Abraham Lincoln, speech on Kansas-Nebraska Act 0ctober 16, 1854
Apathy;
the required instrument for the denigration
of the established ideas meant to unite
and protect us as one national community.
And what is it, but indifference;
made of ignorance and self-interest.
It has no compassion in it.
There is no zealous leader
who can withstand to hold its standard,
for it is no standard at all.
It cares not for solemnity.
It marks not those hallowed days
of the American human rights revolution of 1761-1783.
It scoffs at the quiet work of Abigail Adams,
and disdains the intellect of Frederick Douglass.
It has no soul, for it is merely an instrument
to exact a specific end.
Apathy devalues and sows doubt;
it softens a sharp resolve, and asks of us that it may stay
..no matter what.
It had no talons in the heart & mind of Martin Luther King;
it was given no quarter with Abraham Lincoln.
John Quincy Adams would not acquiesce
to its insertion within our American Congress;
Demolish it with an empathic heart & a reasonable mind;
it cannot withstand.
Here then, it becomes no more.
“This declared indifference… forces so many really good men amongst ourselves into an open war with the very fundamental principles of civil liberty—criticizing the Declaration of Independence, and insisting there there is no right principle of action but self-interest.”
How simple, yet sharp was that Abraham Lincoln! He defined the reality of political self-interest as a corruption as old as the beginning of government on Earth. Nay, does not the beguiling serpent in the Judeo-Christian holy scripture book of Genesis play down the authority of the Just One, remanding the heart & mind, if not wholly rendering spiritually captive the first humans to lay the standard of God aside and behave in self-interest?
Abraham Lincoln called out the sly, manipulation of the people’s hearts & minds being conditioned by the congressional slavery contagion. He saw they looked to lull political discussion on the subject, and also play identity politics with the ‘persona’ of any individual who withstood their political & ideological stronghold on our federal government. Having a discussion on the words of our Declaration of Independence in a straight-forward manner would not be their focus, but an obfuscation of its meaning that the people may be sidetracked from clearly understanding the issue.
The instrument of indifference as a political tool creates an intellectual void of understanding of what the priority issue is; covertly challenging the notion that there ought to be a continual study, awareness, and respect of the established ideas of 1776: amongst these, the right to life; the understanding that we are all created equal, and the right to be happy in a civil society.
We must establish the fight of liberty today with the speed, agility, humor, and intellectual strength that was of Ronald Reagan one fine day on March 8, 1983. Then and there he took the hollow promise of indifference by the throat and said, “I care.”
“…because it forces so many really good men amongst ourselves into an open war with the very fundamental principles of civil liberty—criticizing the Declaration of Independence, and insisting there there is no right principle of action but self-interest.”
Abraham Lincoln
Think it not strange that we are brought against the idea that we are created equal, that our life is to be protected, and that our government is primarily tasked with the protection of our life. It is the tactic of divide and conquer. It is a strategy resolute in changing what our understanding of that simple, compassionate, self-less spirit of liberty was and should aways be.
That spirit of liberty and justice that emanated from the passionate heart of Abigail Adams as she put straw out for the Revolutionary soldiers; as she melted her eating utensils to make bullets, as she wrote her over one thousand letters to her husband, that he stay the course.
We know not what liberty is until we understand that we must smartly fight for it in each generation. Our creed, race, religion or manner of being means nothing to those who devise the lulling of our national conversation. We know not as we should until we read the thoughts and the sentiments of that American
era of 1776. Assuredly, the militant call to fight with all of their mind, with all of their heart, and with all of their might for the protection of human rights shocks the intellectual complacency of our divided America, but unto those brave sentinels who proclaim through their life’s work to all, “I care,” the instrument of declared indifference holds no sway; their intellect having been heated seven times seven in the furnace of unalloyed liberty and justice.
Frederick Douglass was told he had no part in America, yet he educated himself in the promise of the Declaration of Independence and produced his ticket of admission through his public speaking and writings. He produced that ticket of admission with the determination of a lionhearted, yet peace-loving American as he traveled to all the cities and towns of the northern states of that time to directly speak peaceably unto the hearts & minds of the people.
The clarity of understanding of our Declaration of Independence is of great significance as a compass and guide unto all. In it, we will not find it telling us how to live our life, but that our life is to be protected. In it, we will not find a blueprint on how to change the national spirit of the people, but on how to maintain that unmingled, unalloyed liberty.
The exercise of the right principle of caring does not resolutely require physical exploits of strength, but of determination in intellect and reasonable passion; your voice, rather than your silence, and your informed thought, rather than unrestrained emotion. It was in the preparation of the speeches of John Quincy Adams, Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, and Martin Luther King that the the ideas that should connect us as human rights-loving people sharpened. The speeches, themselves a demonstration of that quiet intellectually-discerning work as they toiled on what to say and how to say best what ought to be respectfully said to “the people.”
So it is then that our informed intellectual rigor, finely-sharpened and effective in its delivery, is that exercise in liberty and justice that pulls those ideological and political strongholds down to the ground. That clarity of understanding of our declared rights and the passion to put forth a rigorous defense becomes the price of our liberty, because it is not free, and as has been said before, a liberty that ebbs and flows, waxes and wanes according to our clarity of it.
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