Patrick Henry before the Virginia House of Burgesses, 1765. Speaking out against the Stamp Act. "If this be treason, make the most of it!"
“Are we disposed to be of the number of those who, having eyes, see not,
and, having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly concern their temporal
salvation? For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to
know the whole truth...”
Patrick Henry -- 1775
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We, as a nation, have been blessed at critical junctures in our history
to have leaders who understood the times and knew what America needed to
do. Once again we find ourselves
at one of those moments, and thankfully leaders are coming to the fore who are
following in our nation’s best traditions of speaking the plain truth to the
American people and trusting them to respond accordingly. These leaders have
great examples in our past from which to draw inspiration.
On March 23, 1775, when Patrick Henry rose to address the Virginia
Convention, he had surveyed the political landscape and understood that the
previous ten years had proven to him that the British Crown and Parliament
intended to keep the colonies under their tyrannical yoke. The time for
ceremony for Henry had long since passed. He said, “The question before the
House is one of awful moment to this country. For my own part, I consider it as
nothing less than a question of freedom or slavery; and in proportion to the
magnitude of the subject ought to be the freedom of the debate. It is only in
this way that we can hope to arrive at truth, and fulfill the great
responsibility which we hold to God and our country.” He concluded
with his renown rousing call to action. “Why stand we here idle?…I know not
what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!”
Virginia heard Henry that day and voted to prepare for war.
Abraham Lincoln shepherded the United States through another momentous
and turbulent time. In the years
leading up the Civil War, he saw slavery splitting the nation apart and
understood, “A nation divided against itself cannot stand.” In the throes of the War a few years
later, he said,
“Fellows Citizens, we cannot escape history…In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free
-- honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve. We shall nobly save,
or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth. Other means may succeed; this
could not fail. The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just -- a way which, if
followed, the world will forever applaud, and God must forever bless.” Americans
followed Lincoln and paid the price in hundreds of thousands of lives and
hundreds of millions of dollars to preserve the union and end slavery.
Franklin Roosevelt watched the Nazi menace rising in Europe during the
30s, and he could foresee a war on the horizon and wanted America to prepare
for it. Supposedly with the signing of the Munich Agreement between Britain,
France and Germany in 1938, the peace was secure in their time. Roosevelt saw
things differently. He told Congress and
the American people, “A war which threatened to envelop the world in flames
has been averted; but it has become increasingly clear that world peace is not
assured.” He then made the unpopular case that America needed to prepare for
war. As he drew his remarks to a close, Roosevelt said, “Once I prophesied that
this generation of Americans had a rendezvous with destiny. That prophecy comes
true...” That generation saved the “last best hope on earth” and rid it of
tyrannies bent on world control.
Ronald Reagan saw that Americans had another “rendezvous with destiny”
during the 1980s as well. He watched the country he loved in trouble with a
declining economy at home and the Soviet threat abroad. In his first Inaugural Address,
he said, “We must act today in order to preserve
tomorrow.” He exhorted, “The
economic ills we suffer have come upon us over several decades. They will not
go away in days, weeks, or months, but they will go away. They will go away
because we, as Americans, have the capacity now, as we have had in the past, to
do whatever needs to be done to preserve this last and greatest bastion of
freedom.” Americans acted, and the economy recovered and then went on to
unprecedented heights, and an Evil Empire came to an end.
Yet again America finds itself at a cross roads with the
future of the country at stake. Fortunately, a new group of leaders are coming
to the fore who understand the times and know what we must do and are willing
to speak the whole truth. Whether
it’s Governors like New Jersey’s Chris Christie, Wisconsin’s Scott Walker,
Virginia’s Bob McDonnell, Ohio’s John Kasich, New York’s Andrew Cuomo, or the
new House Budget Chair Paul Ryan. They are boldly and candidly saying it like
it is.
Recently, Chris Christie perhaps said it best in his address to the American Enterprise
Institute. He pointed out that
to keep our states and our nation from going bankrupt we needed to be honest
about cutting pensions and benefits, and on the federal level Social Security,
Medicare, and Medicaid. He said if we did not, “We are teetering on the edge of
disaster.” He also made reference to America’s ability to face the hard truths
when the times require it. “I love when people talk about American
exceptionalism, but American exceptionalism has to include the courage to do
the right thing. It cannot just be a belief that because we are exceptional
everything will work out okay. Part of truly being exceptional is being willing
to do the difficult things.”
We have been an exceptional nation because at crucial
moments in our nation’s history we’ve been willing to do the right things. May we rise to the occasion
in our time.