Honorable Duty and Public Virtue

I love words used well. And so I tend to spend an embarrassing amount of time polishing my posts to ensure I use the words just right. The result is that some things I write are never posted or are put aside to revisit when time permits. This Memorial Day, I sat polishing up a blog on insurance. But that wasn’t worthy of the day, so I set it aside to reflect on the sacrifices of those who died in service to our country, and whether our current leaders are honoring that sacrifice or squandering it.

I’m not sure that my attempt to describe the sacrifice of the service members who have died for us, or what that sacrifice means to me, would ever be sufficient. I think of President Lincoln, a great orator and a greater mind, feeling that his attempt to do so would be little noted nor long remembered. But he was him, and his words have been long remembered.

Words matter. They can create a momentum in either direction, for good or for bad. They can bolster or tear down. And if repeated enough, even when false, they can become true…if we let them.

But of the many things we owe those brave men and women in return for their sacrifice is an obligation to call out falsehoods and to identify in our leaders where they fall short, if for no other reason than because it is those same leaders who will send the next of our men and women into harm’s way.

In November, 1775, Abigail Adams sent a letter to her husband, John. She was ill and the weather was terrible, but she found these words. “I am more and more convinced that man is a dangerous creature, and that power whether vested in many or a few is ever grasping, and like the grave cries give, give. The great fish swallow up the small, and he who is the most strenuous for the rights of the people, when vested with power, is as eager after the prerogatives of government. You tell me of degrees of perfection to which humane nature is capable of arriving, and I believe it, but at the same time lament that our admiration should arise from the scarcity of the instances.”

Such great poetry, that pointed condemnation of the ambition of man. John Adams was no less concerned on the topic. In a letter to Mercy Warren a few months later, he said in regards which form of government would be most appropriate for our nation that a republic “will produce strength, hardiness, activity, courage, fortitude, and enterprise…but there is so much rascality, so much venality and corruption, so much avarice and ambition, such a rage for profit and commerce among all ranks and degrees of men, even in America, that I sometimes doubt whether there is public virtue enough to support a republic.”

I was reminded of both those quotes recently while watching Ken Burns’ series, The American Revolution. It is my go-to, of late, while flying. On a recent trip, I spent a considerable amount of time looking out the window at the cloudscape after the episode I was watching reminded me about the inconvenient truth that George Washington fought a revolution for liberty while being attended by his valet, a young slave named William Lee.

Our leaders have always been flawed, complicated men. But the best of them found a public virtue that outpaced their private shortcomings. Sometimes it was a change of heart and sometimes it was circumstantial expediency. And often, whether by the weight of the office or the force of divine intervention, we got to the right place.

George Washington profited all his life from slave labor. He released those slaves…eventually, but not while his or his wife’s lifestyle depended upon them. In his will, a fascinating document written in his own hand, Washington freed William Lee (“my Mulatto man William”) and indicated the rest should be freed upon Martha’s death. He expressed regret that he could not do so sooner, and his will provided for the care of the elderly and infirmed slaves upon their eventual release and care and education of the young slaves upon theirs. But Washington was also the man that showed us what the presidency should be and, perhaps more importantly, left the presidency, cementing that we were indeed a Republic rather than a monarchy in different form.

Abraham Lincoln said in a debate, “I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races, that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race.” But as president, Lincoln was the man that saved the Union, signed the Emancipation Proclamation, and lobbied for the passage of the 13^th Amendment that ended the evil institution of slavery.

Lyndon Johnson was no profile in courage on the issue of race as he made his way up the political ladder. He chose advancement over that fight, often changing his tune for different audiences. Privately, even as president, he used racist language, including in conversations about nominating Thurgood Marshall to the Supreme Court. If we had a measuring stick for complicated, he might have topped the charts among presidents as one of the most complicated men in the club. But it was he that fought tirelessly for the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1968.

Despite these flawed leaders, often a reflection of the environment in which they lived, we have found our way forward and the arc has indeed bent toward justice. So what of today and whether our leaders, in all they do, remember that they are stewards of this nation built upon the sacrifice not just of its soldiers and citizens, but also of those brought here in chains. Through word and action are they building upon the foundation or instead looking for cracks in which to drive wedges?

What does it do to a nation when the Democrat House Minority Leader calls the Supreme Court illegitimate. What does it do to a nation when the Republican President steals another $1.8 billion dollars in taxpayer money, this time to set up a fund for every Mike-Lindell-type miscreant under the sun, and then has his Justice Department agree to direct that the IRS can never audit his or his sons’ tax returns. What does it do to a nation when two national parties cut up the various states into darker blue or darker red districts. What does it do to a nation when reasonable centrists are primaried out of office for the unpardonable sin of pissing off their party leaders. What does it do to a nation when sleight of hand becomes the tool not of the magician but rather of the politician. What does it do to a people when that sleight of hand robs trillions of their tax dollars while they struggle to pay their own bills.

I didn’t use question marks in that last paragraph as those aren’t questions. They are statements because we inherently know what the result will be. When grift on the left is replaced by grift on the right, it is still grift. The perp may have changed but the victim is still the same...the taxpayer.

So I ask you, then, what happens when our leaders no longer even attempt to tamp down their private shortcomings? Do we have any chance of them finding public virtue or inspiring us to find ours? Worse still, what happens when instead they flaunt their private shortcomings and lean into them in their public “service”?

John Adams, in that same letter to Mercy Warren, wrote, “it is the part of a great politician to make the character of his people; to extinguish among them the follies and vices that he sees, and to create in them the virtues and abilities which he sees wanting.” Now perhaps this sentiment is overly paternalistic. Perhaps a people find virtue from a source other than from another man, but surely none would argue that behavior in our country has become more virtuous over the last decade. There is a chicken and the egg debate to be had, for sure, as to whether bad leaders brought us bad civic behavior or whether bad civic behavior landed us with bad leaders. Either way, a leader’s public virtue matters. Adams ended his sentiment with this fear, “I wish I was sure that America has one such politician, but I fear she has not.”

As I continue to think about Memorial Day, I remember another blog I wrote just over a year ago but never posted. It was about four American soldiers who perished in Lithuania when their armored tow vehicle sank into a bog during the early morning hours. It made headlines, then, not just because of their tragic loss or the days it took to locate them, but also because President Trump did not attend the dignified transfer of their remains. Rather, he hosted a LIV golf event at one of his clubs.

In stark contrast, the people of Lithuania turned out in the thousands to honor our fallen as their remains began the journey home to America. Those thousands were accompanied by Lithuania’s president, Gitanas Nausėda. Lithuanian soldiers carried small US flags. An archbishop blessed the hearses. A lone bugler played Taps. Church bells rang. Tears were shed by ordinary citizens who never knew these four Americans. A Lithuanian military officer embraced a United States military officer. And President Nausėda said to all those gathered, “For us, it is more than a duty, it is an emotion. We have experienced trials in our history and therefore we understand well what loss is, what death is, what honorable duty is.” It is worth noting that the people of Lithuania did this for our heroes on the same day we announced tariffs on their country.

Honorable duty…we could use some of that from our leaders right about now. May God rest the souls of all those who, for us, “gave the last full measure of devotion.”