Friends of Padre Steve’s World,
I’ll be traveling to Gettysburg this weekend to lead another Staff Ride and as I listened to President Trump’s remarks about the Civil War and on altering the American Constitution to fit his needs for his success this week that I was incredulous. I cannot believe that we have a President who is such an ignoramus about history and the Constitution.
I guess that is why that is even more important that I keep making these trips and conducting these Staff Rides. When I think of the deluge of the President’s executive orders, as well as various State and Federal legislative and executive actions which are for all intents making many Americans second class citizens or worse, I am reminded of Abraham Lincoln’s words well before the Civil War. Lincoln, speaking of the anti-Black, and anti-immigrant sentiment that was rife throughout the country said:
“As a nation, we began by declaring that ‘all men are created equal.’ We now practically read it ‘all men are created equal, except negroes.’ When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read ‘all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and Catholics.’ When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty – to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy.”
damned before Sadly, despite all the blood shed and the sacrifices made by slaves, free Blacks, abolitionists, Union Soldiers, civil rights advocates and others it seems that the President and his supporters are fully intent on rolling back Constitutional protections for many people in this country. In fact the President this week declared that the Constitution and our system of government were “archaic,” and suggested that they needed to be changed. Many of his supporters who for decades have claimed to be defending the Constitution seem to have no problem with with what he says, showing that their words are mere hyperbole and cover to prevent others from enjoying the same liberties that they have; be they African Americans, Hispanics, LGBTQ, Women, Native Americans, Muslims, and immigrants deemed less than worthy.
As for me I will be damned before I stop speaking out against such measures. These are not the measures of preserving liberty, but are the kind of despotism that allowed Southern Slave owners to call slavery “freedom.”
So I will go to Gettysburg this weekend and as always I will take my students to the Soldier’s Cemetery where we will talk about the Gettysburg Address and the meaning of it and our Constitution, at a place where Lincoln said that we “highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
Until tomorrow,
Peace
Padre Steve+
The Inglorius Padre Steve's World 