[I am going to start publishing the text of the Afterburner's sometime after they appear on PJTV (I tried to do it before they appeared once, and the text got the link and not the video!)
Hope you like it. I am very, very proud of this one.]
Just a few blocks away from the Capitol building is an unassuming, dingy flophouse – once owned by one William Peterson – which is directly across the street from Ford’s Theater, and it was to this tiny aprtment that President Lincoln was carried on that awful night back in 1865. I had read about this small, shabby little place for decades, and seen many deathbed illustrations of the place, but nothing can prepare you for how small, how appallingly, claustrophobically tiny, and dingy and cheap this little room actually is. There on this very spot, the sixteenth president underwent what a Civil War surgeon – who had seen horrors the modern mind cannot comprehend – called the most pathetic and agonizing death he had ever seen. It took eight hours.
To stand in that little room, a foot or two away from where Abraham Lincoln breathed his last in the middle of such squalor, brought crashing home to me the humanity of history, the small, pathetic humanity of it: just another death in a sea of life and death, no different really than anyone else.
And yet, just a mile or two away from that dark and depressing deathbed, stands this:
…This temple, where the imperishable words of that man are written in granite and viewed by millions and millions of people each year. Those words and ideals are read, aloud or in silence, by new generations every single day.
That transformation from dying flesh into eternal marble, that fundamental understanding that there is more to man than brain and blood and bone, that a final, desperate gasp was not the end of Abraham Lincoln and the ideals he espoused but rather the beginning of them: these are the lessons you can take from the city of Washington, if you only have the ear to hear them.
Lincoln, for all his many political gifts, was above all a writer, a man who used language as music: music, imperishable music to the American people.
Here is a little of that music:
How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn’t make it a leg.
If I had eight hours to chop down a tree, I’d spend six hours sharpening my ax.
I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts.
Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.
You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.
With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right…
And finally, in these bitter and contentious times, a heartfelt one for our liberal friends across the political aisle:
We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.
These words are in granite, in a marble temple, visited by millions. These words will never die.
However….
In another temple, near the other end of the mall, sit the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution – the real documents, the real things, which I saw on a pleasant Sunday afternoon, with a line far, far shorter than at any McDonald’s at any food court in any other mall at that same time on that same Sunday.
Many of us talk a lot about the Constitution these days, but I don’t want to talk about the Constitution – I want to talk about the Declaration. The Constitution is the “how” of America, but the declaration is the “why.”
So much vitriol and anger is directed to the Tea Party movement: cries of racism and outright lunacy, the depiction of the people who attend these events as a bunch of wild-eyed paranoid radicals who are just waiting to shoot and hang people in some misguided, knuckle-dragging zeal whipped up by rabble-rousers like Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh and Glen Beck, an uneducated, ill-read group of imbeciles who get ginned up over guns and Nascar.
The modern Tea Party movement is made up of people peacefully protesting tax rates that, taken in total, approach half of all of their income; protesting the takeover by unelected czars of entire sectors of the economy; protesting the drunken orgy of spending not only the present wealth of the nation but the wealth of our children and our children’s children; protesting waste on a scale where a billion dollars – one thousand million dollars – is essentially undectable, a rounding error… all of that, which its critics decry as mouth breathing paranoia… while the founders, enshrined in the mural surrounding these documents and which these same critics claim to revere – these founders, the greatest minds ever assembled in one place in the history of the world – took their country to war against the greatest military force on the planet because of a one-cent tax on tea.
Think about that! Forget the penny tax! It was never about the tax. It was about the idea of being ruled by people who cared not a whit about your lives but who only saw you as a source of revenue for their own grand ideas.
The why of America – when it’s all said and done – is simply this: we will be governed with our consent, but we will not be ruled.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
And so, I came to read the Declaration – the why of America – to see the actual words on the actual parchment. But you cannot read the Declaration of Independence, even when it sits an inch beneath your fingers.
I had expected to see this:
Black letters on crisp yellow parchment. But this is not what you see. This is what you see:
My friends, the declaration of Independence is gone. The actual parchment is there, much softer and larger and whiter than I expected it to be, but the letters – the words – are gone. Gone.
Yes, the massive capital letters that read “In Congress, July 4th, 1776” are still somewhat legible. But the actual document is utterly unreadable. Even the bold, black signature of John Hancock, has now faded and decayed to this to a barely discernable black smudge.
The Declaration of Independence – the foundational “why” of why we are here – is faded, irreparably faded, and lost to us forever. And the sight of it filled me with despair. Not only for the lost document. I became overwhelmed with despair because the loss of the words on the parchment beneath the glass at my fingers felt a perfect analogy for the fading of those words and ideals from the pages of society. Like the ghost signatures on this pale surface, so many of these ideals are faded and worn — almost invisible, today.
And the instant I had that thought I had another. This document, this piece of parchment, is unreadable. So I resolved to make a copy: just for me.
I wrote it out, by hand, using a four-dollar fountain pen I got at the drug store and copied onto regular printer paper. I could have typed it – heck, I could have texted it – but wanted to write it out by hand. I wanted it to hurt a little.
And I would urge you now – I would urge each of you listening to this today, especially those of you with children – to help me recover this document. We can’t get that ink back on that paper. But we can do something better. We can put new ink to fresh paper, and copy down once again those words exactly as they were written. We can whisper them aloud as we write them – as I did – and through writing them anew on the page we will inevitably write them anew on our hearts, as fresh and as clear to our eyes and our souls as they were the day that ink dried in that hall in Philadelphia.
A piece of parchment is a piece of old skin. A flag is a piece of colored cloth. A man groans in agony, dying in a dirty room. None of that matters. Not here. Not in America.
For above and beyond faded ink, and strips of colored cloth, and whimpers of pain are ideals that come once in all of history. Once. Never again.
When Abraham Lincoln, now sitting on his throne in that temple of glory, wrote that We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth he was talking about the Declaration. He was talking about the idea that free people consent to be governed by their representatives, not ruled over by people who see them only as a source of revenue. And that one essential ideal is preserved not in marble, or even on parchment, but rather in the hearts of people willing to stand out in the rain and say they will not tolerate this any longer.
There is no marble monument to these ideals. This we will have to do ourselves. We will keep these ideals alive. We will copy them by hand. We will keep these imperishable ideals alive because they keep us alive. And as long as we do this, with our own hands, they – and we – will never die.
Awesome. Only 1 comment. The Declaration is the “Why” of America, but the Constitution is the “What” not the “How.” It tells what the government should and should not do; the laws enacted by Congress are the “How.”
For example, Article III says, “The judicial power of the United States, shall be vested in one Supreme Court, and in such inferior courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. ” That is a “What.” The law Congress passed establishing the federal court system, Judiciary Act of 1789, was the “How.”
I am profoundly disturbed by the symbolism here. Once something like the Declaration is lost physically, or liberty lost as a people, it never comes back.
Thank you Bill, for planting a seed. I hope to send this link to 50 or more of my friends, family, and yes, a bunch of those who are too blind to see that this document is what has given us the ability to produce the finest nation on the planet.
nuf Sed
Thank you, Bill. I remember vividly the first time I stood in that temple, off of the marble statue’s left shoulder, reading the words that moved a nation. I remember standing in Jefferson’s Memorial, reading his pronouncements of faith in divine providence which so many would today deny. The Bible admonishes us to never forget the stones which mark the path by which we have come. That Declaration is the cornerstone of Liberty in this world. You so eloquently compared the “how” of the Constitution to the “why” of the Declaration, and many would ignore the earlier document as not being a real part of our governance. But no Constitution would have been crafted without first a nation was created, and it was created by that very faded parchment you here lament. All in all, the most powerful words put to paper by and for men in history.
Again, thank you.
Mr. Whittle you are right to be proud of this work. I’ve long thought of you as our generation’s Thomas Paine, and this is a perfect example of why.
Chad, the parallel isn’t between the Declaration and its ideals, it’s between Lincoln the man and the physical Declaration. Men die and ink fades, but ideas will live as long as people choose to believe them. Of course this means that every 30-40 years we’re going to have to fight the idea that Utopia can be achieved, if only a few inconvenient freedoms are sacrificed for The Greater Good (The Greater Good).
I had no idea the Declaration was unreadable now. This news weighs heavily on my heart.
I love your idea regarding writing the Declaration!!! I intend to have my kids doing it right along with me today. Maybe the Tea Party movement should adopt this idea as well????
Thank You for yet another outstanding column!!!!
I respectfully disagree, Chad. While it may be lost to a people that won’t fight for it. Liberty, Independence, and Freedom came to the captives at Babylon who were allowed back to Israel, minus the Ark.
I’m not even a student of History, but it’s said The Cyrus cylinder was the first Declaration of Independence, among other things.
MP, you out there?
Help me out here, would ya?
This grand experiment, never before existing in human history, is failing because of our lack of understanding. Quite possibly it is true that humans cannot govern themselves. If not for our constitution and bill of rights what hope is there for the human race?
Thank you for this most evocative essay, so beautifully crafted it is bringing tears of joy to my eyes.
Your thoughts and words recall Lincoln’s transcendent phrase, “God’s almost chosen people,” the title of one of my own blogposts of a few years back, wherein I quoted a David Gelertner tour de force on the origins of the “shining city upon a hill”:
“I believe that Puritanism did not drop out of history. It transformed itself into Americanism. This new religion was the end-stage of Puritanism: Puritanism realized among God’s self-proclaimed “new” chosen people — or, in Abraham Lincoln’s remarkable phrase, God’s ‘almost chosen people.’
“Freedom, equality, democracy: the Declaration held these truths to be self-evident, but ‘self-evident’ they were certainly not. Otherwise, America would hardly have been the first nation in history to be built on this foundation. Deriving all three from the Bible, theologians of Americanism understood these doctrines not as philosophical ideas but as the word of God. Hence the fervor and passion with which Americans believe their creed. Americans, virtually alone in the world, insist that freedom, equality, and democracy are right not only for France and Spain but for Afghanistan and Iraq.”
For your reading pleasure —
–Here’s the URL for that old blogpost of mine referenced in the previous comment: http://bit.ly/YFEAt
Bill,you keep getting better!
Like many I was very moved by your fathers’ story but as an Englishman I envy your nations’ constitution and the declaration more than anything.
I also envy(i know its a deadly sin) your cool velocity homebuilt but it wouldn’t be much good on my grass strip!
Lincoln said all the right things, but his actions were traitorous. He was a great president in the same way FDR was: important but morally and legally wrong much (most) of the time. A great book that unveils the man behind the legend: http://www.amazon.com/Real-Lincoln-Abraham-Agenda-Unnecessary/dp/0761526463/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1268055542&sr=8-1
Bill,
It seems pretty odd to use Lincoln for a ‘consent of the governed’ arguement. Regardless of the (in)appropriateness of their reasons, the Confederate states withdrew their consent to be governed by the Union, and Lincoln rather emphatically, and with the use of several hundred thousand soldiers, refused to accept their refusal of consent.
I am glad he did, but he is not a paragon supporting the consent of the governed. “We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth” absolutely. Consent of the governed…not so much.
Not only will I write it out, but I will take a picture of it and post it on my blog. I hope bloggers everywhere do this, and post it permanently to their sidebar.
Bill,
Very powerful essay about a very powerful place. I have never been to the place where President Lincoln died and wasn’t even aware it existed. I will make it part of my next trip. I would ask that you think about Lincoln as you go forward. He is obviously one of your favorite people, much less favorite presdient. You mentioned your “friends across the aisle” with one quote. But everyone needs to reread what he said:
We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.
This was said about men who took up arms and killed tens of thousands of their fellow citizens. And yet Lincoln can say “we are not enemies, but friends”. The next time you write how President O’Bama is trying to “destroy America” and must be stopped at all costs or the hatred that comes out regarding those that have a different opinion of health care remeber none of these people have declared war on the US. None of these people have taken arms and killed fellow Americans. Even if you do believe that they are part of some grand conspiracy to that has been in the works for decades if not centuries–remember you can disagree and work towards your goals but dont make them unAmerican or evil. Here is a man who saw true rebellion first hand, who had to order countless young men to make the ultimate sacrifice to fight people who were truly dedicated to destroying the Union. And yet he could say those words that are imortalizied in granite.
And to those that will say look how they demonizied Bush, I say I agree that was digusting. But we need to get past the “I am rubber you are glue” mentality that is taking over the country. Lincoln talked about people being touched “by the better angels of our nature”, that starts one person at a time. Do you think the Confederacy felt as forgiving to Lincoln as he did to them. I think not. Lets not wait for THEM to do it. Be a Lincoln.
Thanks very much, sir, for another excellent post – Not to reduce the force of your arguement, but I do wonder if there are other copies of the “original edition” of the Declaration in existence, that might be in better shape?
#14: Interesting point about the “consent of the governed”. On the other hand, some of those governed in the Confederacy were slaves, whose consent was not considered at all under the Confederacy.
Bill – a beautiful piece. One of the few times I have sat down to read someone else’s thoughts, and immediately started thinking “I wish I had written this” – before the second paragraph even begins.
I will definitely start reading more of your work. I hope you have a few minutes to reciprocate.
And I intend to do my part, and copy out those most important words for preservation. It will be a great project for my three homeschoolers as well.
Hi, Bill. Just published a new post on how your idea is catching on. Most amazing part of the exercise for me was to discover that I can still write longhand!
A Declaration of Independence: Art for freedom’s sake
“The modern Tea Party movement is made up of people peacefully protesting”
When did this happen? What a crock.
Bill/Ifihad:
As inspiring as Lincoln’s words are about the “better angels of our nature” and that we Americans must remain “friends not enemies,” a line must be drawn. You may hold opionions 180-degrees from mine and I’ll respect your right to a different point of view and even celebrate our differences. But if you job the system with distortion, bribes, back-room deals, smoke and mirrors and outright lies in order to use the system to force me to live the way you would have me live, you have crossed that line. You are now my enemy. You are no better than a thief stealing into my home at night, bent on ripping off that which I hold most dear — my freedom. I will do whatever it takes to stop you from destroying my birthright.
I watched your clip on PJTV on this, but I found it more moving to read it. Well done.
I visited Philedelphia last summer. I purchased yellowed replicas of the Declaration, Constitution, and Bill of Rights because I wanted facsimile tokens of the actual documents. They are still in their envelopes. I have read all of those documents from my pocket copies dozens of times over the past year. You have nailed the sentiment. The ideas are potent, the paper is quaint. I am enrgized by the ideas, which can never fade.
Keep up your awesome work Bill. I am amazed how your thought process, and rousing of passion, tends to strongly resonate with my own. Watching your Afterburner pieces is like watching a philosophical mirror.
Dear Mr. Whittle:
Thank you most sincerely for your words and the passion and character they convey. Your work is a profound and moving presence.
The state of our Constitution weighs heavily, and you have helped restore its prominence in our hearts. G-d Bless you and those close to you.
Allow me to bring to your attention the online article ‘The American Trinity’ by Dennis Prager.
Best regards, Peter Warner.
“But the actual document is utterly unreadable.”
Sigh.
Last time I visited the National Archives, the display explained that the reason for this is two-fold:
First, the Declaration was written using impermanent vegetable-based ink. (India ink, being based on carbon black, is permanent but was more expensive. And I’ll bet that very few people back then were thinking about the matter of permanence. Think of all the fine art that was created with light-sensitive pigments.)
Second, until recently the people at the Archives did not think about the problem of document conservation. Thus, the Declaration was displayed in bright light, day after day, for generations.
I suppose this could be a the point for a segue into how so much of human trouble is caused by ignorance. (Followed by an essay on how much modern trouble is caused by idealistic fools who ought to know but prefer their utopian dreams to the evidence of human experience.)
Bill, I am very pleased that you will be publishing the text of your Afterburner segments. (Will they eventually be collected into book form, like your earlier essays?)
FugHeadAboutIt: Do you have anything honest and intelligent to contribute?