To the editor:
The following was adapted from a speech delivered at Hillsdale College on Sept. 20, 2010. Hillsdale is located in Michigan and its motto is: “Pursuing Truth; defending Liberty since 1844.”
“The presidency is the most visible thread that runs through the tapestry of American government. More often than not, for good or for ill, it sets the tone for the other branches and spurs the expectations of the people. Its powers are vast and consequential, its requirements impossible for mortals to fulfill without humility and insistent attention to its purpose as set forth in the Constitution of the United States.
“Isn’t it amazing, given the great and momentous nature of the office, that those who seek it seldom pause to consider what they are seeking? Rather, unconstrained by principle or reflection, there is a mad rush toward something, that, once its powers are seized, the new president can wield as an instrument with which to transform the nation and the people according to his highest aspirations.
“But, other than in a crisis of the house divided, the presidency is neither fit nor intended to be such an instrument. When it is made that, the country sustains a wound, and cries out justly and indignantly. And what the nation says is the theme of this address. What its says — informed by its long history, impelled by the laws of nature and nature’s God — is that we as a people are not to be ruled and not to be commanded. It says that the president should never forget this; that he has not risen above us, but is merely one of us, chosen by ballot, dismissed after his term, tasked not to transform and work his will upon us, but to bear the weight of decision and to carry out faithfully the design laid down in the Constitution in accordance with the Declaration of Independence.
“The presidency must adhere to its definition as expressed in the Constitution, and to conduct defined over time and by tradition. While the powers of the office have enlarged, along with those of the legislature and the judiciary, the framework of the government was intended to restrict abuses common to classical empires and to regal states of the 18th century.
“Without proper adherence to the role contemplated in the Constitution for the presidency, the checks and balances in the constitutional plan become weakened. This has been most obvious in recent years when the three branches of government have been subject to the tutelage of a single party. Under either party, presidents have often forgotten that they are intended to restrain the Congress at times, and that Congress is independent of their desires. And thus fused in unholy unity, the political class has raged forward in a drunken expansion of powers and prerogatives, mistakenly assuming that to exercise power is by default to do good.
“Even the simplest among us knows that this is not so. Power is an instrument of fatal consequence. It is confined no more readily than quicksilver, and escapes good intentions as easily as air flows through mesh. Therefore, those who are entrusted with it must educate themselves in self-restraint. A republic is about limitation, and for good reason, because we are mortal and our actions are imperfect.”
This speech was much longer and I have omitted a number of pages to conserve space. What follows is the final paragraph:
“Many great generations are gone, but by character and memory of their existence, they forbid us to despair of the republic. I see them crossing the prairies in the sun and wind. I see their faces looking out from steel mills and coal mines, and immigrant ships crawling into the harbors at dawn. I see them at war, at work and at peace. I see them long departed, looking into the camera, with hopeful and sad eyes. And I see them embracing their children, who became us. They are our family and our blood, and we cannot desert them. In spirit, all of them come down to all of us, in a connection that, out of love, we cannot betray. They are silent now and forever, but from the eternal silence of every patriot grave there is yet an echo that says, ‘It is not too late; keep faith with us, keep faith with God, and do not, do not ever despair of the Republic.’”
Want to guess who made this speech in 2010? Vice President Mike Pence. Surprised? I was when I found it in my file and reread it after nearly nine years.
I find it hard to believe that Indiana’s 6th District Congressman Mike Pence has slipped so far from his earlier beliefs that he has supported, and continues to support, a president who violates almost every point the VP was making in his speech. I sincerely hope that one day Mike Pence will look back on his 30 months in the office of VP and realize how many of his Christian values he has been willing to throw overboard for the sake of grabbing power with The Trumpster.
I urge you to keep all of this in mind when it comes time to vote in November 2020. Let’s hope we all have 20-20 vision based on facts and not “fake news”!
Delbert Crocker, Nashville
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