Reflections of the Independence Day

July 2018

Unity and change

Kaitlyn Marks
MSMU Class of 2021

As a country, America is at a crossroads, teetering on the horizon of so many polarized issues, contrasting viewpoints, and moral and ethical questions that will define the many years to come. Historically, our nation’s presidents have attempted to encapsulate what it means to be an American, particularly in terms of who we are and what we need to achieve. For different administrations and political parties, this seems to be outlined in different ways—but foundationally, we are all fighting for the same goal: to be the proud, outstanding nation that is open to all and welcomes the weary, protects its citizens, and works to make the world a better place. Throughout his presidency, former President Jimmy (James) Carter emulated the ideals and values of both traditional and modern America. He aimed to unify and harmonize the people. In his Inaugural Address, Carter provided a call-to-action, but rather than direct this action towards division, he directed it towards progress and unity, supporting a common goal and common morality that accompanies being human.

In the Address, he enjoined the nation: "Let us learn together and laugh together and work together and pray together, confident that in the end we will triumph together in the right. The American dream endures. We must once again have full faith in our country--and in one another. I believe America can be better. We can be even stronger than before."

Life is full of instances of polarization. Today, tensions explode over gun control, environmental issues, healthcare, childcare, immigration, separating families at our country’s border, and more. Debates seem endless over every issue. If Carter were to highlight ‘togetherness’ as a theme in a present-day inaugural address, many people would be skeptical. Is it possible, in a world ravaged by division, to come together and be one country, triumphant and morally sound, while being faithful in one another even through dark times? I believe it is. With a positive shift towards open-mindedness, I think that America could become stronger by embracing the message that rang true in 1977, and joining together.

Many people in America today feel strongly that their vote is useless, that their voices will not be heard. Even in the 1970’s, Carter could feel Americans shifting into a powerless mindset, and he addressed it within his "Crisis of Confidence" Speech regarding the energy crisis.

He stated, "Our people are losing that faith, not only in government itself but in the ability as citizens to serve as the ultimate rulers and shapers of our democracy."

America was founded on the ideal of rule by the people. If the general population feels powerless, and politics are allowed to become corrupt, there cannot be progress or positive change. Carter was ahead of his time in acknowledging that, especially for underrepresented groups and areas, American politics seem distant and impossible to impact. One person’s vote should matter. All voices should matter. And yet, we need to create a more open, safe dialogue. So often in our country, due to polarizing issues,, conversations turn hostile when differing opinions appear incompatible. However, if our style of conversation changed, and instead of spreading falsehoods and misinformation or campaigning by simply degrading and belittling their opponents, candidates could use their platforms to share information, open up a dialogue regarding issues, and listen to the voices of the people to hear what needs to change. In this way, America would retain its faith and ability to make progress.

Particularly relevant to today is Carter’s ideologies about who we are and what we need to be doing as a nation. In his Inaugural Address, Carter discussed these foundational values:

"We have already found a high degree of personal liberty, and we are now struggling to enhance equality of opportunity. Our commitment to human rights must be absolute, our laws fair, our national beauty preserved; the powerful must not persecute the weak, and human dignity must be enhanced."

Whether liberal or conservative, traditional or progressive, Democrat or Republican, every person can, on a foundational level, see the truth in Carter’s wishes for America. In preserving human rights, environmental beauty, and protecting those who are vulnerable to abuses, we become the nation we have always been destined to be. There is no true liberal or conservative America; instead, there is only the United States of America. Division seems inevitable, but with a keen awareness of who we are and our national identity, making choices concerning human life, the world around us, and lawmaking agendas should become clearer and easier. If all choices in politics were based upon information, the values of the people, and our national identity rather than misinformation, personal agendas, and supplemental money from large corporations, all the choices would yield results we could stand by. In fifty years, when we look back at all we’ve done, will we be happy? Will we be ashamed? Will separating children from their parents at the border fit in with our national identity, or will it forever change it? Will gun reform laws (or lack thereof) do the same? The fabric of our country’s identity is at stake.

Our history is an integral part of our identity. In his "Crisis of Confidence" speech, Carter examined the role our nation’s history takes on in modern times and how that is changing with the developments of modern America.

He said, "As a people we know our past and we are proud of it. Our progress has been part of the living history of America, even the world. We always believed that we were part of a great movement of humanity itself called democracy, involved in the search for freedom; and that belief has always strengthened us in our purpose. But just as we are losing our confidence in the future, we are also beginning to close the door on our past."

We are shifting in many ways. Carter also reflects on the value of hard work versus the value of physical belongings. Our history made us the country we are, but it also limited us. At one point, I wouldn’t have been able to vote or make my voice heard. Labor laws helped to prevent the abuses of children and immigrants in the work force. Involving ourselves in war to stop oppression and preserve human rights shaped us into who we are. But our work is not finished. Like President Carter said, we must remain committed to the causes that are within our backbone. By staying true to who we are as a country, we can grow and become the nation we were always destined to be.

Read other articles by Kaitlyn Marks

One country, one community

Morgan Rooney
MSMU Class of 2020

As Independence Day approaches, it is important to remember that Americans share many of the same goals. All Americans want to live what they believe to be good and happy lives. All Americans want to thrive. All Americans want to be a part of a country they are proud of. Americans may have different definitions of what it means to thrive, and what it means to achieve the common good, but ultimately, these are goals everyone in the nation shares. Sometimes it is difficult to see the similarities in a country with so much diversity and so much dissent. Regardless of the polarization rampant in today’s political culture, there is one thing we all have in common: we are all Americans who want the best for our country. The celebration held annually on the 4th of July represents this as well. Despite political alliances, differing beliefs, and varying cultures, Americans of all shapes and sizes gather to celebrate on Independence Day. Furthermore, Americans have unifying traditions on the holiday, from watching and lighting colorful fireworks, barbecuing ribs, and drinking a toast with friends and family.

When considering which presidential speech highlights what it means to create an American sense of community and unity, there was one speech that stood out to me in particular: the inaugural address of President John F. Kennedy. Although it was given 40 years ago in 1961, this speech remains one of the most famous speeches in American history. There is certainly a good reason for it.

This presidential speech was aimed not to a certain party or another, but to the country as a whole. Even the first line of the speech states that Americans "observe today not a victory of party but a celebration of freedom". I believe that this opening line sets the tone of the entire speech because it challenges the audience to reconnect with the ideals of the nation, calling them to unity. The victory of the Democratic party in the 1961 election was not as important to President Kennedy as the freedom he hoped his nation would once again represent.

When reading just the opening of the speech, I am reminded of another presidential speech. In president George Washington’s farewell address in 1796, Washington addressed his opposition to the establishment of political parties. He stated that, while establishing political parties "may now and then answer popular ends," they would eventually "[destroy] afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion." Regardless of what any individual may believe regarding the place of political parties in our country, both good and bad, it is important to note that even though there is a division, it is the same nation in which we all reside. We are the "United" States of America, and we are, and will always be, united in the celebration of liberty.

The legacy of the forefathers is relevant in another part of Kennedy’s address in which he states that "we are the heirs of that first revolution," and "that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans." The use of the world "we" is the most important word in the phrase. Instead of saying that "I" will do good for the people or "I" will carry out the legacy of those who established this country, Kennedy used "we." "We the People," for whom and on whom this nation was founded, benefit from the unity of our nation. All citizens of the USA are heirs of those who brought us freedom, and we should celebrate that.

President Kennedy spends the next section of his speech addressing the entire world on our desire for peace on Earth, but afterwards, he leaves the country and the world with some of the most notable words of his lifetime.

"And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you--ask what you can do for your country… My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.

"Finally, whether you are citizens of America or citizens of the world, ask of us here the same high standards of strength and sacrifice which we ask of you."

These words serve as a powerful and memorable conclusion to the speech. They readdress that unity which has already been a prominent part of Kennedy’s speech. Furthermore, they are a call to action. They remind Americans that the state of the nation is in our hands, and that America must not only serve its own good, but the good of humanity as a whole. We must all work together to make this country a great place to live in, and all must participate in the spirit of true democracy.

Something that Mount St. Mary’s University supports and frequently holds discusses in lectures and presentations is "Civil Society". The Mount holds high standards for its university community. I have personally attended lectures on topics facing America today, such as civil rights, immigration, and the welfare of inner-city communities. These talks opened my eyes to several different ways that citizens of the United States can promote the common good for people who are struggling to the nation we share. One of the solutions the speaker highlighted was opening and funding of schools to promote education for all in the hope that a good education would bring many out of poverty. Another showed the positive effects of a community garden on people in the inner city, so that they may have access to fresh, local produce. There are so many ways community members can support each other, and Kennedy’s speech encourages me to reflect on that.

No matter which political party you support, or whether or not you believed that John F. Kennedy was a good president (or even a good person), his inaugural address contains wise words that the modern United States should abide.

Read other articles by Morgan Rooney

A farewell to factions

Shea Rowell
MSMU Class of 2019

In 1796, our nation’s first president announced that he would not be running for a third presidential term, in what would thereafter be known as Washington’s Farewell Address. This is the speech that would make history by establishing a precedent that nearly every United States president would follow the two-term limit for presidential candidates.

By stepping down from his presidency, Washington not only encouraged future presidents to relinquish their positions after two terms, but also entrusted his young and beloved nation to the hands of his peers, and to posterity.

With that in mind, Washington left us with advice to follow, allowing his wisdom to guide the new nation as its executive hands shifted. While the speech is rather brief, it includes a variety of warnings to the nation, which are both elegantly-expressed, and, as time has now proved, prophetic. Washington warns that over-secularization leads to a general decline in the moral strength of a nation. He advised future executives to avoid imprudent borrowing, as public debt only serves to push the burdens of the present onto the shoulders of the future. In regard to foreign relations, he warned both against undue ill-will and affection toward other nations, urging that reason, rather than passion, should guide the nation’s interaction with the rest of the world. Finally, I was amused to read, Washington advised his listeners with the familiar phrase, "honesty is always the best policy."

The most famous warning in the speech, however, is his warning against the formation of factions, known today as political parties. From the days of Whigs and Tories to the contemporary Democrats and Republicans, America has always had political parties running the show. Washington would not be surprised, as he said that the party spirit "is inseparable from our nature, having its root in the strongest passions of the human mind." As ingrained as they may be in our political system, and our humanity itself, Washington strongly warned against their influence, calling them our "worst enemy."

According to Washington, political parties are dangerous, if not fatal, institutions, because "They serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put, in the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community." In other words, political parties subvert democracy by forcing government officials to minister to the interests of the party rather than the interests of the people.

Washington states that alternating political parties are particularly vulnerable to the "spirit of revenge" against the other parties, encouraging them to thwart the interests of the opposing party, even if those interests serve the public good.

Washington listed a variety of consequences of harboring powerful political parties: "It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which finds a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions. Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another."

Observing today’s political climate, especially following the 2016 presidential election, these consequences have come to fruition. Every election, at local, state, and federal level, is divided neatly into two leading political parties, with perhaps "third-party" candidates trailing as an afterthought, stigmatized as a "wasted vote." Many states require voters to register with a political party before participating in primary elections. Political parties nominate candidates for each presidential election, forcing those who wish to run to take party platforms as a package deal.

I wonder what today’s public officials could accomplish if they didn’t have the burden of pleasing a political party on their shoulders. How many of President Trump’s (or insert any president) key campaign promises were influenced by his need to please the Republican party? How many new laws would Congress have been able to pass if Senators and Representatives were unafraid of ruining their chances of re-election by supporting a law proposed by the other party?

The political landscape has deviated far from the ideals Washington envisioned. Instead of harboring a spirit of cooperation and working towards the goal of serving the common good of the people who entrusted them with their office, politicians are coerced into the strategy game. While I like to believe most public officials still work to make the world a better place for Americans, the party system forces them to adhere to predetermined policies and structures. Even among scholars and citizens, political conversations often turn to finger-pointing between parties. Common examples of partisan blame abound. For example, "The great problems of the world can be solved if only right/left-wing news stations would stop spreading their lies." Or, "America’s youth is brainwashed by the liberal/conservative agenda." We put our blame, and, alarmingly, our trust, in political parties. This tendency is well-intended, but inevitably turns us against each other as we try to serve the same goal of the common good.

Our first president saw it coming, and we see it happening. A political system too dependent on parties has harbored dissention and corruption where there should be harmony and integrity. It is even difficult to imagine our democracy following any other system; it is doubtlessly a behemoth task to undertake. It is, however, worth the effort to consider. The vision Washington paints in his Farewell Address is truly a beautiful image: a political system where disagreements are not based on party alliances but genuine ideological disputes; a democracy in which the people do not have to filter their will through the lens of a false dichotomy; a system which welcomes public officials to express their opinions honestly.

Factions have taken root and factions have born their bitter fruit. We cannot say we were not warned.

Read other articles by Shea Rowell

Our duty as we understand it

Sarah Muir
MSMU Class of 2018

The presidential race of 1860 was fraught with tension and uncertainty. The country that would one day be referred to as "indivisible" was cleaved in two. North and South, Democrat and Republican, freeman and slave. Our country was holding its breath for the match to drop and the powder-keg of dissension, injustice, and anger to ignite into a Civil War.

This election had two main candidates, Senator Stephen Douglas, who was the choice of the Democratic party and ran for "conservative" southern interest (in other words, he was for southern states maintaining slavery), and a Republican lawyer named Abraham Lincoln who ran for the interest of preserving the Union and the laws under which it was founded. Tensions over the restriction and abolition of slavery were at an all-time high and the Confederate South had delivered her ultimatum: should the presidential elections pull in favor of the Republican party, they would extract themselves from the Union. War was becoming a matter of "when" not "if".

One year before Abraham Lincoln’s inauguration into his first term of presidential office in 1961, he addressed an audience at the Cooper Institute in Manhattan. In later years it would be referred to as his Cooper Union Address and it focused on slavery, the question of Constitutional Rights, and the threat of the Confederacy to separate from the Union. Lincoln tackled the subject matter with a lawyer’s logic. He appealed to both the rational and the passionate sides of his audience to cement his argument. It was a long speech, and full of sometimes difficult vocabulary (at least for me). However, I urge everyone to read it because it is a fine example of American rhetoric. I don’t think I could ever do it justice in the one thousand words allotted to me, but I do consider it to be one of the best speeches I have ever read.

In the first half of his speech, Lincoln addresses a certain statement that was made by Senator Douglas in Ohio, one that echoed a great many other southern slavery advocates: "Our fathers, when they framed the Government under which we live, understood this question just as well, and even better, than we do now." The question is whether Congress should control slavery in the territories, rather than allow it to expand or if slavery is purely a state matter. Douglas, like other Southern states that were ceded into the Union, believed that slavery should be state-regulated. The sovereignty would allow the Southern states to not only maintain the use of slaves, but allow them to cut any restrictions placed on slave trade. This would divide the country more definitely into Free-States and Slave-States. The main argument of the Democratic party was that it was not only their Constitutional right to keep their slaves as their "property", but that the Founding Fathers supported and understood this "right".

Unable to abide by this unfounded generalization, Lincoln decided to clarify the errant argument. Pulling from the political history of 21 individual framers proves that a majority of the original 39 individuals that signed the Constitution supported moves that would allow congressional restrictions on slavery and even its abolition. The Constitution does not use the words "slave" and "slavery" or use the word "property" in a way that would imply that owning a slave would be considered a right. Lincoln stated "That if we would supplant the opinions and policy of our fathers in any case, we should do so upon evidence so conclusive, and argument so clear, that even their great authority, fairly considered and weighed, cannot stand; and most surely not in a case whereof we ourselves declare they understood the question better than we." However, Lincoln recognized that proving this point to a room of people that already agree with him was not enough. Nor did he think the North yielding its territories would stop an outbreak of war. What the South wanted was for the North to recognize slavery as right; however, such a declaration would be unreasonable according to the laws upon which the country was founded.

It has been 158 years since Lincoln gave this speech, and not much has changed. We have comefarina short time, however the fractures that divide us still run deep. The political sides are even the same as they were then, Democrat versus Republican. We are quick to using the slander and stereotypes we have built about "the other side". If you watch the news for one hour, the matter of the Constitutionality of one law or another will, no doubt, arise, along with a statement of "Well, this isn’t what the founders of this nation would have wanted."This has become a readymade argument to parrot without having to support it.

Today there is a streak of irresponsibility regarding language. I’m not sure who to blame for this, or if there is any one person or thing to blame. I would love to grumpily mutter about education, however with the access we have to public libraries and the internet I suppose everything is there. Maybe the problem is there is so much of it, so much that we have condensed our understanding of the past down to bylines, click-baits, and 140 characters.

One major change is language. A few months ago, I sat down with the now managing editor, Shea Rowell. Our discussion of the newspaper eventually led to a conversation about old speeches. We agreed that the rhetoric you see in the current stock of politicians is somewhat lackluster when you compare it to the orators of the past. Today, politicians rarely write their own speeches. While they have a hand in it, something to make it their own, the rest is put there by the minds of others. Perhaps I am a bit cynical, but when I hear the speeches of today they sound disingenuous. When I hear arguments, they are as flimsy as papier-mâché, made to look like steel through loud, unsupported declarations.

Is it wrong of me to expect the people on the news or in political office to be held accountable for their words? To demand that they display their knowledge, not just their position? I don’t think it is wrong to desire this. In fact, if the state of our politicians (parties included) is reflected on myself, as well as my country, then it is my duty to demand these things. In the words of Abraham Lincoln, "...Let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it."

Read other articles by Sarah Muir

Read Past Editions of Four Years at the Mount