For him have I offended

I’ve been reading Thoreau’s journal from 19-22 October, 1859. In these entries, Henry David addresses John Brown’s failed assault on the armory at Harper’s Ferry. Now, admittedly, this is a very complex situation, and Brown is a complex, and even unknown man. Read Russell Banks’ novel, Cloudsplitter, for a marvelous portrait of John Brown.

I do not mean to address here Brown’s actions. Rather, I want to note Thoreau’s ire, indeed, his fury at the various governments whose advocacy of slavery made necessary Brown’s acts. I want to address Thoreau’s thorough respect for the character of John Brown, whose commitment to the oppressed was total. I know that there have been a few heroes in the land, but no man has ever stood up in America for the dignity of human nature so devotedly, persistently, and so effectively as this man.” Thoreau does not condone Brown’s act, but neither does he condemn it. Rather, Thoreau accuses the rest of us of ignorance and cowardice: “Prominent and influential editors, accustomed to deal with politicians, men of an infinitely lower grade, say, in their ignorance, that [Brown] acted “on the principle of revenge.” They do not know the man. They must enlarge themselves to conceive of him . . . they have got to conceive of a man of ideas and of principle, hard as it may be for them . . . of a man who did not wait till he was personally interfered with or thwarted in some harmless business before he gave his life to the cause of the oppressed.” The baseness of the media and politicians is no less offensive today than in Thoreau’s time. I am no less appalled, and no less ashamed of my government officials and my own helplessness.

Thoreau was indignant that a man of principle, a man whose abhorrence of slavery and hatred of the slaveholder led him to extreme measures, could be so little understood in a country begun with the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. He was disgusted by the complete moral failure of seemingly everyone in the United States—including himself—at this crucial moment in our history. We live even now in debased times.

I’ve been thinking of George W. Bush again, and I am shocked at the abysmally low moral and intellectual quality of the President and his administration. And for some reason, I recalled John F. Kennedy’s quip in 1962 during the White House dinner he hosted for Nobel Prize winners. In his talk, Kennedy said that in that moment, in that White House dining room “sat probably the greatest concentration of talent and genius in this house except for perhaps those times when Thomas Jefferson ate alone.”

What I hear in Kennedy’s remark is an appreciation of intelligence, of intellect, of culture, and of history. Kennedy’s irony even suggests an awareness of some of Jefferson’s serious flaws which have become all too evident in the more recent years. But Kennedy’s appreciation of the achievement of the guests in that room, and his connection of that achievement to the work and personality of one of our iconic leaders, whose intellect is given focus, reflects tragically on the serious decline in America’s promise during the Bush administration when the reading of a book is a laughable event, and a sure sign of treason and liberal leanings.

“At any rate,” Thoreau writes, “I do not think it is sane to spend one’s whole life talking or writing about this matter, and I have not done so. A man may have other affairs to attend to.” I go now to other affairs.