Presidents Day - A Good Word from James Garfield

Read this little piece on James Garfield: http://tinyurl.com/b5ukz52.  Among other powerful effects of emancipation, Garfield noted in his 1881 Presidential inaugural address that it "surrendered to their own guardianship the manhood of more than 5,000,000 people" and "opened to each one of them a career of freedom and usefulness."  He further celebrated that it "has given new inspiration to the power of self-help in both races."

To Garfield, then, emancipation was a good thing because it promoted certain virtues in poeple: self-reliance, self-determination, self-help, and usefulness.

Sadly, many Americans no longer find this kind of liberty desirable.  Instead, too many want an indolent "liberty" that values no self-restraint or self-respect, and that burdens others (through the agency of the state) to account for the consequences for one's actions.


Here's the quote from 1881, in its entirety:

The elevation of the negro race from slavery to the full rights of citizenship is the most important political change we have known since the adoption of the Constitution of 1787,” he said. “NO thoughtful man can fail to appreciate its beneficent effect upon our institutions and people. It has freed us from the perpetual danger of war and dissolution. It has added immensely to the moral and industrial forces of our people. It has liberated the master as well as the slave from a relation which wronged and enfeebled both. It has surrendered to their own guardianship the manhood of more than 5,000,000 people, and has opened to each one of them a career of freedom and usefulness. It has given new inspiration to the power of self-help in both races by making labor more honorable to the one and more necessary to the other. The influence of this force will grow greater and bear richer fruit with the coming years.