“Our country has many elements in its population, many different modes of thinking and living, all of which are striving in their own way to be loyal to the high ideals worthy of the crown of American citizenship. It is fundamental of our institutions that they seek to guarantee to all our inhabitants the right to live their own lives under the protection of the public law. This does not include any license to injure others materially, physically, morally, to Incite revolution, or to violate the established customs which have long bad the sanction of enlightened society.

But it does mean the full right to liberty and equality before the law without distinction of race or creed. This condition can not be granted to others, or enjoyed by ourselves, except by the application of the principle of broadest tolerance. Bigotry is only another name for slavery. It reduces to serfdom not only those against whom it is directed, but also those who seek to apply it. An enlarged freedom can only be secured by the application of the golden rule. No other utterance ever presented such a practical rule of life” — Calvin Coolidge, Third Annual Message to Congress, December 8, 1925

Prejudice and bigotry are part of the human condition. They have been a recurring source of problems in the hearts of people everywhere throughout time. Americans of any particular race have neither a monopoly on or immunity to such feelings. Certainly there is no justification for a racism of retaliation over perceived wrongs perpetrated by others. To imply certain groups of society are racist while others are not, especially by applying a double standard of acceptable conduct, is insulting and immoral. Calvin Coolidge had no use for such irrational behavior toward others in word or deed. He had no tolerance for the breaking of law in the name of racial inequity. It was itself injustice.

Back when actual lynching occurred, it was President Coolidge who not only spoke out against it in every annual message before Congress but he set policy that ended the segregated practices of the Wilson White House. He pushed for lynching to be fairly prosecuted as a federal crime, not merely a state offense. He advanced a commission that would build understanding and collaboration between the races. He set the example for good relationships by regular communication with Americans of all backgrounds. He was no respecter of persons in private either. Remarkably, this moral leadership had real impact. Lynching, a practice committed against whites as well, plummeted during his administration. Once averaging over 150 a year, the seven years encompassing the Coolidge Presidency recorded a national average of 19 annually (between 1923 and 1929), a drastic decrease in so short a time. That number would continue to diminish in subsequent decades.

As Coolidge understood, no benefit is rendered by keeping the animosity stirred and anger festering. The healing that is needed comes through a mutual respect for each other as well as the law. In Tuskegee, Alabama, part of the “Deep South,” he would say it this way,

It takes time and patience and perseverance to put into practice our theory of human rights. Lincoln knew that. If there was one virtue that he seemed to possess more than another, it was that of forbearance. It is well for us, who must live together as Americans, whatever our race or creed may be, constantly to remember his words: “We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies.” Those who stir up animosities, those who create any kind of hatred and enmity are not ministering to the public welfare…Out of a common suffering and a common sacrifice there came a new meaning to our common citizenship. Our greatest need is to live in harmony, in friendship, and in good-will, not seeking an advantage over each other but all trying to serve each other.

Such words could be easily dismissed if not for the fact that, though spoken in 1923, spell out essentially the same message declared thirty years later by another eloquent leader, in his march to Washington, D.C.,

In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.

     We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protests to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force…

Circumstances of injustice were not to persuade people around the country to “lead us to distrust all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. They have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.”

This common obligation to each other, sharing in the American ideals of liberty with responsibility and equality under law, demands more than the perpetual animosity we have seen out of some through the entire Zimmerman case. Presuming guilt or innocence on the basis of color, some in this country have kept the discord alive to serve their own interests, spitefully disregarding the respect and fairness due others. Rather than serving as peacemakers they are the racist ones, whose violence and hatred for law-abiding civilization everywhere has no justification. As Coolidge would say in another context, regardless of how we came to this country, we are all in the same boat now. Dr. King would agree. We cannot walk alone. The debt we owe each other as Americans is not through rekindling wrath over the past but through renewed forbearance and humble respect as fellow citizens striving for common ideals.

Interestingly, President Washington is due to have the first library and museum open this September at Mount Vernon. It is thanks to private benefactors for making this project succeed, like philanthropist Fred W. Smith, for whom the facility will be named. Falling outside the thirteen Presidential Libraries managed by the National Archives, it will be a long overdue way to preserve so much worth keeping about our first President.

Few modern Presidents conveyed so pronounced an indifference to the preservation of personal legacy as Calvin Coolidge. When Claude M. Fuess broached the matter of writing a biography of the man in the summer of 1932, Coolidge said, “Better wait till I’m dead,” before moving on Amherst and other more interesting topics. Richard Norton Smith has noted this ambivalence about what would be said of or done with his record. When most historians attempt to reconstruct Coolidge, they have either imposed a frame over which he is to conform or they come away from the experience with only a superficial understanding of him. Some give up too quickly and fabricate the narrative they prefer rather than going back to discover him on his own terms. He simply refuses to be neatly categorized, placed on the shelf and forgotten. It is perhaps his final challenge: to understand him and reckon with his ideas, one must work. The same commitment holds true for citizenship. Perhaps that was his intention all along.

It is interesting that while more than one who would follow him in the White House agonized in writing over how certain decisions would be perceived by future generations, Coolidge never did. Hoover would spend over thirty years brooding over his legacy while the man from Vermont was content to let his actions speak for themselves. He was not under any delusions of his own infallibility, he simply refused to indulge either vanity or his own sense of importance. The record would speak. Any future efforts to preserve the principles he articulated, not the greatness of one finite individual, would only succeed if established in the hearts and minds of informed and engaged citizens. Elaborate Presidential Libraries and Museums alone would not do this for us, ensuring principles passed to the next generation. The beauty of Coolidge’s legacy is in its simplicity. The Calvin Coolidge Memorial Foundation has helped keep the simplicity of Coolidge’s world intact. For Coolidge, teaching a whole new generation, “to think the thoughts the Founders thought” can be done anywhere, anyplace, anytime. In that way, Coolidge ensured a far more resilient foundation for his legacy than perhaps he ever imagined.