spirit

“Why I Am A Republican”

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“Why I Am A Republican”

The recent statement of Mr. Elbert Guillory explaining his change of support for the historical principles of the Republican Party echoes many of the thoughts expressed by our thirtieth President, Calvin Coolidge. He would have stood with this man, an American who understands the duties of freedom, to advance our common cause of citizenship. As Coolidge would say back in 1922, “The meaning of America is not to be found in a life without toil. Freedom is not only bought with a great price; it is maintained by unremitting effort. The successful conduct of our economic life is not easy. It cannot be made easy. The burdens of existence, the weight of civilization, cannot be taken from the people.” The government that promises to lift such burdens cannot and never will. It will only result in further loss to people’s liberty in the name of protection.

Coolidge would assess difficulties not unlike what we now face, “The final solution of these problems will not be found in the interposition of government in all the affairs of the people, but rather in following the wisdom of [George] Washington, who refused to exercise authority over the people, that the people might exercise authority over themselves.” Addressing men and women at Howard University he spoke with the fullest confidence in individuals just like Mr. Guillory to embrace the opportunities of self-government and to realize the potential freedom holds from all forms of enslavement, mental as well as physical. He would champion the example of folks like Mr. Guillory without pretense or condescension, when he said, “The Nation has need of all that can be contributed to it through the best efforts of all its citizens…We can not go out from this place and occasion without refreshment of faith and renewal of confidence that in every exigency our Negro fellow citizens will render the best and fullest measure of service whereof they are capable.”

That service, seen in the examples of Senator Guillory, Dr. King, Dr. Robert Moton, Justice Thomas and Dr. Carson (to name but a few), is not to preserve the “masters” of the Democrat Party establishment, to prop up dependance on Washington (or bondage to any administration for that matter) but is living up to the highest ideals of American citizenship. It is an expression of the spirit of self-reliance, a fulfillment of duty to God and family, and a giving of one’s self in civic participation, that makes our freedom possible.

On Belief in God

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Long before Jefferson’s “wall of separation” was reinterpreted to mean a systematic removal of public expression of Christian faith, Robert A. Woods eloquently summarizes the faith Calvin Coolidge held firmly in God. He was not afraid to praise God yet a deep sense of humility kept him from flaunting his devotion and reliance on Him. He would never utilize religion as a tool to gain votes. His convictions were his own but he also knew they were grounded in reason. The strength to bear the responsibilities of office, including the deaths of his son and father, came from an Almighty Creator. As Woods would say,

“Any attempt to understand President Coolidge will go far amiss which does not take the fullest account of the great power of religious faith which has been continuous and increasing in his life. Beginning with his early nurture, greatly strengthened and broadened at Amherst, rising steadily as the responsibilities of life so steadily and so broadly increased — his faith in God with its correlative of faith in men, his sense of sustaining and uplifting spiritual realities, is, in modern terms, not less real to him and not less definite in its command and its reenforcement to righteousness than it was to the Puritans of old. He told an interviewer: ‘I have found that when a man does right, he is increasingly supported. I believe in God.’ There were some at least in the great audience that listened to his address at the dinner of the National Republican Club in New York City who understood him when, at its close, he paused and almost startled his audience with the words of the psalm: ‘He that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.’

“It too often seems in our public affairs that ‘belief and loyalty have passed away, and only the cant and false echo of them remain; and all solemnity has become pageantry.’ Whatever else may be set down as the final estimate of Calvin Coolidge, he will be among those leaders of the people whose reliance upon divine guidance is a part of the very fabric of their being. With a mind so clear, so free of pretence, this means not only a constant and vital constraint to righteous judgment, but as constant an aspiration toward a more righteous and more human order of the common life” (“The Preparation of Calvin Coolidge,” 1924, pp.234-5).

On the Individual

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It was on Memorial Day in Northampton, 1923, that Vice President Coolidge said,

“…[I]f our republic is to be maintained and improved it will be through the efforts and character of the individual. It will be, first of all, because of the influences which exist in the home, for it is the ideals which prevail in the home life which make up the strength of the nation. The homely virtues must continue to be cultivated. The real dignity, the real nobility of work must be cherished. It is only through industry that there is any hope for individual development. The viciousness of waste and the value of thrift must continue to be learned and understood. Civilization rests on conservation. To these there must be added religion, education, and obedience to law. These are the foundation of all character in the individual and all hope in the nation.”

When Coolidge spoke of conservation here, he was speaking of its broad sense, the preservation of not merely material resources but moral ones. If the Republic is to continue, it will be due to the moral resources of the individual, not the powers of Government. He was no libertarian nor sympathetic to objectivism, both notions that would have struck him as self-defeating and short-sighted. He knew the individual was not liberated from public responsibilities to his or her neighbor. He also knew the government had a clear role to legislate and demand obedience to law. No man was absolutely free in the exercise of one’s rights or duties. Such was a responsibility to each other as we live together in society. His outlook was rooted in a far more resilient foundation, the example of service set by Christ.

It is the individual with the real power to uphold the soundness of our future. It was the deep reservoir of an individual’s moral capital that make civilization possible, the value of whom is bestowed by God, nurtured by the instructions of the home, instilled with virtues like thrift, strengthened by religious faith, and developed with an informed mind that retains reverence for the supremacy of the law upon all people. It was the individual that would keep Benjamin Franklin’s warning from fulfillment. A Republic, with duty-minded individuals such as Coolidge describes (as opposed to the self-centered or hedonistic) would find faithful men and women through whom to entrust its legacy to the next generation. Devoid of such individuals, no civilization is secure.