Angels, 'Soul of America' Battle Fear

By Bill Doughty

"Peacemakers" Sherman, Grant, Lincoln and Porter, painted by George Healy, 1848.

The United States Navy is an unintended undercurrent running through "The Soul of America" by Jon Meacham (Random House, 2018). It starts with the book's front endpaper as soon as you turn the cover.

There is Admiral David Dixon Porter sitting next to President Abraham Lincoln and Generals Ulysses S. Grant and William T. Sherman in George Healy's painting "The Peacemakers," memorializing a meeting aboard the War Department's commissioned steamer River Queen.

The War Between the States was a crucible, an identity-defining event for the United States. Sailors of the Federal Navy played a key role in saving the Union and securing liberty for all, as they had done in fighting the British in the Revolutionary War and War of 1812.

Subtitled "The Battle for Our Better Angels," from Lincoln's First Inaugural Address, where the sixteenth president sought to unite a divided nation, Meacham's book shows how the United States has made progress when its leaders and especially its citizens focused energies on hope, optimism and inclusion instead of fear, hate and rejection of others.

"Progress in America does not usually begin at the top and among the few, but from the bottom and among the many," Meacham writes. He shows how good presidents like Lincoln, Grant, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman and Lyndon B. Johnson were instrumental in America's progress, while other presidents like Woodrow Wilson, Dwight D. Eisenhower and Richard M. Nixon were moved only after being pressured by the American people into expanding human rights and protecting civil liberties.

After every action, there is a reaction and sometimes unintended consequences.

In the aftermath of the Civil War came Reconstruction and "extreme, racism, nativism and isolationism, driven by fear" – a stormy period in America's past that included lynchings, white supremacy and the rise of the Ku Klux Klan.

President Andrew Johnson

President Andrew Johnson undermined the legacy of Lincoln in years after of the War Between the States.

Meacham reports how Johnson "delivered an angry, self-pitying speech" Feb. 22, 1866 at a campaign-style rally on George Washington's Birthday.

"Resentful and impassioned, Johnson also riled up the Washington's Birthday crowd with claims that his opponents were considering having him assassinated. Rather than offering reassurance to an anxious public, then, Johnson chose to foment chaos and promulgate fears of conspiracy."

According to historian Eric Foner, who Meacham cites, Johnson made "probably the most blatantly racist pronouncement ever to appear in an official state paper of an American president." In Meacham's words, Johnson "asserted that blacks were incapable of self-government."

Andrew Johnson, who "never seemed entirely stable," was later impeached, but one vote in the Senate trumped his conviction.

President Grant, on the other hand, "in contrast to Andrew Johnson, appreciated the bigness of his office and of the times." Grant supported the 15th Amendment, granting the extension of voting rights to African Americans. And he cracked down on the KKK's reign of violence and terror in the South.

Confederate naval officers James and Irvine Bulloch, TR's uncles.

A president who continued championing human rights, Teddy Roosevelt, was a former Assistant Secretary of the Navy and a man who, ironically had two uncles who served in the Confederate Navy. One was an admiral who helped build the warship CSS Alabama, and the other was a midshipman who served aboard the Alabama.

A flawed but passionate defender of freedoms, including the First Amendment, TR said, "To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public."

Yet, during times of national stress, particularly during wartime, the "better angels of our nature" have been silent, and leaders have resorted to fear, hate and exclusion.

One hundred years ago President Woodrow Wilson and the Congress enacted the Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act of 1918 during World War I, "restricting freedom of expression in the name of national security." Wilson's Justice Department indicted and put on trial the Industrial Workers of America.

"Speech itself was under siege. It was illegal, according to the 1918 legislation, to 'utter, print, write, or publish any disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language about the form of government of the United States, or the Constitution of the United States, or the military or naval forces of the United States.'"

Thanks to strong women such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Sojourner Truth, Carrie Chapman Catt, Lucretia Mott and Alice Paul, women received the right to vote over the intransigence and foot-dragging of President Wilson.

National Endowment for the Humanities composite of Roosevelts.

Teddy Roosevelt's fifth cousin Franklin, also a former Assistant Secretary of the Navy, witnessed the aftermath of a terrorist bombing attack by an anarchist on the home of his neighbor, Attorney General Michael Palmer.

As president, FDR faced twin existential threats to the nation – the Great Depression and the Second World War, brought about by Nazi fascism in Europe and Imperial Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941.

FDR feared a military coup by General Douglas MacArthur on the right and Senator Huey Long on the left.

The threat of a coup was real, especially from "America First" isolationists who opposed FDR's behind-the-scenes help to Britain's Winston Churchill, including trading U.S. Navy destroyers for bases and conducting an "undeclared naval war in the Atlantic" during Britain's fight against Hitler's Germany.

American hero Maj. Gen. Smedley Butler, USMC.

In fact, a "small group of rich Wall Streeters" actually attempted to put together a coup. They tried to recruit retired Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler to remove FDR by force. Butler, ever the hero, reported the plot and plotters to the FBI.

After WWII started, acting out of fear, FDR committed his greatest error when he imprisoned more than 100,000 Americans of Japanese Ancestry.

But FDR, followed by Truman, took a huge step toward integrating the military, instituting the GI Bill of Rights, setting up the New Deal that led to the Fair Deal, and setting the stage for the formation of the middle class and greater prosperity for millions of Americans.

"The product of both government action and of market forces, the creation of the post-WWII middle class was one of the great achievements in history," Meacham writes.

FDR, who designed the porch of his cottage in Warm Springs, Georgia to resemble the prow of a ship, was about the Navy's USS Tuscaloosa (CA-37) for a fishing trip, when he came up with the Four Freedoms speech: Freedom of speech, freedom of religion,  freedom from want and freedom from fear.

Navy Chief Graham Wilson expresses grief at FDR's death in 1945.

When FDR died in 1945, Navy Chief Petty Officer Graham Jackson became America's face of grief, weeping openly.

Fortunately, Presidents Truman and Eisenhower and especially Navy veterans John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson righting the residual racism and discrimination of the Lost Cause of the Civil War, pushing for greater equality and voting rights for all. Once again, the people, led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., pushed for progress and LBJ listened.

LBJ was "Determined to preach the gospel of inclusion," Meacham writes. "Now was the time, the president said, to rise above racism. 'Whatever your views are, we have a Constitution and we have a Bill of Rights, and we have the law of the land. (LBJ said,) I am not going to let them build up the hate and try to buy my people by appealing to their prejudice.'"

MLK and LBJ meet in the White House Dec. 3, 1963 (Photo by Yoichi R.Okamoto). LBJ Library.

Johnson created the Great Society and signed the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 and the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964.

"Leadership is the act of the possible, and possibility is determined by whether generosity can triumph over selfishness in the American soul," Meacham writes.

Meacham quotes Senator Daniel Webster: "When the mariner has been tossed for many days in thick weather, and on an unknown sea, he naturally avails himself of the first pause in the storm, the earliest glance of the sun, to take his latitude, and ascertain how far the elements have driven him from his true course," Webster said in 1830. "Let us imitate this prudence, and before we float farther on the waves of this debate, refer to the point from which we departed, that we may at least be able to conjecture where we now are."

"The Soul of America" revealed some "found haiku," one by Meacham himself:

The things we hope for

can come to pass. The things we

fear can hold us back

Here's another Abraham Lincoln found haiku (see also Navy Reads Lincoln's found haiku blog):

Cherish a just and

lasting peace among ourselves

and with all nations

And this reflective unintended haiku comes from LBJ:

A president can

appeal to the best in our

people or the worst

In Meacham's conclusion he offers five prescriptions for achieving progress and enlisting "on the side of the angels" in a time of crisis: enter the arena (use your First Amendment rights), resist tribalism (hear and listen to all sides), respect facts and deploy reason (recognize and reject lies), find a critical balance (being humble and open), and keep history in mind (read books and practice critical thinking).

Meacham was inspired to write this book after seeing the white supremacy demonstration in Charlottesville, Virginia in August 2017 that caused the death of counter-protester Heather Heyer and resulted in the the deaths of two Virginia state troopers.

In a rare move, the U.S. military's Joint Chiefs of Staff responded to the Charlottesville tragedy with statements condemning the racism and violence.

Navy Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson, was the first of the military chiefs to respond. On Twitter he said the events were "unacceptable and mustn't be tolerated." Richardson then called the events "shameful" and said, "Our thoughts and prayers go to those who were killed and injured, and to all those trying to bring peace back to the community. The Navy will forever stand against intolerance and hatred. For those on our team, we want our Navy to be the safest possible place — a team as strong and tough as we can be, saving violence only for our enemies."