Friday, November 27, 2009

Do Unto Others

The Thanksgiving holiday brought to mind an excerpt of a speech given in 1871 by Lt. Col. David Branson (1840-1916) of the Sixty-second U.S. Colored Infantry. He spoke on occasion of the dedication of Lincoln Institute in Jefferson City, Mo. He and his comrades contributed money and helped found the school known today as Lincoln University of Missouri.

In his brief comments, Branson spoke to the value of education and religious freedom in the Reconstruction era, as Americans struggled to deal with a new political, economic and social order as a result of the Civil War and the end of slavery. He states:
The future peace of our country is threatened more by the unwise zeal of religious men than by anything else, unless it be ignorance itself; and ignorance is the tool of such unwise zealots. Inquisitions, burnings at the stake, and hanging of the best men and women of their time, have been their work in the past, and will be in the future, unless prevented by just such schools as this, managed by liberal-minded men like Prof. Foster here, who, while holding strong religious convictions of his own, fully recognizes the right under our glorious Constitution of the United States, of every man, be he Christian, Jew or Mahomedan, to his own creed, untrammeled by any law whatever. And right here I cannot refrain from denouncing those men who are trying to insert a religious amendment in the Constitution of the United States.

A well-known author and close observer of events has well said that "It is the point of a wedge whose butt end is an established Church;" and an established Church in England has produced great wars in the past, and I will venture to predict, will deluge the British Isles in blood during the next generation.

But some may ask. Are we to have no religion? no morality? I have this to answer, on the best authority ever given us, and it is the sum of all the commandments, based on justice, tempered with mercy, and adorned by love: "Whatsoever ye would that men do to you, even so do ye unto them."

When we are able to live up to that law, then it will be time to think of teaching creeds and theologies in our public schools; and then they will not be needed or thought of. The future of our own free government depends on us who have the advantages of education. Whether we wish it or not, we must educate the masses pouring in from Europe on the East and Asia on the West, or they will destroy our free government and render despotic government a necessity.

It is our destiny to lift up the races that are down, and we need not be dragged down in the work, but rather buoyed up to a still higher level. Let us then each and all do what lies in our power for the elevation and happiness both of ourselves and others; and so living we shall not, when called from this world to the great unknown, fear to meet the spirits gone before; but rather approach it as we do a new country, whither our friends have preceeded us to enjoy greater happiness than in the land of our birth.
I find Branson's message as appropriate today as they were almost 140 years ago. Read the full speech.

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Saturday, October 10, 2009

Transformation

Ulysses S. Grant's transformation between 1861 and 1869 from an alcoholic ex-soldier and failed farmer to lieutenant general and commander of all the Union armies and President of the United States is the classic rags to riches American success story. And one that captivated me in my youth and inspires me today.

Grant's whirlwind adventure ends on a positive note. Even after his post-presidency years were tarnished when a swindler bilked him out of his savings and terminal cancer consumed his life, he mustered his last remaining resources to write his memoirs, which, with the help of Mark Twain, became an international bestseller that provided his family with financial support after his death.

Now I am discovering other stories of transformation that rivaled Grant's for their rapid and steep ascent to glory. But these stories end tragically.

Take William Wright, an African American born a slave in Kentucky and the current subject of my research. During a three year period, from 1864 to 1870, his life forever changed when he became a Union soldier and free man, then a farmer living for the first time in control of his own affairs and having the ability to pursue his dreams.

There are few instances in history where hope radiated with such brightness and warmth over humanity than in America during this time. The collapse and fall of the Confederacy and the end of a bloody Civil War. The freedom of an enslaved race of people. Three amendments to the Constitution establishing equality for all. During this brief period along our nation's timeline, hope seemed eternal. The dawn of a new age lay before us.

And yet the hope that burned so brightly dimmed quickly as Reconstruction failed. Civil rights were trampled and within a short time African Americans found themselves in a new slavery fueled by racism. And it would last for more than a century, until a new civil rights movements in the 1960s would rekindle the almost extinguished flame of hope.

William Wright would never see the flame rekindled. Driven from his farm in 1871 by what he called "Night Riders," he and his family fled to Iowa, where he lived a modest life as a farmer in a quiet corner of the country. He died in 1901.

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