"Better Angels"

 “We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection.” Abraham Lincoln, “First Inaugural Address (March 4, 1861)

Delivered on the eve of the Civil War, at a time when seven slave states had already seceded from the Union, President Lincoln concluded his Inaugural speech in a spirit of reconciliation with a plea to Southerners: “The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”  Historians speculate that Lincoln’s use of “better angels” came from familiarity with William Shakespeare’s 1603 play “Othello” and a line uttered by Desdemona’s uncle, Gratiano, after Othello murdered his wife, accusing her of adultery. Gratiano declared that he was glad Desdemona’s father was dead; else the deed “would make him do a desperate turn, yea, curse his better angel from his side, and fall to reprobation.” Both Lincoln and Shakespeare used the phrase to mean the positive attributes of one’s character or temperament rather than referring to supernatural beings. In an early draft, incoming Secretary of State William Seward had suggested “guardian angel” but Lincoln scratched that out and substituted “better angels.”

Titling his talk “The Better Angels of Our Nature,” Saturday Evening Club (SEC) speaker Michael Baird discussed the pressing need for civility and compromise in order for the American political system to function. A former Republican Valparaiso city councilman, Baird described himself as a centrist and regretted that the Republican Party had, for the most part, abandoned its principles out of fealty to Trump. Those who reject the “Big Lie” concerning the 2020 election and blame the former President for the January 6 attack on the Capitol are being purged from leadership roles and face primary challenges by true believers. The politics of hope and respect for the loyal opposition, Baird feared, is in danger of being replaced by the politics of calumny. Baird read an original poem and even sang and played the guitar to another composition, leading several listeners to dub him SEC's "Renaissance Man."

Most commenters agreed with Baird’s assertions and bemoaned the current state of affairs in Washington, DC, where extremists have gained influence in both parties and the intransigence of Senate and House Republican leaders has stymied efforts at legislative compromise. One SEC member stated that compromise was impossible so long as Republicans fail to acknowledge Joe Biden’s legitimacy. Another cited Founding Father Benjamin Franklin’s reply when asked what type of government the new Constitution had laid out: “A republic if we can keep it.” Trying to stay optimistic in a trying time, one person referred to clerk Wilkins Micawber in Charles Dickens’s “David Copperfield” who despite setback after setback remained hopeful that “something will turn up.” 

After describing the derivation of “Better Angels” and mentioning Lincoln’s Second Inaugural, delivered as the war was ending and assassins were plotting his death, that called for binding up the nation’s wounds “with malice toward none but charity for all,” I listed similar traits shared by Lincoln and Biden. Both were life-long politicians with knowledge and respect for political tradition; both kept their egos in check and resisted demagoguery; both were agents of change but not at the price of demonizing the opposition. Lincoln, for instance, distinguished between the institution of slavery, which he believed to be evil, and Southerners themselves. While careful not to claim greatness for Biden, the latter, I suggested, may prove to be the most suitable leader for our time.

Like me, retired VU Theology professor and Dean of Graduate Studies Jim Albers provided historical perspective to the country’s current political stalemate. He cited Daniel Goleman’s “Emotional Intelligence” to make a plea for rationality as an antidote to extreme partisanship. Several people had noted that Trump’s methods had split families, sometimes irrevocably, a situation similar to the Civil War era. Albers brought up the rifleman’s dilemma in Ambrose Bierce’s short story “A Horseman in the Sky” (1889) and how for some, moral duty came before even family. Virginian Carter Druse, on sentry duty with a unit of the Union Army, spotted an enemy horseman who had become aware of their location. If Druse didn’t kill the man, it would imperil his comrades’ lives. His father had taught him to do his duty whatever the consequences, but just before he fires, he recognizes that it is his father.