“Financial support from France and the Netherlands, and military support from the French army and navy, would play a large part in the outcome. But in the last analysis it was Washington and the army that won the war for American independence. The fate of the war and the revolution rested on the army. The Continental Army — not the Hudson River or the possession of New York or Philadelphia — was the key to victory. And it was Washington who held the army together and gave it ‘spirit’ through the most desperate of times.
He was not a brilliant strategist or tactician, not a gifted orator, not an intellectual. At several crucial moments he had shown marked indecisiveness. He had made serious mistakes in judgment. But experience had been his great teacher from boyhood, and in this his greatest test, he learned steadily from experience. Above all, Washington never forgot what was at stake and he never gave up.
Again and again, in letters to Congress and to his officers, and in his general orders, he had called for perseverance — for ‘perseverance and spirit,’ for ‘patience and perseverance,’ for ‘unremitting courage and perseverance.’ Soon after the victories of Trenton and Princeton, he had written: ‘A people unused to restraint must be led, they will not be drove.’ Without Washington’s leadership and unrelenting perseverance, the revolution almost certainly would have failed. As Nathanael Greene foresaw as the war went on, ‘He will be the deliverer of his own country.’
The war was a longer, far more arduous, and more painful struggle than later generations would understand or sufficiently appreciate. By the time it ended, it had taken the lives of an estimated 25,000 Americans, or roughly 1 percent of the population. In percentage of lives lost, it was the most costly war in American history, except for the Civil War.
The year 1776, celebrated as the birth year of the nation and for the signing of the Declaration of Independence, was for those who carried the fight for independence forward a year of all-too-few victories, of sustained suffering, disease, hunger, desertion, cowardice, disillusionment, defeat, terrible discouragement, and fear, as they would never forget, but also of phenomenal courage and bedrock devotion to country, and that, too, they would never forget.
Especially for those who had been with Washington and who knew what a close call it was at the beginning — how often circumstance, storms, contrary winds, the oddities or strengths of individual character had made the difference — the outcome seemed little short of a miracle.”
John Meacham: If our country itself is irreconcilably polarized, then in classic republican — lowercase “r” — thinking, that is going to be reflected in our political system.
David Brooks: I’m coming around to that view, which I was very resistant to over the last ten years. A lot of people have argued that [polarization] begins out in the country, not in Washington. I guess I more or less accept that now.
And I think it’s a moral failing that we all share. Which is that if you have a modest sense of your own rightness, and if you think that politics is generally a competition between half-truths, then you’re going to need the other people on the other side, and you’re going to value the similarity of taste. You know, you may disagree with a Republican, or disagree with a Democrat, but you’re still American and you still basically share the same culture. And you know your side is half wrong.
If you have that mentality that ‘Well, I’m probably half wrong; he’s probably half right,’ then it’s going to be a lot easier to come to an agreement. But if you have an egotistical attitude that ‘I’m 100% right and they’re 100% wrong,’ which is a moral failing — a failing of intellectual morality — then it’s very hard to come to an agreement.
And I do think that we’ve had a failure of modesty about our own rightness and wrongness. And I’m in the op-ed business, so believe me that people like me have contributed as much as anybody to this moral failure. But I think it has built up gradually and has become somewhat consuming.
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David Brooks and Jon Meacham, in conversation when Meacham subbed for Charlie Rose this summer.
“Men since the beginning of time have sought peace. Various methods through the ages have been attempted to devise an international process to prevent or settle disputes between nations. From the very start workable methods were found in so far as individual citizens were concerned, but the mechanics of an instrumentality of larger international scope have never been successful. Military alliances, balances of power, Leagues of Nations, all in turn failed, leaving the only path to be by way of the crucible of war.
The utter destructiveness of war now blocks out this alternative. We have had our last chance. If we will not devise some greater and more equitable system, Armageddon will be at our door. The problem basically is theological and involves a spiritual recrudescence and improvement of human character that will synchronize with our almost matchless advances in science, art, literature, and all material and cultural developments of the past 2000 years. It must be of the spirit if we are to save the flesh.”
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General Douglas MacArthur, quoting himself in his “Old Soldiers Never Die” Speech to Congress on April 19th, 1951.
In the summer of 1821, Greek Revolutionaries rose up to fight for their independence from the Ottoman Empire, and petitioned the United States to join in their struggle. John Quincy Adams, who was then Secretary of State, presented the following response to the U.S. Congress, outlining why America would not intervene.
“Let our answer be this — America… in the assembly of nations, has invariably, though often fruitlessly, held forth to them the hand of honest friendship, of equal freedom, of generous reciprocity. She has… without a single exception, respected the independence of other nations, while asserting and maintaining her own. She has abstained from interference in the concerns of others, even when the conflict has been for principles to which she clings.
Wherever the standard of freedom and independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. She will recommend the general cause, by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example.
She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself, beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force. The frontlet upon her brows would no longer beam with the ineffable splendor of freedom and independence; but in its stead would soon be substituted an imperial diadem, flashing in false and tarnished lustre the murky radiance of dominion and power. She might become the dictatress of the world: but she would be no longer the ruler of her own soul…
Her glory is not dominion, but liberty. Her march is the march of mind. She has a spear and a shield; but the motto upon her shield is Freedom, Independence, Peace. This has been her declaration: this has been, as far as her necessary intercourse with the rest of mankind would permit, her practice.”
As Secretary of State from 1817 to 1824, John Quincy Adams became one of America’s finest diplomats in what was a crucial, formative era in the young nation’s history. Serving in the cabinet of James Monroe, Adams was the chief architect of the famous Monroe Doctrine, which declared the United States would resist any European attempts to colonize the Americas, while also remaining unaligned and uninvolved in the internal affairs of European states and colonies.
In 1821, this doctrine was put to the test, as the Greek Revolution erupted along the northeastern corner of the Ottoman Empire. With European powers rushing to the side of the Greeks in their struggle against Turkish occupation, the revolutionaries petitioned the United States for assistance.
Adams looked with sympathy upon the Greek fight for independence. He viewed it as one battle in a larger struggle between Islam and the West, and along with President Monroe, held deep misgivings about the Ottoman Empire, especially in the wake of the Barbary Wars. Yet Adams refused to commit the United States to the struggle for Greece (which would last until 1832, three years after Adams himself would retire from the White House.)
In July 4th, 1821, Secretary Adams delivered a speech to Congress in which he answered the Greek revolutionaries’ request for aid and outlined the broader American approach to foreign policy. His words above are, in addition to very eloquent, a fine summary of the moral and economic merits of non-interventionism.
“We should go not abroad in search of monsters to destroy.” That’d look nice on a bumper sticker in ’16, don’t you think?
“What is our present condition? We have just carried an election on principles fairly stated to the people. Now we are told in advance, the government shall be broken up, unless we surrender to those we have beaten, before we take the offices.
In this they are either attempting to play upon us, or they are in dead earnest. Either way, if we surrender, it is the end of us, and of the government. They will repeat the experiment upon us ad libitum… They now have the Constitution, under which we have lived over seventy years, and acts of Congress of their own framing, with no prospect of their being changed; and they can never have a more shallow pretext for breaking up the government, or extorting a compromise, than now.”
BILL MOYERS: You say that political Washington is “an inbred company town where party differences are easily subsumed by membership in ‘The Club.’” And you describe “The Club”: “The Club swells for the night into the ultimate bubble world. They become part of a system that rewards, more than anything, self-perpetuation.”
MARK LEIBOVICH: Self-perpetuation is a key point in all of this. It is the question that drives Washington now: how are you going to continue your political life? I mean, the original notion of the founders was that presidents or public servants would serve a term, a couple years, then return to their communities, return to their farms. Now the organizing principle of life in Washington is how are you going to keep it going?
Whether it’s how you’re going to stay in office, by pleasing your leadership so that you get loads of party money. Or by raising enough money so that you can get reelected, and then getting another gig — in lobbying, in party politics — after you leave.
BILL MOYERS: “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” it ain’t.
MARK LEIBOVICH: No, it isn’t. And look, I tried to find a Mr. Smith character. I wanted to… And I thought there would be people that I could root for in Washington: a person who was there for the right reasons. But I couldn’t find him or her. And ultimately, I gave up trying.
BILL MOYERS: What does that say to you?
MARK LEIBOVICH: I think ultimately it says that this is a very cautious culture. And I think cowardice is rewarded at every step of the way.
BILL MOYERS: How so?
MARK LEIBOVICH: Moral cowardice is rewarded in Congress. Everything about the Congressional system — whether it’s leadership, whether it’s how money is raised — is going to reward cowardice. The true mavericks are going to be punished. If you want to build a career outside of office when you’re done, you are absolutely encouraged to not anger too many people.
BILL MOYERS: Not take a big stand?
MARK LEIBOVICH: Not take a big stand, right. No truth is going to be told here, because of this cowardly, go along to get along principle. And I think that there are many ways in which the system is financed — the politics are financed, the way the media works — that will not under any circumstances reward someone who takes a stand.
BILL MOYERS: As you and I both know, many Americans see Washington today as a polarized, dysfunctional city. One that is not sufficiently bipartisan. But you describe it as a place that “becomes a determinedly bipartisan team when there is money to be made.”
MARK LEIBOVICH: That is absolutely true. I mean, ultimately, the business of Washington relies on things not getting done. And this is a bipartisan imperative. If a tax reform bill passed tomorrow, if an immigration bill passed tomorrow, that’s tens of billions of dollars in consulting, lobbying, messaging fees that are not going to be paid out…
The problem is excess. To some degree, it is perfectly emblematic of the reality distortion field inside of Washington; that our political class just has no sense whatsoever that the rest of the country is struggling, that the government is, financially, in very, very bad shape, and that Washington is not doing a good job…
And I don’t think this can be sustained. I think it’s indecent. I think it is not how Americans want their government and their capital city to be.
A friend in D.C. who happens to be neighbors and acquaintances with Leibovich tells me that, originally, Leibovich was planning to make the subtitle of the book “How to Succeed in Suck-Up-City,” but that his publishers swapped it out at the last minute. I think it would’ve been a slightly more pungent description of a book whose tone is as cynical as its subject matter.
If you don’t have time to read the book — or if you are unsure if you want to read it — check out the entire Moyers-Leibovich discussion below. It’s one of the most lucid and demystifying (and utterly infuriating) conversations about our broken political system that I’ve seen in the past year.
Moyers introduces the program by saying, “Whatever you’re doing these last days of summer, stop, take some time, and read this book. I promise, you will laugh and cry and by the last page, I think you’ll be ready for the revolution. The title is “This Town,” an up-close look at how our nation’s capital really works. I can tell you, it’s not a pretty picture.” And I couldn’t agree more.
“This may well be the last time I speak on the House Floor. At the end of the year I’ll leave Congress after 23 years in office over a 36-year period. My goals in 1976 were the same as they are today: promote peace and prosperity by a strict adherence to the principles of individual liberty.
It was my opinion, that the course the U.S. embarked on in the latter part of the 20th Century would bring us a major financial crisis and engulf us in a foreign policy that would overextend us and undermine our national security.
The problems seemed to be overwhelming and impossible to solve, yet from my view point, just following the constraints placed on the federal government by the Constitution would have been a good place to start. To achieve the goals I sought, government would have had to shrink in size and scope, reduce spending, change the monetary system, and reject the unsustainable costs of policing the world and expanding the American Empire.
How much did I accomplish?
In many ways, according to conventional wisdom, my off-and-on career in Congress, from 1976 to 2012, accomplished very little. No named legislation, no named federal buildings or highways – thank goodness. In spite of my efforts, the government has grown exponentially, taxes remain excessive, and the prolific increase of incomprehensible regulations continues. Wars are constant and pursued without Congressional declaration, deficits rise to the sky, poverty is rampant and dependency on the federal government is now worse than any time in our history.
All this with minimal concerns for the deficits and unfunded liabilities that common sense tells us cannot go on much longer. A grand, but never mentioned, bipartisan agreement allows for the well-kept secret that keeps the spending going. One side doesn’t give up one penny on military spending, the other side doesn’t give up one penny on welfare spending, while both sides support the bailouts and subsidies for the banking and corporate elite. And the spending continues as the economy weakens and the downward spiral continues. As the government continues fiddling around, our liberties and our wealth burn in the flames of a foreign policy that makes us less safe.
The major stumbling block to real change in Washington is the total resistance to admitting that the country is broke. This has made compromising, just to agree to increase spending, inevitable since neither side has any intention of cutting spending.
The country and the Congress will remain divisive since there’s no loot left to divvy up.
I have thought a lot about why those of us who believe in liberty, as a solution, have done so poorly in convincing others of its benefits. If liberty is what we claim it is — the principle that protects all personal, social and economic decisions necessary for maximum prosperity and the best chance for peace — it should be an easy sell. Yet, history has shown that the masses have been quite receptive to the promises of authoritarians which are rarely if ever fulfilled…
Liberty can only be achieved when government is denied the aggressive use of force. If one seeks liberty, a precise type of government is needed. To achieve it, more than lip service is required.
Two choices are available.
A government designed to protect liberty – a natural right – as its sole objective. The people are expected to care for themselves and reject the use of any force for interfering with another person’s liberty. Government is given a strictly limited authority to enforce contracts, property ownership, settle disputes, and defend against foreign aggression.
Or: A government that pretends to protect liberty but is granted power to arbitrarily use force over the people and foreign nations. Though the grant of power many times is meant to be small and limited, it inevitably metastasizes into an omnipotent political cancer. This is the problem for which the world has suffered throughout the ages. Though meant to be limited it nevertheless is a 100% sacrifice of a principle that would-be-tyrants find irresistible. It is used vigorously – though incrementally and insidiously. Granting power to government officials always proves the adage that: ‘power corrupts.’
Today’s mess is a result of Americans accepting option #2, even though the Founders attempted to give us Option #1.
The results are not good. As our liberties have been eroded our wealth has been consumed. The wealth we see today is based on debt and a foolish willingness on the part of foreigners to take our dollars for goods and services. They then loan them back to us to perpetuate our debt system. It’s amazing that it has worked for this long but the impasse in Washington, in solving our problems indicate that many are starting to understand the seriousness of the world-wide debt crisis and the dangers we face. The longer this process continues the harsher the outcome will be…
Because it’s the government that initiates force, most people accept it as being legitimate. Those who exert the force have no sense of guilt. It is believed by too many that governments are morally justified in initiating force supposedly to ‘do good.’ They incorrectly believe that this authority has come from the ‘consent of the people.’ The minority, or victims of government violence never consented to suffer the abuse of government mandates, even when dictated by the majority.
This attitude has given us a policy of initiating war to ‘do good,’ as well. It is claimed that war, to prevent war for noble purposes, is justified. This is similar to what we were once told that: ‘destroying a village to save a village’ was justified. It was said by a US Secretary of State that the loss of 500,000 Iraqis, mostly children, in the 1990s, as a result of American bombs and sanctions, was ‘worth it’ to achieve the “good” we brought to the Iraqi people. And look at the mess that Iraq is in today…
What a wonderful world it would be if everyone accepted the simple moral premise of rejecting all acts of aggression. The retort to such a suggestion is always: it’s too simplistic, too idealistic, impractical, naïve, utopian, dangerous, and unrealistic to strive for such an ideal.
The answer to that is that for thousands of years the acceptance of government force, to rule over the people, at the sacrifice of liberty, was considered moral and the only available option for achieving peace and prosperity.
What could be more utopian than that myth – considering the results especially looking at the state sponsored killing, by nearly every government during the 20th Century, estimated to be in the hundreds of millions. It’s time to reconsider this grant of authority to the state.
No good has ever come from granting monopoly power to the state to use aggression against the people to arbitrarily mold human behavior. Such power, when left unchecked, becomes the seed of an ugly tyranny. This method of governance has been adequately tested, and the results are in: reality dictates we try liberty.
The idealism of non-aggression and rejecting all offensive use of force should be tried. The idealism of government sanctioned violence has been abused throughout history and is the primary source of poverty and war. The theory of a society being based on individual freedom has been around for a long time. It’s time to take a bold step and actually permit it by advancing this cause, rather than taking a step backwards as some would like us to do.
Today the principle of habeas corpus, established when King John signed the Magna Carta in 1215, is under attack. There’s every reason to believe that a renewed effort with the use of the internet that we can instead advance the cause of liberty by spreading an uncensored message that will serve to rein in government authority and challenge the obsession with war and welfare…”
