The fact that this election year has been – and will be, as it is not over yet – one of the most unconventional in history is now a supreme understatement. Fear of what may happen on all levels is palpable. People process that fear in different ways. Some welcome it, wrapping themselves in the flag of their choice or waving the current equivalent of the symbolic “bloody shirt” to underscore the victimhood of “us” versus “them.” The tactic is only employed all the fiercer when anyone questions what rhetoric or behavior might be doing to further encourage a predisposition to violent revolution. Going into the gutter with the worst has not been tried to this extent before and likely for the reason that it only begets an even worse reaction. Perhaps taking a page from the Coolidge example is in order. Rather than fighting fire with fire, he understood dampening the situation with some refreshing cold water works far better. Yet, suggesting the level of response might be connected to the level of irresponsibility in a candidate is close to political blasphemy in our unhinged environment.

Having spent years running away from even the hint of the remotest offense on any of its long-standing platform principles, the Grand Old Party is largely embracing the very stereotype it supposedly dreads. It has become its own worst parody. Others brace for what is coming with clumsy obfuscation, feeding the appearance of internal trouble or at best leaking whispers of collusion for survival. Still others, are just plain exasperated at the rapid descent into cultural and political insanity that seems to have accelerated this year. All should be concerned that truth – whether we have the fortitude to face it or not – is the first and most important victim of this year’s storm.

None of this bodes well for what is ahead. The torrent that has been courted, enabled, and opposed is no less forceful than what hovered darkly before the 1860 convention. It is no more a creature to be welcomed for its galvanizing effect of nationalistic fervor than it is for those led to believe socialism (if finally dressed up and packaged attractively enough) will finally sweep away all that is unjust or unequal about society. It summons all of us to a higher citizenship, a more serious-minded preparation for the future, especially those conditions that we will bequeath to our children.

Nevertheless, the experiences of the past remind us that some circumstances have been encountered before, some roads have been traveled. The 1848 convention and the nomination of quintessential outsider Zachary Taylor affords plenty of instruction. The 1976 convention offers some enlightening guidance on contested conventions when Ford’s team (in the effort to block Reagan’s nomination) instituted the “Justice Resolution” that, for the first time, abandoned the GOP’s historic protection of individual conscience for the Democrat institution of unit rule voting. The unit rule being when a majority of a state delegation favors a particular candidate, the minority is overruled and all must vote according to that majority decision. Of course, the Reagan team did away with that in the 1980 convention rules but it has been creeping back in through state party requirements, state laws, and delegate approval ever since.

The 1920 convention is also informative. After ten ballots of Presidential nominations the nomination finally landed on Senator Warren Harding, who had been previously cleared by the party leadership. The delegates had enough of feeling led to prearranged outcomes. The Presidential nomination having been sewn up, the convention chairman, Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts, turned the gavel over to his temporary replacement and left confident that the process to anoint a Vice Presidential nominee would be even smoother. One delegate, an Oregon judge named Wallace McCamant, stood to be recognized.  The temporary chairman (likewise assured he was about to receive the nomination of Wisconsin’s U.S. Senator Irvine Lenroot, the Establishment’s choice) gave Judge McCamant the floor.

Before McCamant had finished speaking, having naming instead Governor Calvin Coolidge, delegation after delegation began to cheer and second the move. Stampeding for their choice, a man many had preferred for the top of the ticket, 674 1/2 (back when delegates could split their votes) went resoundingly for Cal Coolidge. He had demonstrated to the nation presidential strength as Governor when he resisted the pressures to rehire the Boston police officers who walked off their jobs and left the city prostrate to lawlessness the previous fall. Before the next convention (which occurred in Cleveland, by the way) in the summer of 1924, he would already be President of the United States.

Called with the news, Calvin answered the phone at his temporary room at the Adams House in Boston upon returning from his daily walk. Hanging up the phone, he turned to Grace (his wife) and said, “I have been nominated for Vice President.” Incredulous at first, being very familiar with his frequent teasing, she playfully replied, “You are not going to accept it, are you?” “I suppose I shall have to,” he responded. And he did. But history was made by a brave delegate stepping forward when he could have just resigned himself to the way things seemed to be as the way things are.

There was a bit more to this story. It was Frank W. Stearns, the virtually one-man Coolidge campaign team, who without a single instruction believed in Cal so much that he printed a collection of Coolidge’s speeches and engraved them with the names of each delegate to be present at the Convention. Stearns also sent out a volume (and in McCamant’s case, two) of “Have Faith in Massachusetts” (published the previous year), mailing them to various Republican leaders and delegates around the country. The smaller volume distributed at the Convention was perfectly marketed, fit nicely in a pocket and was intended for ready-reading in those Convention lulls when nothing seemed to be moving. Stearns succeeded beyond even his aspirations.

This set the stage for the 1924 Convention – known as the most orderly and (to some) boring – gathering in years. Coolidge’s experience equipped him especially for diffusing potential political powder kegs with perspective and discretion. He was a kind of HAZMAT leader in politics, talented at keeping the focus on the principles of the GOP while downplaying and sometimes, outsmarting the personality politics that so often misled and divided, fractured and destroyed. When others tried to bait him, he saw through those attempts and thwarted them. He remains one of the most discerning judges of human nature and one of the most disciplined defenders of sound, constitutional government America ever had as President. His wisdom continues to serve and guide for those who prepare for the future with the insight of the past.

It is never more timely then, to equip ourselves with some of the most practical principles and sensible insights from a man who rose to the very pinnacle of power in our system and yet, retained his soul, kept his oath, resolved never to lose sight of essential truths, and held his party accountable to the promises they had made to the people and the duty they owed to the country as a whole.

We need what Calvin Coolidge has to say now more than ever. Equip yourself by starting with this book, Keeping Cool on the Campaign Trail, available on Amazon or listen on the go with Audible and iTunes.

As we have featured before here, President Coolidge’s address at the Confederate Memorial inside Arlington National Cemetery on May 25, 1924, warrants a place in our solemn remembrance and patriotic celebrations today. Standing before the aged veterans who wore the gray, joined by their families, friends, and even some who wore the blue, Calvin Coolidge calls to mind that our history summons us to unity as Americans all. It is honor of principle and conviction, the duty we commonly share to one God and Father, that should bring us together again.

It is not history that divides us, it is the prideful self-righteousness and ignorant prejudices of the human heart that we seek to escape by denying and suppressing the past when we really seek to to lay our guilt at the feet of other generations. The sins of those who came before us are not ours to bear, anymore than it is their obligation to make us feel clean and justified. We have our own responsibility and until we have the maturity and honor to carry our own load, we will always fail to respect how history unites us. We will find that history should be honored because it keeps us humble and shows us the firm ground of goodness, rightness, and truth from the shifting sands of evil, injustice, and expediency.

Coolidge said,

“If I am correctly informed by history, it is fitting that the Sabbath should be your Memorial Day. This follows from the belief that except for the forces of Oliver Cromwell no army was ever more thoroughly religious than that which followed General Lee. Moreover, these ceremonies necessarily are expressive of a hope and a belief that rise above the things of this life. It was Lincoln who pointed out that both sides prayed to the same God. When that is the case, it is only a matter of time when each will seek a common end. We can now see clearly what that end is. It is the maintenance of our American form of government, of our American institutions, of our American ideals, beneath a common flag, under the blessings of Almighty God.

“It was for this purpose that our Nation was brought forth. Our whole course of history has been proceeding in that direction. Out of a common experience, made more enduring by a common sacrifice, we have reached a common conviction. On this day we pause in memory of those who made their sacrifice in one way. In a few days we shall pause again in memory of those who made their sacrifice in another way. They were all Americans, all contending for what they believed were their rights. On many a battlefield they sleep side by side. Here, in a place set aside for the resting place of those who have performed military duty, both make a final bivouac. But their country lives.

“The bitterness of conflict is passed. Time has softened it; discretion has changed it. Your country respects you for cherishing the memory of those who wore the gray. You respect others who cherish the memory of those who wore the blue. In that mutual respect may there be a firmer friendship, a stronger and more glorious Union.

“When I delivered the address dedicating the great monument to General Grant in the city of Washington, General Carr was present, with others of his comrades, and responded for the Confederacy with a most appropriate tribute. He has lately passed away, one of the last of a talented and gallant corps of officers. To the memory of him whom I had seen and heard and knew as the representative of that now silent throng, whom I did not know, I offer my tribute. We know that Providence would have it so. We see and we obey. A mightier force than ever followed Grant or Lee has leveled both their hosts, raised up an united Nation, and made us all partakers of a new glory. It is not for us to forget the past but to remember it, that we may profit by it. But it is gone; we cannot change it. We must put our emphasis on the present and put into effect the lessons the past has taught us. All about us sleep those of many different beliefs and many divergent actions. But America claims them all. He flag floats over them all. Her Government protects them all. They all rest in the same divine peace.”

Mr. Bill Federer over at The Moral Liberal provides some excellent insights from the most underrated President of the twentieth century, Calvin Coolidge.

Coolidge’s wisdom, competence, and firm grasp of the obvious are qualities not chained to some obsolete and distant past but belong here, at this moment, at this time. They both strengthen our resolve and illuminate our path at this pivotal year of all years. America is determining what it will be, for better or for worse. If we turn away our ears from Coolidge’s instruction, especially when it is still in our power to effect the final outcome, exiling his sober-minded sense of duty and integrity to all (not merely the powerful few), we do not merit honor and greatness but infamy and shame.