The Presidency is not simply an administrative office. That is the least. It is more than an engineering job, efficient or inefficient. It is preeminently a place of moral leadership. All of our great Presidents were thought leaders at times when certain historical ideas in the life of the nation had to be clarified.
Franklin D. Roosevelt (1)
History, which is all we have to go on, suggests that the vices and virtues of a president matter enormously, because politics is a human endeavor, not a clinical one. The same is true of the vices and virtues of the people in general, because leadership is the art of the possible, and possibility is determined by whether generosity can triumph over selfishness in the American soul.
Jon Meacham (2)
How does a historian talk about the moral, political, and constitutional crises brought on by the Trump administration without talking about Trump until the very last chapter? Jon Meacham does this by examining the battle of fear and hatred versus hope and generosity from Lincoln to Lyndon Johnson. Presenting a struggle within and for the American soul, Meacham has written a political and spiritual classic intended to calm nerves by showing that earlier times successfully met challenges like ours.
The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels is a selective look at the battles for human equality in general, but especially racism and immigration. Meacham did not write a detailed history of America from Lincoln to Lyndon Johnson. Rather, he identified moral and spiritual battles that keep repeating themselves. Nor did he sow the story with a personal interpretation, since it was based on statements by historical figures. Meacham’s views are seen in her wise choice of quotes. The power of these statements to clarify current issues is always poignant and often inspiring.
Americans concerned about the damage to our system and values should read Jon Meacham’s gift to our sanity. His restraint in interpretation helps calm present anxieties with an underlying message of hope that grows out of past success in dealing with recurring problems.
Meacham’s religious views are not visible, yet there is a prominent spiritual theme that unifies a story centered on political issues as challenges to deeper American values. Using Lincoln’s term, seek to identify examples of “our best angels” along with counterexamples. He clearly favors human equality and sees him as the best of the American soul, yet a dark side has continued to emerge throughout our history.
Although not without blemish, Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Calvin Coolidge, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, and Lyndon Johnson appear on the bright side of the ledger. The generous portions of WEB DuBois and Martin Luther King, Jr. make clear its importance in expressing human equality as a spiritual principle. The other side is seen in the prevalence of fear in the “regional revenge” of the southern resistance to reconstruction, the “red fear”, the rise of the KKK in the 1920s and the John Birch Society of Robert Welsh along with Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s.
The statements of the representatives of the forces of light and dark are astonishing in their frankness in exposing the motivations of each side. For example, the Statue of Liberty inspired rival visions of America’s opening up to the desperate peoples of the world. In 1883, Emma Lazarus wrote a sonnet that can be seen today on the Statue of Liberty. Most of us know the ending, but here is part of the beginning:
Here at our sea-lapped sunset gates, they will remain
A powerful woman with a torch, whose flame
It’s the imprisoned lightning bolt, and its name
Mother of the exiles. (3)
A contrary message was expressed by Thomas Bailey Aldrich’s 1892 “The Unguarded Gates”:
Our doors are open and unguarded,
And through them pressed a wild motley crowd …
O Freedom, white goddess! It’s fine
Leave the gates unguarded? (4)
Immigration problems from the 1880s to the 1920s focused on southern Europeans on the east coast and Chinese in the west. It was less white southern Europeans who were targeted by the KKK, along with Catholics and blacks, during its revival in the 1920s. At a KKK convention in Kansas City in 1924, Clifford Walker, Governor of Georgia, he warned of “a darkened, poisoned and decadent nation” for future generations due to immigrants. “I would build a wall of steel … a wall as high as the sky, against the admission of a single one of those southern Europeans who never thought the thoughts or spoke the language of a democracy in their lives.” The tone and symbolism of those words are very contemporary. (5)
The rise and fall of Senator Joseph McCarthy is especially significant for the Trump era. The only reference in the book to Trump by name is related to Roy Cohn, McCarthy’s attorney and Trump’s mentor; Yet contemporary readers can’t help but think of Trump as McCarthy’s personality, motives, and failures are detailed. The reason for McCarthy’s downfall, according to Cohn, was the loss of public interest in acting and salesmanship that prompted his use of the media to stoke public fear. (6)
Meacham’s personal views become more direct in his conclusion, but they remain nonpartisan and moderate. Name five positive guidelines for voting participation to alter an undesirable course of events. As a college freshman teacher, I try to emphasize a similar message for students prone to relying on social media for news. It’s a tough message to sell, along with the importance of voting in local and federal elections. Meacham’s advice is important to citizens young and old today.
Theology and religion are involved in the fight for the American soul because many religious figures are involved in the problems. Although Meacham does not impose his religious views, his choice of passages to quote and discuss communicates a deeply spiritual message.
Those of us who agree with Meacham’s idea of the “best angels” will find comfort and encouragement in the spiritual message of this book. Behind Jesus’ encouragement in Matthew 7: 7 to ask, seek and knock is a message of hope in persistent and positive action. Such is the underlying purpose of Meacham’s examination of the soul of America.
Notes:
(1) Quoted in Jon Meacham, The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels (New York: Random House, 2018), 12.
(2) Ibid., 258.
(3) Ibid., 118.
(4) Ibid., 117.
(5) Ibid., 120.
(6) Ibid., 202-203.