“Till truth were freed, and equity restored”
Democracy depends upon an electorate that is both informed and free to exercise their judgment in fair elections. But the exercise of the human ability to choose rationally and freely does not guarantee the best, or even intended, result. Both as individuals and as a society, we either learn from our mistakes or doom ourselves to repeat them. We have aphorisms and myths that remind us “to err is human.” The Bible’s origin story explains this human propensity.
The Garden of Eden, we are told, is a mythological representation of a nascent paradise into which humans were introduced. Obviously, Adam and Eve had no need to hunt or raise crops for food. But after their “fall” from grace, they were expelled from Paradise and from the tree of life. They not only were damned to toil for their sustenance but to face death itself. The knowledge of good and evil apparently comes with a heavy price.
When Eve plucked that apple from the forbidden tree and took that first bite, she chose a future she could not predict and discovered the full gravity of free will. Adam, of course, trusted Eve and took the second bite that also set his fate in motion. Every human being faces their predicament, if not a mythological fall from grace, some other form of failure. There are unforeseen consequences to the exercise of free will. But without it, humanity would have lost its most self-defining characteristic. Eve, named after the Hebrew verb “to live,” was not only “the mother of all the living” ¹ but the archetype for the exercise of free will—the forerunner of integrity or shame. She is both our progenitor and precursor. As such, she embodies both the capabilities and limitations of her posterity, encompassing our life experiences, to include both our achievements and failures.
Amongst the many interpretations of this origin story, I have selected the very human problem we all face, that is, the risk inherent in the exercise of free will without the omnipotent ability to foresee all possible consequences. Eden, then, is a cautionary tale that must compel us to gauge the consequences of our choices, as individuals and as citizens of the world and of America. As Americans, we combine these citizenships in both our private and public lives. Specifically, we are free to live our democratic values and choose who may serve our best interests and represent our values to the world. Have those chosen representatives always served our best interests and our democratic values? Have we?
Americans have had to cope with profoundly severe consequences for many of its most pregnant choices. For example, during the Constitutional Convention on one hot summer in Philadelphia, our founding fathers argued about how the lower house should be represented. John Rutledge of South Carolina opined that representation should be determined by the “quotas of contribution,” that is, the amount contributed to the national treasury. Elbridge Gerry immediately brought up the issue of slaves, declaring “blacks are property and are used to the southward as horses and cattle to the northward.” ² Gerry, later elected as Vice President in the Madison Administration, was implying that the North would then have the right to count horses and cattle as part of its representation quota—an absurd equivalency. The issue was eventually resolved by James Wilson who would be nominated by Washington to the Supreme Court in 1789. He advocated the “three-fifths” rule adopted by the Confederation Congress of 1783. According to the Convention’s records, he stated that representation should be the “whole number of white and other free citizens and three-fifths of all other persons except Indians not paying taxes . . .”² The final text of the Constitution, Article I, Section 2, refers to “free persons” instead of “white and other free citizens,” includes indentured servants as free citizens, but keeps the exclusion of “three-fifths of all other persons.” Hidden behind the metaphorical loin cloth here is the word “white” and “slaves.” Is it too bold to assume that our founding fathers were ashamed of these omissions? Well, they should have been embarrassed. For their decision made the aspiring democracy they chose to create much less exceptional at its outset and more tenuous in its future. They took that first bite out of the apple.
Any American civics class will typically cover the history that led to the Civil War. Though the founding fathers had tried to navigate around the issue, slavery was too ingrained in the South’s economy and lifestyle to be ignored. It was a frequent cause of debate in Congress, especially as the country expanded into the new territories. The Missouri Compromise of 1820 limited the expansion of slave states beyond Missouri. But, in 1854, Congress reversed itself, invalidating the Missouri Act and replacing it with the Nebraska Kansas Act which allowed slavery by a popular vote in the new territories. So divisive was this 1854 Act that it eventually broke up the Whig Party into a southern Democratic Party and a northern Republican Party. The famous Douglas-Lincoln debates of 1858 contributed to this break-up. Though Stephan Douglas beat Abraham Lincoln in the Illinois Senate race that year, Lincoln won the Presidency over Douglas in 1860. One month after Lincoln assumed the Presidency in 1861, Jefferson Davis, the newly declared President of the Confederacy, declared war on America and ordered a siege of Fort Sumpter. His declaration was an act of insurrection against the Constitution and a democratically elected President. The failure of Congressional compromise, divisive politics, and this incited insurrection were all linked in America’s fall from grace, from its hard-won union, and from its historic promise of exceptionalism. The Civil War that ensued was the result of this second bite out of the apple.
After President Lincoln’s assassination, his successor, Andrew Johnson, a former Southern governor, attempted to undo Lincoln’s plan for reconstruction of the South. Twice Congress overruled President Johnson’s vetoes. His successor, Ulysses S. Grant, did implement Lincoln’s reconstruction plans. He ordered Union soldiers to suppress the Klu Klux Clan and protect the newly freed slaves. But the Republican Party did not have the votes to elect Grant’s proposed successor, Rutherford B. Hayes. They needed support from the South, so they bargained away Lincoln’s reconstruction plans. As a result, the Klu Klux Clan not only restored its suppression of the former slaves, but began a period of pogroms, lynching, and systemic subjugation of Blacks. This period is known as the Jim Crow era. It began in 1877 and persisted until the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts of the mid-1960’s. And Jim Crow marks the third bite of the apple.
From the first slave ship that anchored in American waters in 1619 until the 13th Amendment of 1865, African slaves were treated as work and farm animals—that is, for nearly a quarter of a millennium, generation after generation. Another hundred years passed before American Blacks were awarded the civil and voting rights that the American Constitution promised for all Americans. And it was only last summer that we saw Martin Luther King’s call for the coalition of conscience finally encompass a wide swath of white people. “Black Lives Matter” protests rose spontaneously across the country, and most of the protesters were white. The violence and suppression advocated by white supremacists finally awakened the public conscience, as did systemic racism. Perhaps, America has at last reached a tipping point where racism—its original sin—can emerge from the shadows. Finally, we can begin to realize the ideals of the Enlightenment that so inspired our founding fathers.
The word “enlightenment” implies a prior darkness. Why did it take so long for Americans to come into the light? In Isabel Wilkerson’s book, “Caste: The Lies That Divide Us,” she quotes a holocaust survivor’s disbelief in finding another caste system in America that mirrored the one he had just barely escaped. He described the treatment of Blacks as the “worst disease.” “Everyone who freshly learns of this state of affairs,” he concluded, “feels not only the injustice, but the scorn of the principle of the Fathers who founded the United States that ‘all men are created equal.’” ³ That holocaust survivor was Albert Einstein. Maybe, the light of conscience showed brighter for him as one who had just emerged from darkness. Let us hope last summer’s protests are also signs of such an emergence. What we Americans choose to do in this newfound light will determine our future, that is, whether we regain the promise of liberty and justice for all.
Recently, senators of the modern Republican Party took another bite out of that apple. They acquitted an impeached President who, like Jefferson Davis, incited an insurrection and attempted to undo a democratic election. The Senate Majority Leader, while admitting that the accused was “morally and practically” guilty and deserving to be held accountable, voted to acquit him on the very technicality the Senate had just voted invalid—that is, that the Senate did not have jurisdiction to remove a President proven guilty of inciting an insurrection and invalidating a democratic election. But America had fought a Civil War to preserve its Union, its Constitution, and the democratic election of Abraham Lincoln. Further, it indicted and imprisoned Jefferson Davis as a traitor who longed to do what Donald Trump did, which is to incite white supremacist to storm the capital and “stop the steal” or overturn a Presidential election. The only difference between Davis and Trump is that Davis lived and represented a way of life that justified white privilege over oppressed Black slaves whereas Trump identified with and catered to white supremacists only to gain followers for his own purposes—that is, his “continuation” in office. He may have agreed with them, but his objective was not to restore the glory of the Confederacy. He just wanted to use them in his quest to retain his hold on executive power. Davis’ supporters considered him a patriot and a hero of the Confederacy. But Trump is merely a traitor to his office, to the Constitution, and to the American people—including his followers. He used America’s original sin to serve his lust for power. As the Senate Majority Leader implied, Donald Trump should be held accountable, just as any alleged criminal tried in America’s judicial system.
How have we Americans delt with the unforeseen consequences of the January 6 insurrection and the aftermath of the Trump Presidency? As the Republican Party cowers under the threats of Trump’s “base” supporters and white supremacists, Congressional gridlock continues to kill bipartisanship. Lies and conspiracy theories abound in the face of truth and honesty. Brinkmanship is applauded, while reasonable debate is ridiculed. Donald Trump has awakened the same darkness the Constitutional fathers tried to circumvent, the Confederacy fought to preserve, the Jim Crow era justified by mob rule, the 60’s violent protests fought, and the more recent peaceful protests attempted to bring to light.
Regardless of the Senate’s failure to convict Trump for inciting his white supremacist followers, we Americans are still left with a decision—one that will determine the future of America. When will we decide to act in the best interest of all Americans? And that decision has weighed on America from its very inception. It has never ceased to challenge us, our ideals, and the very purpose of our democracy, as stated in the Constitution: “in order to form a more perfect union.” When those words were first penned to paper during the Constitutional Convention in 1787, there was some doubt that the proposed government would survive. Benjamin Franklin, when asked what form of government was agreed upon, answered “a republic, if you can keep it.” Later, John Adams termed our budding republic “an experiment.” Hamilton, Madison, and Jay wrote extensively in the Federalist Papers, explaining why and how this newly formed democracy was the best hope for self-government and better than anything that had proceeded it. But in this moment and at this time in American history, can we keep it?
Our founding fathers were not unaware of human nature. Wary of our weaknesses and limitations in judgment, they created a system of checks and balances, allowed for impeachment and removal from office, and assured us the ability to choose our path forward via free democratic elections. But they bequeathed to us an original sin from which only we can redeem ourselves. Democracy remains a work in progress. Only by guaranteeing the rights of all Americans can America regain its promise and redeem what was lost at its creation.
The idea of loss and redemption consumed the poet John Milton. Most know him as the author of his epic “Paradise Lost” in which he characterized our fall from grace. Later, he wrote a shorter epic poem entitled “Paradise Regained.” The following excerpt can and should inspire us to overcome our original sin, to put aside the lust for power and threats of violence, to persuade the better angels of our nature, and to hold the misled to account. To secure our country’s future, we must teach each generation of Americans to advance the cause of liberty and justice for all. Otherwise, the promise of American exceptionalism will never be realized.
An excerpt from “Paradise Regained” by John Milton:
Then to subdue and quell, o’er all the earth,
Brute violence and proud tyrannic power,
Till truth were freed, and equity restored:
Yet held it more humane, more heavenly, first
By winning words to conquer willing hearts,
And make persuasion do the work of fear;
At least to try, and teach the erring soul,
Not wilfully misdoing, but unware
Misled; the stubborn only to subdue . . . (sic)
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¹ Chapter 2, “The Old Testament,” The Catholic Book Publishing Company, c. 1957.
² as quoted by Catherine Drinker Bowen, “Miracle at Philadelphia: The Story of the Constitutional Convention 1787,” p. 95.
³ as quoted by Isabel Wilkerson, “Caste: The Lies that Divide Us,” p. 378.
Footnote: For those who want to dig deeper into American systemic racism, I highly recommend Wilkerson’s book. My humble blog barely touches the surface of her historical analysis of caste systems, to include Indian, German, and American racism. She is an excellent writer, scholar, and human being. But my recommendation is dwarfed by her many awards and commendations to include a Pulitzer Prize, the National Humanities Medal, the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction, The New York Times’s list of the Best Nonfiction of All Time. Yes! She is that good.
Footnote #2: I should note the irony of the “three-fifths” rule. The Southern Democrats may have cut their financial contribution to the Federal Government by reducing their representation in Congress. But less representation weakened their ability to block the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments that gave Negroes freedom, citizenship, and the right to vote, respectively. The irony: the 3/5th rule not only intimated white supremacy, but the beginning of its demise. (Of course, America is still working towards that demise.)