Thoughts on the President's inaguration by Christina Jeffrey

This was written on Monday before the inauguration....but I wanted to share these thoughts with you. On Mon, Jan 19, 2009 at 10:23 PM, Christina Jeffrey wrote: The 44th presidential inauguration looms, and the mind turns to memorable inaugurations of the past, as well as the speeches new presidents give on these momentous occasions. Perhaps the most memorable, and the one the new president is likely consulting as he prepares his own speech, is Abraham Lincoln's First Inaugural Address. The most famous portion is the close: I am loath to close. 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 battle-field, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearth-stone, 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. As the oft-quoted Tocqueville noted upon his visit to this country, Americans come swiftly together after presidential elections; even when they follow the bitterest and most impassioned campaigns. The result is a peaceful transfer of power and support for the new president. Tocqueville marveled at this, but we take it for granted. We should not take it for granted; it is part of the genius of our system and the model for all modern democracies. But what does it mean to be "president of all of us?" Besides respect for the office, it requires respect for the Constitutional prerogatives of that office, and a duty to support the President in the execution of these duties. However, it does not require agreement on all matters of policy, or the surrender of principles. The "loyal" opposition, that is, all those who voted against the President (or for him with high hopes that he would support positions important to them, yet find themselves disappointed), should be being willing to listen to President Obama, but they should not lightly and easily surrender their principles. The "loyal opposition" consists primarily of "we the sovereign people," not, as one might think, the politicians of the opposing party. Ours is not a parliamentary system where most political power resides in the political parties. Ours is a republican form of government and when it does not work in the way the Founders intended, the blame is not "the man" or "the interests". The blame falls on the sovereign people, whose duty it is to remain eternally vigilant to guard the nation's well-being. Another inaugural address Mr. Obama might consult is Thomas Jefferson's First Inaugural (1800), in which the founder of the Democrat Party (then called "Republicans," said: … every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. We have called by different names brethren of the same principle. We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists…. Let us, then, with courage and confidence pursue our own Federal and Republican principles, our attachment to union and representative government. Kindly separated by nature and a wide ocean from the exterminating havoc of one quarter of the globe; too high-minded to endure the degradations of the others; possessing a chosen country, with room enough for our descendants to the thousandth and thousandth generation; entertaining a due sense of our equal right to the use of our own faculties, to the acquisitions of our own industry, to honor and confidence from our fellow-citizens, resulting not from birth, but from our actions and their sense of them; enlightened by a benign religion, professed, indeed, and practiced in various forms, yet all of them inculcating honesty, truth, temperance, gratitude, and the love of man; acknowledging and adoring an overruling Providence, which by all its dispensations proves that it delights in the happiness of man here and his greater happiness hereafter -- with all these blessings, what more is necessary to make us a happy and a prosperous people? Still one thing more, fellow-citizens -- a wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities. But it is still incumbent on "we the people" to ensure this "wise and frugal government," as most politicians "see the light" when they "feel the heat."[1] We must stay fired up to generate the necessary heat to keep the Constitutional fires burning, even as we support and wish well, the new president. Christina Jeffrey Former Historian, US House of Representatives 801 Palmetto St. Spartanburg, SC, 29302 864-431-6022 christinakfjeffrey@gmail.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] A favorite expression of Mike Rothfeld, Saber Communications, Fredericksburg, VA.