America will never be destroyed from the
outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed
ourselves.
~
Abraham Lincoln
My brain is
churning this week, and my heart is fast in pursuit of understanding, so I warn you,
dear readers, this post is lengthy. But I ask you, is it possible to write
succinctly about a 150-year-journey?
This weekend we
went to see Spielberg’s Lincoln. I
highly recommend this film with its stunning, dark images, stellar cast, moving
story, historical accuracy, and authentic dialog. I am so intrigued my mind
keeps replaying scenes, and I can’t wait to see it again.
The film showed an
intimate portrayal of Abraham Lincoln during the specific months that he pushed
for passage of the 13th Amendment. His complicated character is
shown in his intelligence, his folksiness, his internal struggles, his offbeat
humor, his moral sensibility, and his determination.
"Do we choose
to be born? Or are we fitted to the times we're born into?" he asks two
soldiers in the telegraph office as he is composing a telegram to hold the
Confederate delegation hoping to negotiate peace on a riverboat because he
fears ending the war too soon will close the window of opportunity to get the
amendment bill passed in Congress.
Radical Republican
Congressional Leader Thaddeus Stevens played a big role in helping to pass the
13th Amendment. Wiki says this about him:
He
defended and Native Americans, Seventh-Day Adventists, Mormons, Jews, Chinese,
and women. However, the defense of runaway or fugitive slaves gradually began
to consume the greatest amount of his time, until the abolition of slavery became
his primary political and personal focus. He was actively involved in the Underground Railroad,
assisting runaway slaves in getting to Canada. An Underground Railroad site has
been discovered under his office in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
Though Stevens’
relationship with his Quadroon housekeeper, Lydia Hamilton, was revealed only
at the end of the film, Wiki states their common law marriage was well known in
Washington circles, where many people referred to Lydia as Mrs. Stevens.
In the film
Stevens, who climbs into bed beside Lydia and hands her the original
passed Amendment bill for her to see and read, suggests that she should come to
the signing of the bill. She declines saying it would not be right to have his
housekeeper attend such an event. It was a poignant moment in the film for me,
a demonstration of the sacrifices we make out of our love for another, particularly
when our relationships do not fit social convention.
I knew interracial
relationships occurred back then as they always have since people of different
races and ethnicities ran into each other (some consensual and some not, but I
am speaking only of consensual couples in this case, not situations involving
rape, violence, and oppression), and I find it interesting that Spielberg and
scriptwriter John Logan chose to portray the relationship as secret. If it were
truly known openly, it is proof of how complicated race is in our society, then
as now. I imagine Spielberg and Logan viewed the relationship as the inspiration
to Stevens’ thirty-year-long fight for the abolition of slavery and for race
equality in America.
In one scene the
congressmen debated whether passage of the 13th Amendment would open
the way to giving blacks the right to vote. One congressman warned the others
that soon there would be blacks in congress if they were given the vote, and,
worse, women would expect to follow!
The movie couldn’t
have been released with better timing, given this past vitriolic election and
the continued trashing the Republican conservatives are raining down on
President Obama. Maybe Spielberg purposely held the film’s release until after
the election. Could he have been
that prescient or was he just waiting for the holiday moviegoers?
Certainly all this
talk of secession from the Union now that President Obama has been reelected
seems to warrant a history lesson. The seven southern states that seceded from
the Union prior to the Civil War were not exercising their rights; they were
traitors to the country. Their reliance on states rights to uphold the
inhumanity and brutality of slavery was an abomination brought about by greed,
power, and privilege. We need to acknowledge our history and not glorify the
ugly parts of it.
After the movie,
back in the car, my husband Ronald, daughter Mackenzie, and I talked about what
we had seen. I came away understanding how important it was to get the 13th
Amendment passed before the war ended, even without a plan for race integration
(which truly did not occur until 100 years later with the Civil Rights Act of
1964). I also understood why the final argument in favor of passage was for
legal equality and not race equality. At first I sided with Stevens who wanted
to push forward the concept of race equality. But Lincoln counseled Stevens, in
a private debate between the two, about the folly of using one’s moral compass
to head true north, when the compass has no way of identifying the pitfalls and
traps that lie in the path to stop one from completing the journey. He
understood they needed to take one step at a time, and eliminating slavery was
the first step. In real life Lincoln said of it, “As I would not be a slave, so
I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy.”
I feel strongly
that almost 150 years later, we are still taking steps toward race equality and
our journey is not nearly over.
A couple of weeks
ago one of the white guys at the golf range handed Ronald a photocopy of a
column from his church newsletter. I’ve reprinted most of it below:
Prophetic Prospective
United States citizens, at least those who
chose to exercise their franchise to vote this last presidential election,
decided to return President Obama to the White House for four more years. This
reelection of President Obama has received rave reviews from the European and
Middle Eastern political leaders. European leaders who basically embrace the
same political philosophy as President Obama see this reelection as an
opportunity to advance their political agenda. Arab and Muslim leaders await
the Obama administration’s acceptance of the Muslim agenda to move those
nations touched by the Arab Spring into the establishment of an Islamic world
more in line with Sharia, the Islamic law, as the law of each of their nations.
As Christians, many of us have questions as
to how it happened. Mitt Romney lost and Barack Obama won. I am not going to
analyze the results, but I do want to remind each of us of the biblical
response that we must have as we look into the future…
God instituted human government 4,500 years
ago as recorded in Genesis 9:6. God instructs Bible-believing Christians to be
obedient to those elected and He reminds all of us that He, God is the One, who
puts people in their political positions, Romans 13:1. The Lord reveals in
Revelation 17:17 that He will use world leaders to have His will played out in
the Last Days. God’s Word also calls for Christians to pray for all those who
are in positions of authority – as is our president, Timothy 2:1 – 4.
Let me share several prophetic thoughts with
you. Bible prophecy speaks of how the financial structure of this world will be
controlled by a world leader, a one world leader, the Antichrist from his
headquarters in Babylon, the modern-day state of Iraq…The conflict in the
Middle East will also be center stage of the Last Days.
This whole scenario is like reading from
prophetic passages of Bible prophecy. Europe and the EU are at least the
infrastructure for the revived Roman Empire as foretold in Daniel 2 and 7 when
it talks about the ten toes… and the ten horns. An Islamic based government in
the 23 Arab states and the Muslim states of the Middle East prepare this region
for the future described in Daniel 11, Ezekial 38, and Psalm 83.
God has used human government to fulfill
Bible prophecy in the past and He will do so as well in the future. Political
leaders will indeed help set the stage for prophetic passages in God’s Word to
be fulfilled.
~ A minister from NC
The white guy asked
Ronald for a response. Ronald, who knows the Bible better than most
Evangelicals, immediately started to parse the column and Biblical references (most
of which I left out to save on space and your time, dear readers). Finally the
man got frustrated and said, “I didn’t ask you for a sermon!”
“No,” I said to
Ronald from my hotel room up in the northeast, as we spoke on the phone, “he
didn’t want a sermon. He wanted you to agree with what it said. Doesn’t he get
that if he believes God chooses who wins, that God chose Obama?”
Now that I’ve
reread it (instead of hearing it over the phone), I see the author is
predicting that Obama’s reelection signals the End of Days. Hasn’t every
generation thought that certain events were harbingers of the end? The Civil
War (and every war) must have made people wonder if the end was near with the
loss of over 620,000 soldiers and another 420,000 injured.
Here are a few
more letters published this past week in my local paper the Winston-Salem Journal. They, like the
article above, also predict the dire consequences of President Obama’s
reelection.
Consequences
Congratulations! Elections certainly do have
consequences. Witness the 950 jobs lost from Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center
– in my opinion, thanks to Obamacare.
Tighten your seatbelts, because our “tyrant
and chief” is just getting started.
~ Peter Wilson
Not This Time
It’s over…but I don’t get it. More than 50
percent of the voters picked the candidate who has been the most divisive
president in my lifetime, which has been for almost three quarters of a
century.
I have always understood why people have
picked one candidate over another, but not this time. I always felt if my candidate lost, so be it. I could live
with the opponent for another four years. But the past four years have been
nothing but a failure. Of course, a lot of freebies were handed out.
As you can tell by now, my choice was former
Gov. Mitt Romney. Here was an honest, decent, intelligent man who felt it was a
privilege to help others, yet he was demonized by the opposition and the press,
including this paper, with all sorts of falsehoods.
I’m not the smartest guy in town but would
someone explain how this happened? Do we go through another four years of
bickering and higher unemployment, dividing the country even more? I hope not.
We cannot afford more of this and while I hope I am wrong, I see the middle
class disappearing. And while I’m not an overly religious man, I wonder if this
is a test from God to see if we as a nation can survive.
I love America and I hope the best years of
my country are not in the rearview mirror.
~Art Frauenhofer
Suffering
How very fortunate America would have been
to have Mitt Romney as our leader. His is so experienced, so competent and so
honest. Instead, we have returned to the hopelessness, ineptness and deceit of
the last four years.
My fellow Americans, it will not be all
right. We will suffer; our children will suffer; our grandchildren will suffer.
And, yea, the Journal will suffer. But, thank God, Sandra Fluke will get free
contraceptives.
~Janice Dooley
The consequence
they seem to predict is the end of the White reign in America, the day when a
black president is accepted not just for the novelty of being the first black
president but because the majority of Americans loves, trusts and respects him
and his leadership.
Racism played a
role in the election campaign but it did not change the outcome. Yet I can only
think that there are people out there who are afraid of the demise of white
privilege just as there were people 150 years ago who feared the consequences
of freeing the slaves.
I see it quite
differently, though. Maybe more like Thaddeus Stevens, I see what America can
be after this hard fought election: inclusive, diverse, and celebratory of how
this country was built by the contributions of many races, ethnicities, and
cultures. I envision a new America that honors equality and fairness, in word
and in action. No one is asking for “free gifts” as Romney accused Obama of
rewarding to a majority of voters. We just want race and gender equality.
That’s not a free gift; it is morally and ethically the right thing to do.
But I have the
feeling that a good many white people don’t feel that way, and they are hoping and
praying God will intervene and give them back the entitlement and privilege
they don’t openly acknowledge. Yet they fight for it and accuse others of
wanting it.
One of the white
guys at the golf range told Ronald he doesn’t think everyone should be able to
vote. He believes that an elite group, unnamed but probably white and wealthy, should
be the only Americans eligible to elect our country’s leaders. Ronald wondered,
as he related the story to me, if the white guy included himself in the elite
group. No doubt.
Lincoln also said,
"Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery I feel a strong impulse to see
it tried on him personally."
Maybe Mitt Romney,
Donald Trump, Rush Limbaugh, or the white guys at the golf range would be
willing to walk in the shoes of the 47% for a week. I don’t think they would
last an hour. So why are they trying to determine our destiny?
Another white guy at
the golf range told Ronald a couple of months ago that, all things being equal,
the wealthy would still be wealthy and the poor would still be poor. In other
words, wealthy people are smarter, more able, and more motivated than poor
people who, he said, are too lazy to change their circumstances.
I believe the days
of elitism and race advantage are coming to an end.
I’m disappointed
that people are using the Bible to spread hatred and bias and that they are
unabashed about mixing church and state. It was true in Lincoln’s era,
too. The Bible was used to justify
slavery and unequal, brutal treatment under the law and to predict the dire consequences
of ending the social order. Such predictions and prophecies render us
spiritually, morally, and ethically bankrupt.
Are people afraid
of the new multiethnic America? Yes. I know they are. But haven’t we been
moving away from Euro-centric culture (many Americans seem opposed to European
socialism; I wonder how they define their whiteness) since the first Pilgrims
landed on America’s shores, since America opened its arms to immigrants (the
Native Americans being the first to allow strangers on their shores)? Haven’t
we always had different cultures mixing to create a culture that is singularly
and uniquely American? What are we afraid of?
I wrote the
following comment on Facebook and attached the political cartoon below it:
When people hate so much they want to secede
from the country they claim to love, we need to invite them to the table so we
can offer them the chance to talk about it and to show them we love the country
as much as they do and we don't plan on going anywhere. I know, they haven't
offered that to us, but I think the high road is the better route, even if it
takes a little longer.
Lincoln took the high road, even as he questioned his own methods and the power of his office. The country, with the Southern States once again part of the Union, took the high road and enacted the 13th Amendment. As Lincoln counseled Stevens in the film about the virtue of using one’s moral compass to head true north, we have to walk in that direction, but avoid what the compass cannot foretell, the pitfalls and traps that may stand in front of us. Let’s relocate our country’s moral compass, find true north, take the high road, and, avoiding that which can stop us in our tracks, complete the journey to race equality.
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