Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 B.C.) was a brilliant and recklessly outspoken Roman politician, orator, historian and philosopher, at the time of the tumultuous transition from the Roman Republic to the Empire. He was put to death shortly after Julius Caesar, as result of the same political intrigues and treacheries that caused Caesar’s murder.
The following is from On Moral Duties, which he wrote for his son. It follows the philosophy of the Greek Stoics, and can be taken today, as in his time, as coming from the experiences of a seasoned politician, and an observer of the human condition.
“Every question of duty has two sides: the one relating to the sovereign good, the other to the practical rules by which we may govern our conduct in every detail. . . . Perfect duty the Greeks define as that which is right; ordinary duty as that for doing which an adequate reason can be given. . . . Is the subject of deliberation honorable or dishonorable? This is a problem which often distracts our minds with contrary opinions. In the second place we cast about and reflect whether the thing will procure comfort and power, whereby we may profit ourselves and those who are dear to us. This second question turns entirely on expediency. The third is concerned with the conflict between the honorable and that which appears to be expedient.”
Wilma Mankiller was elected the first woman principal chief of the Cherokee Nation in 1985. Excerpts from a 1993 speech:
“We had a government in this country long before there was a United States government. We had treaties with England even before we had treaties with the colonies, and then later with the United States. We have a long history of governance. . . . Our constitution was a wampum belt, and the color and the arrangements of the beads represented symbols of governance and principles by which we lived our lives.
“. . . Our tribe, we were farmers and agricultural people, and we lived in the Southeast, in Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama, South Carolina . . . and we had early European contact, first with DeSoto in the late 1540s and continued to have European contact and eventually were surrounded by our new neighbors.
“. . . There began to be a discussion of removal. This is one of a continuing series of policies that the federal government had instituted. . . . (President) Jackson gets all of the blame for the removal of the Cherokees and the other southeastern tribes, but Jefferson actually conceptualized the removal. Some of the impetus was economic. Cherokee land was good land for growing cotton, was good land for growing tobacco . . . and there were also a number of corporations and individuals who wanted our land. . . . But one of the other factors in the pressure for removal was the fact that the state of Georgia had grown up around the Cherokee Nation, and they didn’t want a sovereign within the boundaries of the state of Georgia, an argument that we hear even today as states and tribes continue to battle over issues of jurisdiction and states’ rights.
(Editor’s note: In 1838 and 1839, virtually the entire Cherokee Nation was rounded up by U.S. Army troops and marched by foot from their land in the Southeast to the Indian Territories, now Oklahoma. The forced march took place mostly in the winter; one fourth of the Cherokee population died.)
“Everything we’d ever known had been left behind. Many people were dead, families were bitterly divided over the issue of removal itself, and yet almost immediately after removal, our people began to try to come together and rebuild the community and rebuild a tribe. . . . We put together a new political system, signed a new constitution in 1839. . . . We build an extensive judicial system. We began printing newspapers in Cherokee and in English. We rebuilt the economic system, and most importantly, I think, we built an educational system.”
In 1558 Elizabeth Tudor became Queen of England. She was 25 years old, and took responsibility for a nearly bankrupt throne with no standing army, and a country made of fiefdoms claimed by unruly men. She ruled for 45 years, becoming one of England’s greatest monarchs. The following is from a speech to Parliament in 1576. At that time she was being accused of meddling with the House of Commons, as it was producing legislation that changed what was to be allowed as religious practice in England.
“Mr. Speaker, I find written in a little volume these words in effect: Sweet is the name of liberty, but the thing itself a value beyond all inestimable treasure. So much more it behooveth us to take care lest we contenting ourselves with the sweetness of the name, lose and forgo the thing, being of the greatest value that can come unto this noble realm.”
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was ordained a minister in 1948, at the age of 19, at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. A steadfast believer in Gandhi’s practice of peaceful civil disobedience, King was arrested at least 30 times. In 1964 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace. From The Measure of a Man:
“So often nations of the world are concerned about the length of life, perpetuating their nationalistic concerns and their economic ends. May it not be that the problem in the world today is that individuals, as well as nations, have been overly concerned with length of life, devoid of the breadth? But there is still something to remind us that we are interdependent, that we are all somehow caught in an inescapable network of mutuality. Therefore, whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.”
Thomas Paine arrived in Philadelphia in 1774, a poor Englishman attracted to the social ferment and resistance to British authority in the colonies. His pamphlets Crisis in America and Common Sense had tremendous influence in persuading people in the colonies to support the War of Independence. In Common Sense (1776), he lays out the evils of the British government and king, in their oppression of the colonies.
“Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; . . . For were the impulses of conscience clear, uniform and irresistibly obeyed, man would need no lawgiver; but that not being the case, he finds it necessary to surrender up a part of his property to furnish means for the protection of the rest.
“. . . Here then is the origin and rise of government; namely, a mode rendered necessary by the inability of moral virtue to govern the world; here too is the design and end of government, viz. freedom and security.
“. . . The nearer any government approaches a Republic, the less business there is for a king. It is somewhat difficult to find a proper name for the government of England. . . . the crown, by having all the places in its disposal, hath so effectually swallowed up the power, and eaten out the virtue of the House of Commons (the republican part of the [English] Constitution) that the government of England is nearly monarchical as that of France or Spain.
“. . . O! ye that love mankind! Ye that dare oppose not only the tyranny but the tyrant, stand forth! Every spot in the old world is overrun with oppression. Freedom hath been hunted round the globe. . . . Europe regards her like a stranger, and England hath given her warning to depart. O! receive the fugitive, and prepare in time an asylum for mankind.”
The Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution. Written by George Mason and James Madison, to ensure the preservation of individual liberties in the new country, they were ratified by Congress in 1791.
I Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
II A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
III No soldier shall, in time of peace, be quartered in any house, without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.
IV The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but up probable cause, supported by the oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched and the person or things to be seized.
V No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous, crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subjected for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb, nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
VI In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.
VII In suits in common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury shall be otherwise re-examined in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.
VIII Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines be imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments be inflicted.
IX The enumeration of the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
X The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.
In 1978, Cardinal Karol Wojtyla became Pope John Paul II, after spending much of his life in Nazi-controlled, then Communist Poland. He used his position to help accelerate the fall of communist oppression in Eastern Europe. Here, he writes about the rise of capitalism in those countries and elsewhere.
“Can it perhaps be said that after the failure of communism, capitalism is the victorious social system and that capitalism should be the goal of the countries now making efforts to rebuild their economy and society? Is this the model which ought to be proposed to the countries of the Third World, which are searching for the path to true economic and civil progress? The answer is obviously complex. If by capitalism is meant an economic system which recognizes the fundamental and positive role of business, the market, private property and the resulting responsibility for the means of production as well as free human creativity in the economic sector, then the answer is certainly in the affirmative, even though it would perhaps be more appropriate to speak of a business economy, market economy or simply free economy. But if by capitalism is meant a system in which freedom in the economic sector is not circumscribed within a strong juridical framework which places it at the service of freedom in its totality and which sees it as a particular aspect of that freedom, the core of which is ethical and religious, then the reply is certainly negative.”
Indira Gandhi was Prime Minister of India from 1966 to 1977 and 1980 to 1984, when she was assassinated. From a speech before the All-India Women’s Conference in 1980:
“Today’s major concerns are: first, economic and social inequality and injustice between the affluent and developing countries and within countries. Secondly, the anxiety whether human wisdom will prevail over what can only be called a death wish in which the desire to dominate expresses itself in countless ways . . . And thirdly, the need to protect this, our only Earth, from human rapacity and exploitation. Only recently have we awakened to the awareness of ancient truths regarding our own utter dependence on the balance of Nature and its resources.
These enormous challenges cannot be met only by some sections, however advanced they may be, while others pull in indifferent directions or watch apathetically. The effort has to be a universal one, conscious and concerted, considering on one too small to contribute. The effort must embrace all nationalities and all classes regardless of religion, caste or sex.”
Barbara Jordan was black woman from Texas who served three terms in the U.S. House of Representatives. In 1976 she gave the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention. Here is an excerpt:
“Many fear the future. Many are distrustful of their leaders, and believe that their voices are never heard. Many seek only to satisfy their private work wants. To satisfy their private interests. But this is the great danger America faces. That we will cease to be one nation and become instead a collection of interest groups: city against suburb, region against region, and individual against individual. . . . If that happens, who will then speak for America? Who then will speak for the common good?
“. . . We must address and master the future together. It can be done if we restore the belief that we share a sense of national community, that we share a common national endeavor.
“As a first step, we must restore our belief in ourselves. We are a generous people so why can’t we be generous to one another? We need to take heart in the words spoken by Thomas Jefferson: ‘Let us restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection without which liberty and even life are but dreary things.’ A nation is formed by the willingness of each of us to share in the responsibility for upholding the common good.”
