On this day in 1886, President Grover Cleveland celebrated the dedication of the Statue of Liberty by enthusiastically declaring, “Liberty enlightens the world.” That is exactly what we should wish to do now — inspire the world with our dedication to and promotion of liberty.
Nearly 140 years after France’s gift to America was dedicated as a symbol of freedom and democracy, France is rapidly becoming a dictatorial, mismanaged catastrophe overrun by hostile foreigners, while America is being torn apart by political violence. Most ironically of all, New York — site of the statue — could soon have a pro-jihad, communist mayor. We desperately need to revive the noble ideals immortalized by the Statue of Liberty.
At the statue’s dedication on Oct. 28, 1886, President Cleveland compared the statue to a heavenly guardian of ancient days: “We are not here today to bow before the representation of a fierce warlike god, filled with wrath and vengeance, but we joyously contemplate instead our own deity keeping watch and ward before the open gates of America and greater than all that have been celebrated in ancient song.”
The one true God gave men freedom, but too often rulers try to crush that God-given right. America was founded to preserve it. That is what made us unique. Indeed, though France under monarchy helped us win our revolution and, after their own bloody revolution, used many of the same words as those in our founding documents, they lacked the belief in God-given rights and freedom to pursue the moral and political excellence that defined America and made us so historically exceptional.
There are many nations that have repeated our arguments, co-opted our political titles, and claimed to be following our principles, but none of them have equaled or surpassed the United States. We have failed and fallen many times, but we have also succeeded beyond any expectations in glorifying liberty and equality. Those who hate our nation from within, like the Democrats, and from without, like the Chinese Communist Party and Hamas, hate us all the more because of our triumphs. That is why they’re working overtime to propagandize American youth, corrupt U.S. institutions, and destabilize American society.
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Today, besides being the anniversary of the Statue of Liberty’s dedication, is the feast of St. Jude the Apostle, patron intercessor of impossible causes. Sometimes it almost seems as if defeating the freedom-haters is impossible, but with God, all things are possible (Matthew 19:26). The Founders believed this, and proved it by defeating the world‘s most powerful empire and establishing a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. America has produced thousands of the greatest men in human history. We are their inheritors.
Will we allow Liberty’s torch to be extinguished? No. As Cleveland said, “Instead of grasping in her hand thunderbolts of terror and of death, she [the statue] holds aloft the light which illumines the way to man’s enfranchisement. We will not forget that Liberty has here made her home, nor shall her chosen altar be neglected. Willing votaries will constantly keep alive its fires and these shall gleam upon the shores of our sister Republic thence, and joined with answering rays a stream of light shall pierce the darkness of ignorance and man’s oppression, until Liberty enlightens the world.”
