On Dec. 15, 1810, in the first issue of his newspaper targeted toward Irish emigrants and American citizens, editor Edward Gillespy talked a lot about civic virtue, our moral responsibility as citizens to work for the best for America.
Published in New York City and called the Shamrock, or Hibernian Chronicle, the paper’s nameplate illustrated Gillespy’s sentiments regarding a citizen’s responsibilities. The nameplate featured the American eagle grasping a shield emblazoned with the harp of Erin and proclaiming its motto: “Fostered under thy wing, we die in thy defense.”
Gillespy was an emigrant from Ireland, but what he had experienced back home under the British gave him the right background to talk to Americans about what an amazing accomplishment their experiment in liberty was, and he offered some advice on preserving their achievement. He didn’t use the term, but his comments addressed the requirements of civic virtue.
‘Love and serve your country’ in a time of ‘party dissention’
Gillespy’s first piece of advice was, “Love and serve your country with the devotion of freemen; give vigor and support to whatever tends to secure and perpetuate its independence.”
Gillespy’s words made we wonder, do we really think a contentious campaign supports and perpetuates our independence? Or does it further split us into factions – something that George Washington warned about in his Farewell Address on Sept. 17, 1796? “The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge natural to party dissention, which in different ages and countries has perpetuated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent depotism,” our first president told his audience.
Read that again: party dissention grounded in a “spirit of revenge” . . . is itself a frightful depotism that just gets worse. I hear a lot of political rhetoric these days from both parties that may not use the word revenge, but it sure does seem to animate the feeling behind the words.
Washington continued, “The disorders and miseries, which result, gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual [emphasis added]; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction more able or more fortunate than his competitors turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of Public Liberty.”
What happens when we citizens put our trust in parties and their leaders? We forget the country, which is what our first concern is to be. Even Gillespy, a fairly new arrival, recognized that. In his 1810 editorial, he wrote, “Let roads and canals, extending from north to south, and from east to west . . . destroy the effects of natural boundaries between the parts, and form the best security for a perpetual union of the whole territory.” We are mutually dependent on one another –– not our political leaders, but our fellow citizens. They, ultimately, are in whom we should place our trust and with whom we must work to protect our union. That union is all. It is everything.
Civic virtue
What these two pieces of early American leave me wondering if we have turned our backs on civic virtue –– that is, the characteristics of citizens who recognize their moral responsibilities to their country and to their fellow citizens.
Voting, of course, is civic responsibility No. 1, but, as Gillespy explained it, so it is educating the young, upholding liberty of the press–in his words, “in possession of it, no country was ever enslaved; without it, none was ever free.” Keeping religion pure, loving and serving our neighbors, keep a well-regulated militia and practice using arms, but cultivate peace, “nor be easily seduced from it.” Should war come, then “‘contest every inch of ground; burn every blade of grass,’ and die worthy of yourselves and your country, in the last intrenchments (sic) of liberty.”
Ultimately, though, our responsibility is to make “the good of our country, uninfluenced by political disputations [emphasis added], the rule of our conduct and the end of our labor.” For the good of our country. And what is our country? It’s not either candidate or his or her party. It’s our fellow citizens.
As we move through a contentious election season, I thought the Augusta Press readers might benefit from the words of these early Americans who knew intimately what the Founders intended, for they were so close to the founding. Washington’s and Gillespy’s advice is as relevant today as it was in 1810. Perhaps even more so, for looking at the divisions and the anger, I sometimes wonder if we’ve forgotten what Thomas Jefferson (and others) taught us in our early days as a country about civic virtue and a citizen’s responsibilities–one of which I believe, in these fractious times, is to be better than our politics and our politicians. It doesn’t matter which party, which race, which candidate. We are not getting the quality of candidates today that we once got.
Many years ago, my church fell into conflict, and I told my father-in-law, a pastor himself, that we were thinking about leaving. He challenged me on that, though, and pointed out that our loyalty should not be the pastor or the Session or any other governing group but to the fellowship of Christ that congregation represented. He believed we should stay put and contribute to resolving that conflict and then helping the church rebuild afterwards.
I believe the United States is at a similar crossroads. I believe we can continue on the road we’re on where an assassination attempt or the essentially forced resignation of a candidate from a race is greeted with glee in some quarters, or we can take an alternative path that focuses us on thinking more deeply about what is best for our country and our fellow citizens. Extreme partisanism is bad for citizens and bad for the country. We need to reacquaint ourselves with the concept of civic virtue and accept our responsibilities to one another and to the country.
