Thinking Inaugurally: Wisdom, Weather and Warnings

Preview from Maverick Chronicles, Part Three

Most of the pageantry involved in the inauguration of a US president has nothing to do with the Constitution. All it actually says is that president is supposed to take the oath of office. Even the idea of swearing on a bible is just a custom, and the oath doesn’t include “so help me, God.” 
      George Washington decided to invoke God at the last minute. One president, Franklin Pierce, actually refused to swear on the “Good Book.” 
      So, technically Donald Trump could be sworn in on The Art of the Deal.
     

     The inaugural speech is also just a custom. It started when Washington thought it might be a wise idea to say a few words. He wasn’t speaking to “the people,” by the way, he was talking to Congress. But giving a speech stuck as an idea, and eventually the show was taken outside – where for the next century most of the audience couldn’t hear a word the president was saying.
     At least the world will get to hear and read Trump's address. If only everyone had been allowed to vote.
     One president died as a result of giving an address. It was 1841, and William Henry Harrison, who was 68, wanted to prove he was fit and gave his speech on a bitterly cold day without wearing an overcoat. The speech took more than two hours – the longest on record – and Harrison caught a cold. A month later he died of pneumonia.
     Aside from Lincoln, Kennedy, and Garfield, most inaugural speeches haven’t been very memorable. At times they’ve been downers. In 1857, for example, James Buchanan attacked abolitionists for making a big deal about slavery. Ulysses Grant complained about being slandered. Warren Harding and others were simply boring.
     There have been some memorable lines. “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself,” said Franklin Roosevelt. Kennedy, with an assist from several others, came up with “Let us never negotiate out of fear, but let us never fear to negotiate.”
     And let's not forget George H.W. Bush, who compared freedom to a kite. Not a very high bar.
     According to scholars who have analyzed the speeches, the form has evolved. In the old days, presidents talked quite a lot about the Constitution. Now we have more “rhetorical” presidencies, meaning that the chief executive bypasses the constitution – and congress – and appeals directly to the people. The problem, which was recognized by the founding fathers, is that this can lead to demagoguery – appeals to passion rather than reason. And since Nixon we’ve had several inaugurations with leaders who offer mainly platitudes, emotional appeals, partisan and anti-intellectual attacks and human interest stories rather than evidence, facts and rational arguments.
     Since Nixon we’ve also had professional speechwriters, and an emphasis on getting as much applause as possible. Meanwhile, the reading level has dropped. The early speeches were written at the college level. Now they require only eighth grade comprehension. 
     We don’t hear much about the presidency of James Garfield, who was elected in 1880. One of the reasons was that he was shot after only four months in office, and died about two months later. But before he was inaugurated, he read over all the previous addresses to decide what to say. He found Lincoln’s speech to be the best. Who could beat this closing:
      “We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. 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.”
    Partway through his own research, Garfield considered not giving a speech at all. But he pressed on, and boiled down the task to the following: first a brief introduction, followed by a summary of topics recently settled, then a section on what ought to be the focus of public attention, and finally, an appeal to stand by him in the independent and vigorous execution of the law. The speeches haven’t really changed much since then. Normally, they serve to reunite people after the election, express some shared values, present some new policies, and promise that the president will stick to the job description. 
     To put it mildly, Trump is expected to break with that formula.
     In the end, Garfield’s speech didn’t match Lincoln’s. But it was eloquent and remains relevant today. He started with history, noting that before the US was formed the world didn’t believe “that the supreme authority of government could be safely entrusted to the guardianship of the people themselves.” Moving through the first century of US history, he concluded that after the Civil War people had finally “determined to leave behind them all those bitter controversies concerning things which have been irrevocably settled, and the further discussion of which can only stir up strife and delay the onward march.” 
     It was a case of wishful thinking. “The elevation of the negro race from slavery to the full rights of citizenship," he continued, "is the most important political change we have known since the adoption of the constitution.” But the Black vote was still be suppressed, especially in the south. So he warned, “To violate the freedom and sanctity of the suffrage is more than an evil. It is a crime which, if persisted in, will destroy the government itself.”
     A prescient warning as it turns out. With the installation of President Trump, the US faces serious threats to the freedom and sanctity of the right to vote, and other dangers that could ultimately destroy this system of government – secrecy, abuse of power, impunity, abandonment of the rule of law.
     Garfield also made another point worth repeating: No religious organization, he noted, can be “permitted to usurp in the smallest degree the functions and powers of the National Government.”  He was talking about the Mormon Church, which was exerting considerable influence out west at the time. But there are contemporary implications.

Coming in 2025

        His concluding words about the end of slavery perhaps still resonate best. “We do not now differ in our judgment concerning the controversies of the past generations, and fifty years hence our children will not be divided on their opinions concerning our controversies,” he predicted. “We may hasten or we may retard, but we can not prevent, the final reconciliation. Is it not possible for us now to make a truce with time by anticipating and accepting its inevitable.

     Apparently not yet.

     “Enterprises of the highest importance to our moral and material well-being unite us and offer ample employment of our best powers," said Garfield. "Let all our people leaving behind them the battlefields of dead issues, move forward, and in their strength of liberty and the restored Union, win the grander victories of peace.”

— Originally posted January, 2017

Decentralism: The Path to Self-Government

Centralization in our social, economic, and political systems has given rise to a deep sense of powerlessness among the people, a growing alienation throughout society, the depersonalization of vital services, excessive reliance on the techniques of management and control, and a loss of great traditions. 

— Decentralist League, 1977

Forty-seven years ago, a group bringing together the political left and right, Democrats and Republicans, attempted to create a “third way” called the Decentralist League of Vermont. It was convened by Robert O’Brien, a state senator who had recently lost the Democratic primary for governor, and John McClaughry, a Republican critical of his Party’s leadership. Each invited some allies for a series of meetings to question authority and forge a new political vision.

“We oppose political and economic systems which demand obedience to the dictates of elite groups, while ignoring abuses by those who operate the controls,” its founding statement announced. 

Vermont had been fertile ground for “outside the box” thinking before. To start, it didn’t immediately join the new United States after the War of Independence, remaining an independent republic until 1791. Almost half a century later it was the first US state to elect an Anti-Mason governor, during a period when opposition to elites and secret societies was growing.

The Anti-Mason movement – which also elected a Pennsylvania governor and ran a candidate for president in 1832 – lasted only a decade. Most of its political leaders eventually joined either the short-lived Whig Party or the more durable Republicans. Along the way, however, it exposed the dangers of special interest groups and secret oaths and, on a practical level, initiated changes in the way political parties operated — notably nominating conventions and the adoption of party platforms, reforms soon embraced by other parties.

Early in its history, Vermont also had direct experience with another type of challenge to centralized power — nullification. The general idea is that since states created the federal government they also have the right to judge the constitutionality of federal laws — and potentially refuse to enforce them. It happened when American Colonists nullified laws imposed by the British. Since then states have occasionally used nullification to limit federal actions, from the Fugitive Slave Act to unpopular tariffs. In November 1850 the Vermont legislature joined the club, approving a so-called Habeas Corpus Law that required officials to assist slaves who made it to the state. 

The controverial law rendered the Fugitive Slave Act effectively unenforceable, a clear case of nullification. Poet and abolitionist John Greenleaf Whittier praised Vermont’s defiance, but President Millard Fillmore threatened to impose federal law through military action, if necessary. It never came to that.

Even a short-lived political movement can produce new thinking and unexpected change. In 1912, for example, the new Progressive Party inspired by Theodore Roosevelt when he lost the Republican nomination to William Howard Taft led to the election of Woodrow Wilson. Roosevelt left the Party, but its work continued under Robert La Follette. Although La Follette’s run for president in 1924 netted only 17 percent, he won Wisconsin, his home state, and successful reforms were implemented there.

In recent times, Vermont has emerged as a testing ground for progressive political, economic and environmental thinking. But the ex-urbanite professionals and members of the counterculture who arrived to help make that possible built on a solid foundation. Questioning of illegitimate, centralized power began before the American Revolution, as early settlers in the Green Mountains organized to declare themselves free of British rule and exploitation by land speculators. It continued with the jailhouse congressional re-election of Matthew Lyon in defiance of President Adams and the Alien and Sedition Acts, resistance to an embargo of Britain and the War of 1812, rejection of slavery and Masonic secrecy, and Town Meeting defeat of the Green Mountain Parkway during the New Deal. The pattern reflects a libertarian streak that has resisted the excesses of both liberal and conservative leadership.

One key reason is localism, a long cherished Vermont value. Even when Gov. Deane Davis, a conservative Republican, backed a state land use law in the late 1960s, he chose to call it “creative localism.” Town Meeting exerts a powerful enduring influence, both practical and symbolic. A form and reminder of direct democracy, it holds out hope that self-government remains possible in the age of powerful administrative states. The stakes may be overstated at time, but the use of this forum – in some cases the only one available – can be a form of self-reliance and self-determination reminiscent of the early Jeffersonian impulse.

In a similar spirit, the group of Vermonters who launched an alliance in 1976 aimed at decentralizing political and economic power. Invited by Bob O’Brien, I acted as secretary and helped to craft its Statement of Principles.

That Fall, Bernie Sanders made his second run for Governor as a Liberty Union candidate and called for the break up of big banks. The winner was Republican businessman Richard Snelling, who defeated Employment Commissioner Stella Hackel after a fractious primary season. Jimmy Carter became President and soon appointed Hackel as Director of the US Mint. 

According to a March 28, 1977 article by UPI, the Decentralist League was officially launched in Montpelier with a press conference and had 12 initial public signatories. The plan was not to become another political party, the press coverage said, but rather to “speak out for the interests of persons not protected by rigged deals.”

Charter members included McClaughry of Kirby; Sen. O’Brien of Orange County; Sen. Melvin Mandigo, a Republican representing Essex-Orleans; Rep. William Hunter, a Democrat from Weathersfield; John Welch of Rutland, who sought the 1976 GOP nomination for U.S. Senate; and Frank Bryan, a UVM professor. I also made the eclectic list, identified as a magazine editor and activist from Burlington, joining former Democratic party vice-chairman Margaret Lucenti from Barre; James Perkins of Sheffield, co-chair of the Vermont Caucus for the Family; William Staats of Newfane, founder of the Green Mountain Boys; Martin Harris of Sudbury, leader of the National Farmers Organization; and John Schnebley Jr. of Townshend, who ran in the 1976 Democratic primary for the U.S. House.

As I outlined in Decentralism & Liberation in the Workplace, a July 1976 essay published in response to the US Bicentennial celebrations, Decentralism involves participatory democracy and worker ownership, home rule and neighborhood assemblies, regional self-sufficiency in food and energy, and voluntary inter-community alliances. Through efforts at both the industrial and local political levels, it can move us toward a social libertarian culture that respects the traditions of freedom and independence in America’s past, and that adds to this heritage a positive vision of human nature, ethical and ecological tools, and an internationalist perspective.

The basic purpose of the League, McClaughry argued at the time, was to “re-orient the political spectrum so that people begin to see issues in terms of power widely dispersed — close to them in communities, and power centralized — in large institutions over which they have no control.”

Bryan and McClaughry continued to explore the concept and Vermonters’ attraction to decentralism in The Vermont Papers: Recreating Democracy on a Human Scale. “God-given liberties, hostility to the central power, whatever it may be,” they wrote in 1990, “their attachment to their towns and schools and local communities, their dedication to common enterprise for the common good – all these have been among the most cherished Vermont traits, the subject of countless eulogies of Vermont tradition over the years.”

Although the League lasted only a few years — a casualty of Reagan era polarization — it did identify a set of core beliefs, priorities and policies that could unite those who find the current national and global order unsustainable and dangerous. In Burlington, one legacy was the creation of Neighborhood Planning Assemblies. 

Taking aim at centralized power and wealth, the League asserted that decentralizing both, where and whenever possible, is the best way to preserve diversity, increase self-sufficiency, and satisfy human needs. 

Its basic principles, published in March 1977, resonate anew in the current global atmosphere of resurgent authoritarianism. Some policy specifics may seem dated, others are more relevant than ever. 

Decentralist League of Vermont

Statement of Principles

In a free and just society all men and women will have the fullest opportunity to enjoy liberty, achieve self-reliance, and participate effectively in the political and economic decisions affecting their lives. Wealth and power will be widely distributed. Basic human rights will be protected. The principle of equal rights for all, special privileges for none, will prevail.

When economic and political power is centralized in the hands of a few, self-government is replaced by rigid and remote bureaucracies, the independence of each citizen is threatened, and the processes of freedom and justice are subverted. Centralized power is the enemy of individual liberty, self-reliance, and voluntary cooperation. It tends to corrupt those who wield it and to debase its victims.

The trend toward centralization in our social, economic, and political systems has given rise to a deep sense of powerlessness among the people, a growing alienation throughout society, the depersonalization of vital services, excessive reliance on the techniques of management and control, and a loss of great traditions.

Decentralists share with “conservatives” repugnance for unwarranted governmental interference in private life and community affairs. We share with “liberals” an aversion to the exploitation of human beings. We challenge, however, conventional “liberal” and “conservative” policies which have concentrated power, ignored the importance of the human scale, and removed decision making from those most directly affected.

Decentralists thus favor a reversal of the trend toward all forms of centralized power, privileged status, and arbitrary barriers to individual growth and community self-determination. We oppose political and economic systems which demand obedience to the dictates of elite groups, while ignoring abuses by those who operate the controls. We believe that only by decentralization will we preserve that diversity in society which provides the best guarantee that among the available choices, each individual will find those conditions which satisfy his or her human needs.

Decentralists believe in the progressive dismantling of bureaucratic structures which stifle creativity and spontaneity, and of economic and political institutions which diminish individual and community power.

We support a strengthening of family, neighborhood and community life, and favor new forms of association to meet social and economic needs.

We propose and support:

— Removal of governmental barriers which discourage initiative and cooperative self-help

— Growth of local citizen alliances which strengthen self-government and broaden participation in economic and political decisions

— Widespread ownership of productive industry by Vermonters and employees

— Protection of the right to acquire, possess and enjoy private property, where the owner is personally responsible for its use and when this use does not invade the equal rights of others

— Rebuilding a viable and diverse agricultural base for the Vermont economy, with emphasis on homesteading

— A decent level of income for all, through their productive effort whenever possible, or through compassionate help which enhances their dignity and self-respect

— Reshaping of education to promote self-reliance, creativity, and a unity of learning and work

— A revival of craftsmanship in surroundings where workers can obtain personal satisfaction from their efforts

— The use of technologies appropriate to local enterprise, and which increase our energy self-sufficiency

— Mediation of disputes rather than reliance on regulations and adversary proceedings

This decentralist program implies a de-emphasis of status, luxury, and pretense, and a new emphasis on justice, virtue, equality, spiritual values, and peace of mind.

Decentralism will mean a rebirth of diversity and mutual aid, a new era of voluntary action, a full appreciation of our heritage, an affirmation of meaningful liberty, and a critical awareness of Vermont’s relationship to the rest of the nation and to the world.

Originally posted in 2022