A VIEW FROM THE CHEAP SEATS
By Rich Trzupek
Words to Live By
One hundred and forty-one years ago America�s greatest President framed the conclusion of America�s greatest conflict in terms of hope that still resonate today. In doing so, he uttered the most powerful, and most beautiful, combination of eight words that have ever graced the English language: �with malice toward none, with charity for all.�
Students of history know that it is tough to top Abraham Lincoln�s prose on a good day. When he put these particular eight words together, Lincoln was truly �in the zone.�
His Second Inaugural Address may be the best declaration of spirit and ideals ever composed, especially given the circumstances. America was nearing the end of a Civil War that had torn the nation apart, killing and maiming more Americans than all of the rest of our conflicts combined.
With the end of the war in sight, emotions ran as high as ever. More so in fact. Both sides were appalled at all of the blood that had been spilled.
Many in the north looked at the carnage and found nothing but fury in their hearts. The southern states had forced them into a war that took 600,000 lives, and for what? For the �right� to keep other Americans in bondage, based solely on their color.
It was an abomination and the people of the south should be punished for forcing this horror upon us, many said.
For the south, the anger ran as deep. �All we wanted,� they cried �was to be left alone.� The north was nothing but a bully, whose monetary and industrial strength had overcome pure, freedom-loving, hearts of the Confederacy. They might lose the war, the southern people concluded, but they would make the north pay a terrible price for the peace.
Enter Lincoln, for whom the bloodshed cut as deeply as anyone. He would have rather settled the matter over a conference table instead of on a battlefield, but that was not to be. With the end of the conflict at-hand, he raised his vision to higher ground.
Lincoln was like that. He saw not only the next step, but the step beyond. Eventually, he knew, the two sides of the nation would have to put aside passion and replace it with vision. And he believed in the vision of the common man�that was what made the United States worth saving, whole and eventually, united, in the first place.
And so this lonely, troubled, determined man produced a masterpiece. The Second Inaugural explored a future that few could envision. He spoke of God�s Will and man�s frailties, and he weaved those themes together in a masterpiece of poetry. And, in everything he said, those eight words ring most true, setting a standard that would challenge and inspire us for all of the years and troubles to come: �with malice toward none, with charity for all.�
Has there ever been a more uniquely American, more hopeful phrase spoken?
Those who wring their hands over �American imperialism� would do well to remember those words. For if our record in world affairs is not perfect, it is full of examples that would have made Lincoln proud.
We fought bloody conflicts, in the Phillipines, Japan and Germany and, after the dead were buried, we helped rebuild their nations and created the conditions for stable, thriving democracies. Democracies which, by the way, have leveled their share of criticism our way over the years.
When the Cold War ended, we did not try to exploit our defeated enemy, instead we sent billions of dollars Russia�s way, to help them recover. The North Vietnamese treated our POWs brutally. Twenty years later, many of these prisoners would return to southeast Asia on a mission of reconciliation.
This is the imperialism that the critics despise. Not that we conquer other lands and place them under the Stars and Stripes, but that we have too damn much influence.
Yes, we do have a great deal of influence in the world. We have friends�and not even perfectly loyal ones at that�because we have followed Lincoln�s credo: malice towards none�charity for all. That has brought America to the world. It has brought American-style democracy, American-style prosperity and American-style freedom of expression to so many nations. If that is �imperialism,� then long-live imperialism.
Today that record has to count for something. At the very least, it should be enough to quiet the critics who claim that we�re attempting to establish a vessel state in Iraq. When have we ever done that? Where exactly is the sovereign nation that�s under our thumb?
Israel? Please. Israel goes its own way as much as it goes ours. Great Britain? The Brits are our strongest ally, but hardly a rubber stamp. Even the current Iraqi government has reached out to one of our most dangerous enemies-Iran�and we don�t raise a finger in protest. It�s their right, as a sovereign people, to make friends as they see fit.
Our nation operates following the tenants that Lincoln established. Our past has been filled with malice toward none and with charity for all. Anyone who understands the American spirit knows that nothing has changed, and that is a principle now, as it was then, worth fighting for.