest of Jacobinism and infidelity.” Newspapers intimated that Jefferson was a Jew or even a Muslim. (Sound familiar?). Democratic-Republicans spoke of need to save the nation from John Adams and the “talons of Monarchists.” After the election John Adams left town on the morning of and prior to Jefferson’s inauguration.

That Jefferson was being hypocritical when he wrote “all men are created equal,” while he owned slaves, cannot be denied. But there is no challenge to Jefferson’s intellect. President Kennedy once stated at a White House dinner for Nobel Prize winners, that he was grateful to find himself among “ the most extraordinary collection of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.”

Jefferson’s first inaugural address was widely reprinted under the headline “WE ARE ALL REPUBLICANS; WE ARE ALL FEDERALISTS.” Jefferson called for Americans to “unite in common efforts for the common good.” While this did not stop the partisan bickering nor the growth of political parties, it is a speech that should be read and taken to heart by all Americans. Parts of this speech makes up my Thought of the Week.

Thought of the week…. During the contest of opinion ….the animation of discussions and of exertions …which might impose on strangers unused to think freely and to speak and to write what they think; …this being now decided by the voice of the nation, announced according to the rules of the Constitution, all will, of course, arrange themselves under the will of the law, and unite in common efforts for the common good. All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect… Let us, then, fellow-citizens, unite with one heart and one mind. Let us restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection without which liberty and even life itself are but dreary things. … every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. We have called by different names brethren of the same principle. We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists. … error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it. I know, indeed, that some honest men fear that a republican government cannot be strong,… but would the honest patriot, in the full tide of successful experiment, abandon a government which has so far kept us free…Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others?
Let us, then, with courage and confidence pursue our own Federal and Republican principles, our attachment to union and representative government. …entertaining a due sense of our equal right to the use of our own faculties, to the acquisitions of our own industry, to honor and confidence from our fellow-citizens, resulting not from birth, but from our actions and their sense of them; enlightened by a benign religion, professed, indeed, and practiced in various forms, yet all of them inculcating honesty, truth, temperance, gratitude, and the love of man; …a wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government,…
…it is proper you should understand what I deem the essential principles of our Government, and consequently those which ought to shape its Administration. …Equal and exact justice to all men,; peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none; the support of the State governments in all their rights, … a jealous care of the right of election by the people — absolute acquiescence in the decisions of the majority, a well-disciplined militia, …the supremacy of the civil over the military authority; economy in the public expense, … freedom of religion; freedom of the press, and freedom of person under the protection of the habeas corpus, and trial by juries impartially selected. These principles form the bright constellation which has gone before us and guided our steps through an age of revolution and reformation.. They should be the creed of our political faith, the text of civic instruction, the touchstone by which to try the services of those we trust; and should we wander from them in moments of error or of alarm, let us hasten to retrace our steps and to regain the road which alone leads to peace, liberty, and safety.
– Thomas Jefferson