By Steve Love
“We mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor” is how the Declaration of Independence ends. These were not idealized words. They were written by men faced with the real possibility that they were signing their own death warrants. It was the inventory of what they were putting on the line – what they believed could be their personal cost – to bring freedom to the British colonies in America. And, indeed, the full measure of that cost would be paid by some of the signers. Others would go on to write the Constitution.
As we look back at those Founders, we must understand that this pledge was to each other! It was not made to a nation, for none existed at the time; or to a deity, though they put their trust in “divine Providence.” It was a pledge of fidelity to a small compact of men devoted to a common cause becoming aware of the price they might be asked to pay to achieve their goal…that for America to come into existence they might have to sacrifice their lives, fortunes and sacred honor.
It is this awareness of a price to be paid – values lost – not retained, that seems to be incomprehensible to some among us. Conservatives seem to have linked faithfulness to their convictions to their sense of honor so that if they hold out for their convictions, even at the price of losing their seat in the next election, they will maintain their honor. It is this conviction that sets them in opposition to all forms of compromise. To compromise – in their way of thinking – is to lose their honor. Such was not how Lincoln or the Founders thought.
Indeed, this is precisely the difference between conservatives and the Founders. The Founders understood that majority rule arrived at through compromise is the only way that a society of equals can exist. Lincoln wrote in his First Inaugural; “If the minority will not acquiesce, the majority must, or the government must cease.” He goes on to explain that the choice facing the nation on March 4, 1861 was from the following alternatives: despotism (minority rule), anarchy (the dissolution of all government) and majority rule…with the price to be paid for majority rule being the willingness of those with minority opinions to be submissive to the decisions of the majority. It called for a definition of honor that assumes devotion to country and the civil order trumping one’s own convictions. [That Southerners could not bring themselves to that vision of America was the reason we fought a bloody Civil War.]
The question, then, for conservatives is whether they will join with Lincoln and the Founders in sacrificing their “sacred honor” to find a middle ground where our democracy is preserved and the domestic tranquility of our nation is restored. If they are willing to make some sacrifice, they will be met at that middle ground by liberals who feel they have every bit as much to lose in the agreement as conservatives have but more to gain than either by themselves. Compromise is a double-edged sword. It cuts both ways.
Steve Love is one of the first male members of North Dallas Texas Democratic Women
(NDTDW). A retired minister and former Congressional candidate, Steve is a regular contributor to the NDTDW newsletter, The Link.
