A Few Patriotic Essays...
The Meaning Of Our Flag
Henry Ward Beecher
If one asks me the meaning of our flag, I say to him: It means just
what Concord and Lexington meant, what Bunker Hill meant. It means the
whole glorious Revolutionary War. It means all that the Declaration of
Independence meant. It means all that the Constitution of our people, organizing
for justice, for liberty and for
happiness, meant. Under this banner rode Washington and his armies.
Before it Burgoyne laid down his arms. It waved on the highlands at West
Point. When Arnold would have surrendered these valuable fortresses and
precious legacies, his night was turned into day and his treachery was
driven away by beams of light from this starry banner. It cheered our army,
driven out from around New York, and in their painful pilgrimages through
New Jersey. This banner streamed in light over the soldiers' heads at Valley
Forge and at Morristown. It crossed the waters rolling with ice at Trenton,
and when its stars gleamed in the morning with a victory, a new day of
hope dawned on the despondency of this nation. Our Flag carries American
ideas, American history and American feelings. Beginning with the Colonies,
and coming down to our time, in its sacred heraldry, in its glorious insignia,
it has gathered and stored chiefly this supreme idea: divine right of liberty
in man. Every color means liberty; every thread means liberty; every form
of star and beam or stripe of light means liberty - not lawlessness, but
organized, institutional liberty - liberty through law, and laws for liberty!
This American Flag was the safeguard of liberty. Not an atom of crown was
allowed to go into its insignia. Not a symbol of authority in the ruler
was permitted to go into it. It was an ordinance of liberty by the people,
for the people. That it meant, that it means, and, by the blessing of God,
that it shall mean to the end of time!
American Self-Reliance
J. Ollie Edmunds
This country was not built by men who relied on somebody else to take
care of them. It was built by men who relied on themselves, who dared to
shape their own lives, who had enough courage to blaze new trails with
enough confidence in themselves to take the necessary risks. This self-reliance
is our American legacy. It is the secret of that something which stamped
Americans as Americans. Some call it individual initiative, others backbone.
But whatever it is called, it is a precious ingredient in our national
character, one which we must not lose. The time has come for us to re-establish
the rights for which we stand, to re-assert our inalienable rights to human
dignity, self-respect, self-reliance—to be again the kind of people who
once made America great. Such a crusade for renewed independence will require
a succession of inspired leaders, leaders in spirit and in knowledge of
the problem, not just men with political power, but men who are militantly
for the distinctive way of life that was America. We are likely to find
such leaders only among those that promote self-reliance and who practice
it with strict devotion and understanding.
"Give Me Liberty or Give
Me Death"
Patrick Henry - March 23, 1775
No man thinks more highly than I do of the patriotism, as well as abilities,
of the very worthy gentlemen who have just addressed the House. But different
men often see the same subject in different lights; and, therefore, I hope
it will not be thought disrespectful to those gentlemen if, entertaining
as I do opinions of a character very opposite to theirs, I shall speak
forth my sentiments freely and without reserve. This is no time for ceremony.
The question before the House is one of awful moment to this country. For
my own part, I consider it as nothing less than a question of freedom or
slavery; and in proportion to the magnitude of the subject ought to be
the freedom of the debate. It is only in this way that we can hope to arrive
at truth, and fulfill the great responsibility which we hold to God and
our country. Should I keep back my opinions at such a time, through fear
of giving offense, I should consider myself as guilty of treason towards
my country, and of an act of disloyalty toward the Majesty of Heaven, which
I revere above all earthly kings. Mr. President, it is natural to man to
indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a
painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren till she transforms
us into beasts. Is this the part of wise men, engaged in a great and arduous
struggle for liberty? Are we disposed to be of the number of those who,
having eyes, see not, and, having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly
concern their temporal salvation? For my part, whatever anguish of spirit
it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst, and
to provide for it. I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and
that is the lamp of experience. I know of no way of judging of the future
but by the past. And judging by the past, I wish to know what there has
been in the conduct of the British ministry for the last ten years to justify
those hopes with which gentlemen have been pleased to solace themselves
and the House. Is it that insidious smile with which our petition has been
lately received? Trust it not, sir; it will prove a snare to your feet.
Suffer not yourselves to be betrayed with a kiss. Ask yourselves how this
gracious reception of our petition comports with those warlike preparations
which cover our waters and darken our land. Are fleets and armies necessary
to a work of love and reconciliation? Have we shown ourselves so unwilling
to be reconciled that force must be called in to win back our love? Let
us not deceive ourselves, sir. These are the implements of war and subjugation;
the last arguments to which kings resort. I ask gentlemen, sir, what means
this martial array, if its purpose be not to force us to submission? Can
gentlemen assign any other possible motive for it? Has Great Britain any
enemy, in this quarter of the world, to call for all this accumulation
of navies and armies? No, sir, she has none. They are meant for us: they
can be meant for no other. They are sent over to bind and rivet upon us
those chains which the British ministry have been so long forging. And
what have we to oppose to them? Shall we try argument? Sir, we have been
trying that for the last ten years. Have we anything new to offer upon
the subject? Nothing. We have held the subject up in every light of which
it is capable; but it has been all in vain. Shall we resort to entreaty
and humble supplication? What terms shall we find which have not been already
exhausted? Let us not, I beseech you, sir, deceive ourselves. Sir, we have
done everything that could be done to avert the storm which is now coming
on. We have petitioned; we have remonstrated; we have supplicated; we have
prostrated ourselves before the throne, and have implored its interposition
to arrest the tyrannical hands of the ministry and Parliament. Our petitions
have been slighted; our remonstrances have produced additional violence
and insult; our supplications have been disregarded; and we have been spurned,
with contempt, from the foot of the throne! In vain, after these things,
may we indulge the fond hope of peace and reconciliation. There is no longer
any room for hope. If we wish to be free -- if we mean to preserve inviolate
those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending
-- if we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which we have
been so long engaged, and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon
until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained -- we must fight!
I repeat it, sir, we must fight! An appeal to arms and to the God of hosts
is all that is left us! They tell us, sir, that we are weak; unable to
cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will
it be the next week, or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed,
and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather
strength but irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means
of effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs and hugging the
delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and
foot? Sir, we are not weak if we make a proper use of those means which
the God of nature hath placed in our power. The millions of people, armed
in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess,
are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us. Besides,
sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides
over the destinies of nations, and who will raise up friends to fight our
battles for us. The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the
vigilant, the active, the brave. Besides, sir, we have no election. If
we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the
contest. There is no retreat but in submission and slavery! Our chains
are forged! Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston! The war
is inevitable -- and let it come! I repeat it, sir, let it come. It is
in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace
-- but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that
sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms!
Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is
it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace
so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid
it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take but as for me;
give me liberty or give me death.
At Lincolns Tomb
Everett McKinley Dirksen
On the night of Good Friday, 1865, he left us to join a blessed procession,
in neither doubt nor fear, but his soul does indeed go marching on. For
this was the Bible-reading lad come out of wilderness, following a prairie
star, filled with wonder at the world and its Maker, who all his life,
boy and man, not only knew the
Twenty-third Psalm but, more importantly, knew the Shepherd. Now it
seems possible that we shall never see his like again. This is a sobering
thought, but it should be a kindling one, for upon us now, as a people
and a party, has been laid perhaps the greatest responsibility any nation
was ever asked to shoulder, yet certainly not greater than we can bear.
Our days are no longer than were Lincoln's, our nights are no darker, and
if there is any difference between his time and this it lies in the tremendous
advantage that is ours, that he stood so tall before us. In such a time
and at such a moment we surely can say then, from hopeful, brimful hearts:
We are standing, Father Abraham, devoted millions strong, firm in the
faith that was yours and is ours, secure in the conviction bequeathed by
you to us that right does make might and that if we but dare to do our
duty as we understand it, we shall not only survive -we shall prevail.
Creed
Hal Borland
I am an American:
That's the way we put it, simply, without any swagger, without any brag,
in those four plain words.
We speak them softly, just to ourselves.
We roll them on the tongue, touching every syllable, getting the feel
of them, the enduring flavor.
We speak them humbly, thankfully, reverently: I am an American.
They are more than words, really.
They are the sum of the lives of a vast multitude of men and women
and wide-eyed children.
They are a manifesto to mankind; speak those four words anywhere in
the world -- yes, anywhere
-- and those who hear will recognize their meaning.
They are a pledge. A pledge that stems from a document which says:
"When in the course of human events," and goes on from there.
A pledge to those who dreamed that dream before it was set to paper,
to those who have lived it since, and died for it.
Those words are a covenant with a great host of plain Americans,
Americans who put their share of meaning into them.
Listen, and you can hear the voices echoing through them,
words that sprang white-hot from bloody lips, scornful lips,
lips a tremble with human pity:
"Don't give up the ship! Fight her till she dies... Damn the torpedoes!
Go ahead! . . .
Do you want to live forever? . . . Don't cheer, boys; the poor devils
are dying."
Laughing words, June-warm words, words cold as January ice:
"Root, hog, or die. .. I've come from Alabama with my banjo. . .
Pike's Peak or bust! . . . Busted, by God! . . . When you say that,
smile....
Wait till you see the whites of their eyes.... With malice toward none,
with charity for all,
with firmness in the right.... I am not a Virginian, but an American."
You can hear men in assembly summoned, there in Philadelphia,
hear the scratch of their quills as they wrote words for the hour and
produced a document for the ages.
You can hear them demanding guarantees for which they suffered through
the hell of war,
hear a Yankee voice intoning the text of ten brief amendments.
You can hear the slow cadences of a gaunt and weary man at Gettysburg,
dedicating not a cemetery, but a nation.
You can hear those echoes as you walk along the streets,
hear them in the rumble of traffic; you can hear them as you stand
at the lathe,
in the roaring factory; hear them in the clack of train wheels, in
the drumming throb of the air liner;
hear them in the corn fields and in the big woods and in the mine pits
and the oil fields.
But they aren't words any longer; they're a way of life, a pattern
of living.
They're the dawn that brings another day in which to get on the job.
They're the noon whistle, with a chance to get the kinks out of your
back,
to get a bowl of soup, a plate of beans, a cup of coffee into your
belly.
They're evening, with another day's work done; supper with the wife
and kids;
a movie, or the radio, or the newspaper or a magazine
-- and no Gestapo snooping at the door and threatening to kick your
teeth in.
They are a pattern of life as lived by a free people, freedom that
has its roots in rights and obligations:
The right to go to a church with a cross or a star or a dome or a steeple,
or not to go to any church at all;
and the obligation to respect others in that same right.
The right to harangue on a street corner, to hire a hall and shout
your opinions
till your tonsils are worn to a frazzle; and the obligation to curb
your tongue now and then.
The right to go to school, to learn a trade, to enter a profession,
to earn an honest living;
and the obligation to do an honest day's work.
The right to put your side of the argument in the hands of a jury;
and the obligation to
abide by the laws that you and your delegates have written in the statute
books.
The right to choose who shall run our government for us, the right
to a secret vote
that counts just as much as the next fellow's in the final tally; and
the obligation to
use that right, and guard it and keep it clean.
The right to hope, to dream, to pray; the obligation to serve.
These are some of the meanings of those four words,
meanings we don't often stop to tally up or even list.
Only in the stillness of a moonless night, or in the quiet of a Sunday
afternoon,
or in the thin dawn of a new day, when our world is close about us,
do they rise up in our memories and stir in our sentient hearts.
Only then? That is not wholly so -- not today!
For today we are drilling holes and driving rivets, shaping barrels
and loading shells,
fitting wings and welding hulls,
And we are remembering Wake Island, and Bataan, and Corregidor,
and Hong Kong and Singapore and Batavia;
We are remembering Warsaw and Rotterdam and Rouen and Coventry.
Remembering, and muttering with each rivet driven home:
"There's another one for remembrance!"
They're plain words, those four. Simple words.
You could write them on your thumbnail, if you chose,
Or you could sweep them all across the sky, horizon to horizon.
You could grave them on stone, you could carve them on the mountain
ranges.
You could sing them, to the tune of "Yankee Doodle."
But you needn't. You needn't do any of those things,
For those words are graven in the hearts of 130,000,00 people,
they are familiar to 130,000,000 tongues, every sound and every syllable.
But when we speak them we speak them softly, proudly, gratefully:
I am an American.
Rights and Duties
Calvin Coolidge
We do honor to the stars and stripes as the emblem of
our country and the symbol of all that our patriotism means.
We identify the flag with almost everything we hold dear on earth.
It represents our peace and security, our civil and political liberty,
our freedom of religious worship, our family, our friends, our home.
We see it in the great multitude of blessings, of rights and privileges
that make up our country.
But when we look at our flag and behold it emblazoned with all our rights,
we must remember that it is equally a symbol of our duties. Every glory
that
we associate with it is the result of duty done. A yearly contemplation
of our
flag strengthens and purifies the national conscience.
Unfinished Task
Everett McKinley Dirksen
What strange doubts assail this timid generation of today as it beholds
the challenges to both liberty and equality. We seem beset with fear not
faith, with doubt not confidence, with compromise not conviction, with
dismay not dedication. We are drenched with the literature of fear and
doubt. Survival has become the main
theme. The fall-out shelter from which the stars of hope and courage
cannot be seen has become the symbol of our fears and misgivings.
Are we to become fearful, unworthy legatees in a blessed, united land
where the earth is fertile to our every need, where the skills and ingenuity
of men are boundless, where the burdens are bearable, where decent living
is within the reach of all, and where the genius to produce is unlimited?
Perhaps we have lost our sense of continuity? Perhaps we have forgotten
that we move in that same endless stream which began with our forefathers
and which will flow on and on to embrace our children and our children's
children. If we have, there will have gone with it that sense of individual
responsibility which is the last best hope that a nation conceived in liberty
and dedicated to equality can long endure.
Comes then the reminder from the man from Illinois. Men died here and
men are sleeping here who fought under a July sun that the nation might
endure, united, free, tolerant, and devoted to equality. The task was unfinished.
It is never quite finished.
An American Without Reserve
Daniel Webster
I was born an American; I live an American; I shall die an American;
and
I intend to perform the duties incumbent upon me in that character
to the end
of my career. I mean to do this with absolute disregard of personal
consequences.
What are the personal consequences? What is the individual man, with
all the good
or evil that may betide him, in comparison with the good or evil which
may befall a
great country, and in the midst of great transactions which concern
that country's fate?
Let the consequences be what they will, I am careless. No man can suffer
too much,
and no man can fall too soon, if he suffer, or if he fall, in the defense
of the liberties
and constitution of his country.
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