Many on the left also believe that the current call for a smaller federal government and a return to federalism—otherwise known as states’ rights—is code for a return to white supremacy.
But is it racist to believe in the principles of the American founding? To revere the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights and to invoke the Tenth Amendment? To want leaders and national policies that respect the wisdom and humanity of these documents?
The answer is important, because it speaks to the kind of country we are, and the kind of country we were meant to be. Did our founding values produce the country of Reverend Jeremiah Wright’s rants? A place where African Americans or any minority would be justified in saying, “God damn America,” instead of “God Bless America”?
Or did our Founders enshrine a set of principles that gave birth to a just society, despite the obscenity of slavery? Did they, in fact, set the stage for the elimination of slavery? Does America really need, in the words of President Obama, a “fundamental transformation” in order to be a good and decent nation?
As we all know, many of our Founders were slaveholders. Even Thomas Jefferson, the author of the assertion that all men are “created equal” and that we are all “endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights,” owned slaves and may have had a sexual relationship with one of them.
Perhaps the most powerful (and frequently cited) evidence pointed to by critics of the founding is the so-called three-fifths clause in the original Constitution. The Constitution that was produced in Philadelphia in 1787 contained a clause that, for the purposes of determining representation in Congress and taxation, counted each “free person” as one and “all other persons” (meaning slaves, although the Constitution never uses the word) as three fifths of a person. Native Americans were not counted at all.
Americans can well ask how, in light of these historical facts, the idealistic words of the Declaration are not the words of hypocrites? How can the meaning of the Constitution not be that African Americans were, and were destined to be, considered less human than white Americans in the United States? If you’ve attended an elite college or even taken a high school history course, you have probably heard the infamous three-fifths clause denounced as evidence that the founding generation was morally blind, thus all of their works are irredeemably tainted, just like that label on the Constitution warned.
So what is the truth of our founding? We all know that the question of what to do about slavery and its obvious grotesque violation of the ideals of the Declaration was a major issue at the Constitutional Convention. It almost ended the Founders’ efforts to produce a Constitution, and with it, a new republic.
Most of us have always thought that the Founders were forced to compromise on the issue of slavery for the sake of creating the Union and keeping it together. Some wanted slavery to continue; some genuinely wanted it abolished. In the end, the profound moral challenge of slavery was put off for future generations to resolve.
To a great extent this view of the founding is true. But what I’ve learned is that the framers of the Constitution did more than simply compromise. They did more than just kick the can down the road. They produced a document that one of the delegates at the Constitutional Convention, James Wilson, said succeeded in “laying the foundation for banishing slavery out of this country,” even though he regretted that “the period is more distant than I could wish.”
Just how the framers did this was explained brilliantly in an essay by the late constitutional scholar Robert Goldwin:
The struggle that took place in the convention was between Southern delegates trying to strengthen the constitutional supports for slavery and Northern delegates trying to weaken them. That issue—the initial and subsequent political strength of slavery—was in contention on the question of representation in the House of Representatives . . . Slave-state delegates were in favor of including every slave, just as they would any other inhabitant. Madison’s notes indicate that the delegates from South Carolina “insisted that blacks be included in the rule of representation, equally with whites.”
On the other side, delegates from the nonslave states were opposed to counting the slaves, because it would give the South more votes and because it made a mockery of the principle of representation to count persons who had no influence whatsoever on the law-making process and who therefore were not “represented” in the legislature in any meaningful sense of the word. Counting the slaves for purposes of representation would also give the slave states an incentive to increase their slave population instead of decreasing it. In short, considering the chief purpose of this clause in the Constitution, it is obvious that an antislavery delegate would not want to count the slave at all. (emphasis mine)
To our great and lasting shame, slavery continued in the United States for almost a century following the adoption of the Constitution. Although the controversy never went away, in the end it took the bloodiest war in our nation’s history to end the evil practice. Hundreds of thousands of Americans died, but slavery finally died with them. And in an important and overlooked way, our Founders began this painful process.
In other words, when it comes to America, there is a difference between hating the sin and hating the sinner. To acknowledge honestly the stain of past slavery and racism is not the same thing as saying that America is a fundamentally racist country.
Barack Obama himself acknowledged as much in his widely hailed speech on race during the 2008 campaign. Here’s an excerpt that can be appreciated:
“We the people, in order to form a more perfect union.”
Two hundred and twenty-one years ago, in a hall that still stands across the street, a group of men gathered and, with these simple words, launched America’s improbable experiment in democracy. Farmers and scholars; statesmen and patriots who had traveled across an ocean to escape tyranny and persecution finally made real their declaration of independence at a Philadelphia convention that lasted through the spring of 1787.
The document they produced was eventually signed but ultimately unfinished. It was stained by this nation’s original sin of slavery, a question that divided the colonies and brought the convention to a stalemate until the founders chose to allow the slave trade to continue for at least twenty more years, and to leave any final resolution to future generations.
Of course, the answer to the slavery question was already embedded within our Constitution—a Constitution that had at its very core the ideal of equal citizenship under the law; a Constitution that promised its people liberty, and justice, and a union that could be and should be perfected over time.
My only wish is that President Obama would follow through on this hopeful view of America. To want a better and brighter future for our country does not mean a rejection of our founding or a “fundamental transformation” of who we are. Instead it means following, in part, the wisdom of the most powerful American voice for civil rights of the twentieth century, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Famously, Dr. King called not for a rejection of America’s founding principles, but for America to “rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed.”
My first memory of hearing his words is sitting at my desk at Iditarod Elementary School. We had been studying the civil rights movement and were watching a grainy eight-millimeter film of Dr. King’s speech projected onto a screen over the blackboard.
The events we watched were far away, both in time and space. The Washington Monument, for us, may as well have been the Eiffel Tower. I don’t think any of us had ever been to our nation’s capital, over four thousand miles from Alaska, but we knew something momentous had happened there a decade before, and that we were somehow a part of it. Dr. King’s words made it so.
It wasn’t our accomplishment; we knew that. The civil rights movement was the work of heroes we would never know except in history books. Still, Martin L
uther King, Jr.’s, words made us feel like patriots that day.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
King was speaking about the content of our character, and the meaning of our creed. We weren’t there yet, but the fact that his dream was coming closer to reality made us so proud to be Americans. It made us want that dream for ourselves.
It’s a shame that not everyone wants to quote Dr. King these days. What made Martin Luther King, Jr., a great and effective leader is that he appealed to our better angels. Unlike other so-called civil rights leaders who claim to be his heirs and to walk in his footsteps, he didn’t doubt that America had it in her to be great. He just made us understand that to be great, we first had to be good. This man of God believed those words in the Declaration of Independence. He believed that our Creator had given us all the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. He knew that realizing his dream was the fulfillment of America’s exceptional destiny. That’s a belief, it seems to me, that shouldn’t depend on whether someone is liberal or conservative or Republican or Democrat. It’s an American belief.
It’s a belief Senator Jefferson Smith would have agreed with.
Two
Why They Serve
On September 11, 2007, my firstborn, my son Track, enlisted in the army. Exactly one year later, he and 3,500 fellow members of the First Stryker Brigade Combat Team, Twenty-fifth Infantry, deployed to Iraq from Fort Wainwright, Alaska.
Thirteen days earlier I had been chosen by John McCain as his vice-presidential running mate. I was both governor of Alaska and a vice-presidential candidate. That meant I had to convince the campaign honchos to let me fly home to see Track be deployed. I had to travel with a security detail. I had to give a speech. The press wrote down my every move. Still, on that day, all the pomp and circumstance didn’t matter. That day I was just one of thousands of proud but wary American women: I was the mom of a young soldier being sent overseas to defend our country.
That date, September 11, has so many connotations of sacrifice and service for Americans. So it made complete sense to me that it kept turning up in the course of Track’s service. On September 11, 2008, the brigrade’s deployment to Iraq landed the soldiers in the Diyala Province, northeast of Baghdad, fighting insurgents and helping to rebuild that war-torn country. Then, on September 11, 2009, he was scheduled to return home. Like all military families, his sisters, his baby brother, Todd, and I were overjoyed that Track was coming home safe. But at the last second, the family of one of the other members of the Stryker Brigade had a medical scare. Track’s fellow soldier had to get home fast, and there were no extra seats on the transport. So Track, God bless him, gave up his seat. He had to stay an additional month in the heat and sand and danger of Iraq for another available flight home. At first, he didn’t want to tell us about the reason for his delay. He still doesn’t like to talk about it, much less have his mom crow about it in print. But when I finally heard the story of what he did for his fellow soldier, I think I was prouder of my son than I had ever been before.
When I think of Track and the young women and men he serves with, I am filled with a genuine sense of awe. What motivates these young people, most of whom have never known the absence of freedom, to risk their lives to defend it in a foreign land? Track and virtually all his fellow soldiers grew up knowing the freedom and security that comes with being an American. Most weren’t rich, but they were certainly privileged to have homes, an education, and opportunities in life. I look at these kids and I think, They could be off partying on spring break or working their way up a high-powered career ladder. What motivates them to put that all aside for a military enlistment?
For Track, the reason he serves starts with his family. He has little sisters, a special baby brother, and a nephew. He wants a world that is safe and welcoming for them. I suspect the same is true for most American servicemen and -women. In my experience, Americans are patriotic but not necessarily ideological. We find inspiration and motivation close to home, in our families, our communities, and our faith. Generally, we’re happy to live our lives and pursue our dreams and leave others to live and pursue theirs.
And if we were an ordinary country—just one country among many others—that would be enough. All countries have the right to defend themselves, and they exercise that right whenever necessary. But America isn’t just another country, it’s an exceptional country. We are the only country in the history of the world that was founded not on a particular territory or culture or people, but on an idea. That idea is that all human beings have a God-given right to be free. So when our young men and women sacrifice to serve in the military, they are doing much more than defending a piece of land. They are defending the idea of America itself.
It’s this belief—that they are engaged in what my friend and former running mate John McCain calls “a cause bigger than themselves”—that motivates the American military.
In his book The American Patriot’s Almanac, William Bennett—a pretty great patriot himself—singles out “Twelve Great Reasons to Love a Great Country.” Bill’s reason number seven makes my point:
The U.S. military is the greatest defender of freedom in the world. Twice in the twentieth century, the United States led the way in saving the world from tyranny—first from the Axis Powers, then from Soviet totalitarianism. Throughout history, other superpowers have used armies to conquer territory and build empires by force. America, with its unrivaled military, has chosen a different course. The United States has liberated more people from tyranny than any other nation in history.
This doesn’t mean that Americans are eager for war—far from it. Believe me, nobody is more demanding when it comes to good reasons for going to war than our military moms. If you’re going to send their sons and daughters into harm’s way, you’d better have a darn good reason. I think most Americans share this belief. Which is why, contrary to the ugly accusations of the antiwar crowd, America doesn’t go to war for big business or for oil or for the sake of imperial conquest.
The reason, inevitably, is freedom. Our attachment to liberty is part of our culture, a value we learn early in life and pass on to our kids and grandkids. The great French student of America, Alexis de Tocqueville, called liberty and freedom “habits of the heart.” In other words, they’re not values we come to through studying some great text or theory. It’s a gut-level love we have; a stubborn attachment to a way of life that we’re not about to give up. And it’s our military that we turn to when this value is threatened.
There’s a famous story about a conversation between a historian and a Revolutionary War veteran that I think captures very well what motivates our young men and women to fight to defend freedom.
It’s 1843 and the young historian is interviewing a ninety-one-year-old veteran of the Battle of Lexington and Concord named Captain Levi Preston.
“Captain Preston,” the historian asks, “what made you go to the Concord Fight? Were you oppressed by the Stamp Act?”
“I never saw any stamps,” the old veteran growled, “and I always understood that none were ever sold.”
“Well, what about the tea tax?”
“Tea tax? I never drank a drop of the stuff. The boys threw it all overboard.”
“But I suppose you had been reading Harrington, Sidney, and Locke about the eternal principle of liberty?”
“I never heard of those men,” Captain Preston answered gruffly. “The only books we had were the Bible, the Catechism, Watts’ Psalms, and hymns and the almanacs.”
“Well, then, what was the matter?” the historian persisted.
“Young man,” Captain Preston replied, “what we meant in going for those Redcoats was this: we always had been free, and we meant to be free always. They didn’t mean we should
.”
Americans get this; we have for a long time. So why don’t the Hollywood and media elite have a clue? There was a time when our popular culture shared the American people’s admiration of our fighting men and women. They didn’t just mouth words about “supporting the troops” while they trashed everything our soldiers were fighting for, the way they often do today. Even Hollywood celebrities risked their lives for the freedom that made them rich. During World War II, Jimmy Stewart was the number two male movie star at the box office when he enlisted in the U.S. Air Force Reserve. He flew twenty bombing missions and ended up a brigadier general. Henry Fonda distinguished himself from his daughter by serving in combat in the Pacific. Later, Elvis Presley interrupted his career as the reigning king of rock and roll to be drafted into the army.
The stories are legion. When he was already a famous director, John Ford joined the navy during World War II and put together a film crew made up of Hollywood writers, directors, and technicians to document the war. When he was filming the Battle of Midway from a perch on the top of a power station, he was knocked out by a piece of flying concrete. When he came to, he kept shooting. Then, when shrapnel tore a hole in his arm and he could no longer hold a camera, he kept relaying information on the incoming planes to the navy command.
Here’s how Ford himself described the Midway battle in a debriefing with the navy:
By this time the attack had started in earnest. There was some dive bombing at objectives like water towers, [they] got the hangar right away. I was close to the hangar and I was lined up on it with my camera, figuring it would be one of the first things they got . . . A Zero flew about 50 feet over it and dropped a bomb and hit it, the whole thing went up. I was knocked unconscious. Just knocked me goofy for a bit, and I pulled myself out of it. I did manage to get the picture. You may have seen it in [the movie] “The Battle of Midway.” It’s where the plane flies over the hangar and everything goes up in smoke and debris, you can see one big chunk coming for the camera.