FAITH OF MY FATHERS

All my life I have thought of myself as holding conservative values; holding to those inalterable principles embodied in the seminal documents of the Republic. After all, Grandfather had taught me to read using Charles Beard’s The Bulwark of the Republic as my primmer. By the time I had entered the first grade at Lincoln School I could recite the Preamble to the Constitution from memory and Grandfather had drilled me on what it meant. Grandmother, the Methodist Minister’s daughter made sure that I understood that the Bill of Rights was the more perfect union of the political principles of the nation and the Gospel. For Grandfather the Constitution, the product of James Madison’s pen recording the acts of the great Convention of the States, was the Gospel of that Secular Religion called American and the Bill of Rights was its Book of Acts and especially the First Amendment that he said embodied the essence of freedom and liberty. It was a gospel preached in my Grandparents’ home from my earliest memories to last conversation with Granddad moments before he died in the summer of 1960.

A man, he taught, had not merely the right to speak his mind in America; he had the duty to do so. With that right and duty came the responsibility to defend the right of each man to speak, even when the sentiments expressed were abhorrent. To silence one was to imperil the freedom of all to speak.

An American’s conscience is his own, Grandfather taught. It was to be kept free of any government imposed orthodoxy or regulation of its expression. The freedom to think, to the sanctity of a man’s own thoughts was the heart of liberty and the soul of America. For Grandmother it was a realization of Matthew 6:5-6; the admonition not to make a show of worship; praying on the street corners and synagogues but to speak to your God in private.

The freedom to associate with whom you please; where you please; and whenever you please was for Grandfather a cardinal tenet of his secular religion. It was a principle worth defending and when his associations brought a sheet draped mob to burn a cross in his dooryard, they were greeted with a 12 gauge welcome and they never came again.

The freedom to publish without restriction was central to the maintenance of liberty. Of what use was the other freedoms if their expression might be controlled by a malicious authority. The freedom of the press, of the expression and dissemination of thought was the core of Grandfathers secular faith. It was important, he said, that we sample even those expressions we find hateful, for only if we knew the expression of evil could good compete in the market of ideas.

That body of liberties, that expression of free men and women was the gospel of the American faith that we, as citizens of this nation were called upon to conserve. There could be no compromise with the Faith bequeathed to us by our fathers. It was our duty to preserve it for our children.