Lend Me Your Ears: Great Speeches in History (70 page)

Brother, you say there is but one way to worship and serve the Great Spirit. If there is but one religion, why do you white people differ so much about it? Why do not all agree, as you can all read the book?

Brother, we do not understand these things. We are told that your religion was given to your forefathers and has been handed down from father to son. We also have a religion which was given to our forefathers and has been handed down to us, their children. We worship in that way. It teaches us to be thankful for all the favors we receive, to love each other, and to be united. We never quarrel about religion….

Brother, we do not wish to destroy your religion or take it from you. We only want to enjoy our own.

When Ronald Reagan claimed it was “morning in America,” he was unconsciously drawing on the work of Bishop James Madison, whose cousin James Madison became our fourth president. Bishop Madison was ordained an Anglican priest in 1775 and consecrated the first bishop of Virginia for the Episcopal church in 1790. His eclectic interests, including science and philosophy, also led him to serve as president of the College of William and Mary from 1777 until his death in 1812.

When George Washington in 1795 proclaimed a day of national thanksgiving, Bishop Madison preached a sermon, published later that year under the title
Manifestation of the Beneficence of Divine Providence towards America: A Discourse, Delivered on Thursday the 19th of February
,
1795, Being the Day Recommended by the President of the United States, for General Thanksgiving and Prayer
.

The bishop’s sermon, interspersed with quotations from Psalms and John Milton’s
Paradise Lost
and ending with a prayer of gratitude, argues for “rational religion,” which is “not that of fanatics or inquisitors,” to form the basis of virtuous behavior. Although the speech’s opening makes use of what we now consider a weak adjective (“interesting”), Bishop Madison shrewdly uses the direct address of “Brethren” and “Fellow citizens” to link the notions of church and state. Employing structural balance of parallel clauses and infinitive phrases, he builds his argument for virtue not so much as its own reward but as the common ground of religion and government.

***

BRETHREN, THERE ARE
few situations more interesting to the human race than that which the people of America this day presents.

The temples of the living God are everywhere, throughout this rising empire, this day, crowded, I trust, with worshipers, whose hearts, impressed with a just and lively sense of the great things, which he hath done for them, pour forth, in unison, the grateful tribute of praise and thanksgiving. Yes, this day, brethren, “the voice of rejoicing and salvation is in the tabernacles of the righteous”; and with reason, for the history of nations doth not exhibit a people who ever had more cause to offer up to the great author of every good the most fervent expressions of gratitude and thanksgiving.

Let, my brethren, the sons of irreligion, wrapped in their dark and gloomy system of fatality, refuse to open their eyes to the great luminous proofs of providential government, which America displays; let them turn from a light, which their weak vision cannot bear; but let the righteous, let those who trust in God, who can trace in that good and glorious being the relations of father, friend, and governor, let them with eagle eyes look up to that full blaze of salvation, which he hath vouchsafed to this new world.

Permit me, then, upon this occasion, to turn your attention to those great things which the Lord hath done for us, to those manifold displays of divine Providence, which the history of America exhibits; and let the subject afford an opportunity to revive within us sentiments of lively gratitude, and excite sincere resolutions to fear the Lord, and to serve him—in a word, to increase daily in piety, and in all those noble affections of the soul which dignify the Christian and the patriot.

Who can tell how many ages had been swallowed up in the all-absorbing gulf of time, before the bold navigator first essayed to visit these distant regions of the earth? Who can tell how long this western world had been the habitation of the listless savage, or the wild beasts of the forest? At these questions chronology drops her epochs, as incapable of conducting her to periods so remote, and which have escaped her grasp. The ways of heaven must oft appear to us weak mortals dark and intricate.

But the first suggestion, which here presents itself, is that Providence seems to have thrown a veil over this portion of the globe, in order to conceal it from the eyes of the nations of the East, until the destined
period had arrived for the regeneration of mankind, in this New World, after those various other means, which the wisdom of the Almighty had permitted to operate in the Old, had proved ineffectual. In vain had reason, the handmaid of pure religion, long attempted to convince men of the reciprocal duties which equality and fraternity impose. Still there would arise some one,

In vain had even thy dispensation of love and peace, blessed Jesus, long essayed to disarm ambition of the ensanguined sword, and to diffuse benevolence, equality, and fraternity among the human race. Millions still groaned under the heavy pressure which tyranny imposed. Yes, even thy gospel of love, of universal fraternity, had been, too often, perverted into the most formidable system of oppression; and mankind, instead of seeing it diffuse the heavenly rays of philanthropy, too frequently beheld it as imposing a yoke to degrade and enslave them. The princes of the earth sought not for the sacred duties which it enjoined; but they sought to render it the sanction of their exterminating vengeance, or their deep-laid systems of usurpation. Is not the history of almost all Europe pregnant with proofs of this calamitous truth? If you can point to some small portion where the religion of the blessed Jesus, untrammeled with political usurpations, was left to operate its happy effects upon the passions and the conduct of men; or where toleration extended wide her arms of mercy to embrace the whole family of Christ, the spot appears like a solitary star, which in the midst of night, beams forth alone, whilst clouds and thick darkness obscure the rest of the innumerable host of heaven. Alas, what avails the voice of reason or religion, when the lust of domination has usurped the soul! At the shrine of this fell demon, the human race was sacrificed by thousands. Nay, too many of the sons of Europe are still bound with cords to the altars of ambition, and there immolated, not only by thousands, but by tens of thousands….

But, brethren, important considerations still demand our attention. Has heaven been thus propitious; are we possessed of all those blessings which flow from governments founded in wisdom, justice, and equality; doth the morning of America break forth refulgent with unclouded
glory? Then it behooves us, above all things, to inquire how are these blessings to be preserved? How shall we ensure to her a meridian splendor worthy of such a morning? This inquiry immediately resolves itself into another. What is there in this sublunary state that can attract the smiles of heaven, or ensure political happiness, but virtue? Never was there a mortal so depraved, never was there a conscience so deaf to that internal voice, which always whispers truth, but must acknowledge that virtue only gives a title to hope for the favor of that high and lofty one, who inhabiteth eternity.

Fellow citizens, let virtue, then, I entreat you, be the ruling principle, the polar star, which should influence every sentiment and guide every action, since it alone will conduct us into the haven of felicity. But will you trust, for the diffusion of virtue, to that political morality which a vain philosophy would substitute in the room of those lessons which the heavenly teacher delivered? Shall virtue trickle from the oozy bed of political catechisms, or shall it gush, pure and in full stream, from the rock of our salvation? Ah, brethren, the moment that we drop the idea of a God, the remunerator of virtue but the avenger of iniquity; the moment we abandon that divine system of equality, fraternity, and universal benevolence which the blessed Jesus taught and exemplified; the moment that religion, the pure and undefiled religion, which heaven, in compassion to the infirmity of human reason, vouchsafed to mortals, loses its influence over their hearts—from that fatal moment, farewell to public and private happiness, farewell, a long farewell to virtue, to patriotism, to liberty!

Virtue such as republics and heaven require must have its foundation in the heart; it must penetrate the whole man; it must derive its obligations and its sanctions, not from the changeable ideas of the political moralist, or the caprice of the wisest of human legislators, but from the unchangeable father of the universe, the God of love, whose laws and whose will we are incited to obey by motives, the most powerful that can actuate the human soul. Men must see and feel, that it is God himself, their maker and their judge, who demands obedience to duties which constitute their individual, their social, their eternal happiness. Then, and not till then, will virtue reign triumphant in the hearts of citizens; then will she have her sacrifices in the midst of the deepest obscurity, as well as in the open day, in the most private and secret retirements, as well as upon the house tops….

Fellow citizens, it is an easy task, for those who may have the honor of addressing an American audience this day, to point out the excellencies of our civil governments, to shew their superior aptitude for the promotion
of political happiness, to evince that obedience to laws constitutionally enacted is the only means of preserving liberty, and that every expression of the public will is obligatory upon every citizen; to prove, that representative republics, instead of being the prolific parents of anarchy and confusion, are, on the contrary, of all the forms of government under which men have yet associated, either through compulsion or choice, the most promotive of private and public happiness, the most susceptible of that energy which is equally capable of curbing the licentiousness of the multitude or of frustrating the wicked designs of the ambitious; it is easy for them to shew that virtue is the vital principle of a republic, that unless a magnanimous spirit of patriotism animates every breast, unless a sincere and ardent love for justice, for temperance, for prudence, for fortitude, in short, for all those qualities which dignify human nature, pervades, enlivens, invigorates the whole mass of citizens, these fair superstructures of political wisdom must soon crumble into dust. Certainly, my brethren, it is a fundamental maxim that virtue is the soul of a republic.

But, zealous for the prosperity of my country, I will repeat, and in these days it is of infinite moment to insist, that without religion—I mean
rational religion
, the religion which our Savior himself delivered, not that of fanatics or inquisitors—chimeras and shadows are substantial things compared with that virtue, which those who reject the authority of religion would recommend to our practice. Ye, then, who love your country, if you expect or wish that real virtue and social happiness should be preserved among us or that genuine patriotism and a dignified obedience to law, instead of that spirit of disorganizing anarchy, and those false and hollow pretenses to patriotism, which are so pregnant with contentions, insurrections, and misery, should be the distinguishing characteristics of Americans; or that the same almighty arm which hath hitherto protected your country, and conducted her to this day of glory, should still continue to shield and defend her, remember that your first and last duty is “to fear the Lord and to serve him”; remember that in the same proportion as irreligion advances, virtue retires; remember that in her stead will succeed factions, ever ready to prostitute public good to the most nefarious private ends, whilst unbounded licentiousness and a total disregard to the sacred names of liberty and of patriotism will here once more realize that fatal catastrophe which so many free states have already experienced. Remember, the law of the Almighty is, they shall expire, with their expiring virtue.

God of all nature! Father of the human spirit. preserve these prosperous, these happy republics from so dreadful a calamity. May thy gracious
Providence, which hath hitherto nurtured, protected, and conducted them to this day of praise and thanksgiving, ever be the supreme object of their regard. May the blessings already received, inspire every heart with just sentiments of gratitude, and with the inflexible resolution to perform those duties which become us as Christians and as citizens. May peace and happiness, truth and justice, order and freedom, religion and piety, ever proclaim thy praises, thy providential goodness, thy love to man, not only in this land of liberty but wherever the human race is found. Amen.

On March 4, 1865, the Civil War was thirty-seven days from its end. Lincoln, having incorporated the abstract cause of preserving the Union and majority rule into the more rallying cause of human freedom, used his second inaugural to preach a sermon looking past the war’s bitterness to a time of what he felt had to be reconciliation and reconstruction.

He raises a Joban question in this most religiously philosophical of
inaugural addresses: Why did God put this nation through such terrible punishment? Could God have a different purpose from that supposed to be right by man? Lincoln’s suggested answer: God’s purpose is part of some unknown and unknowable design; “the Almighty has his own purposes.” He cites the Gospel according to Saint Matthew (18:7), quoting Jesus’ warning of fearsome retribution to those who harm his believing children: “Woe unto the world because of offenses! for it must needs be that offenses come; but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh!” Lincoln reasons that the offense, or temptation to sin, to the innocent children was slavery, and that the people of both North and South were those by whom that offense of slavery came; therefore, Lincoln asks rhetorically, are we to question God’s justice? No; even if that justice means that “every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword,” we must accept the justice hailed in the Psalm of David (19:9); “the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.”