Cameron Brown: America, Bryant and Machiavelli

The signage on storefronts across America is ubiquitous, and emblematic of the state of the nation — “Help Wanted!” It is a cultural irony that while work is abundant, willing workers are few. Added to this are shortened store hours, shipment delays and the overshadowing specter of inflation. How can this be? It all seems so un-American and against the grain of America’s work ethic. The cause is a case study for social economists and political pundits. For the average American, it is symptomatic of a far deeper illness in the body politic.

Nineteenth century poet and journalist William Cullen Bryant would have a field day in analyzing today’s events. Among his notable literary contributions is the short maxim, “Truth crushed to earth will rise again.” What was once decried as disinformation is now unmasking as the truth. In the courtroom and in film, truth is surfacing. The once-esteemed FBI and entrusted electioneers now find themselves in the crosshairs of citizen fact checkers, while Durham’s probe and D’Souza’s “2,000 Mules” provide a disturbing reveal on the prevailing claims of those in power.

In both cases, the rationale for lawless action comes straight from the playbook of Machiavelli’s “The Prince” in which the ends justify the means — behavior contrary to the American creed of fair play. After all, election game rules and due process are grounded in established law that anchors order and justice to civil life.

Poet Bryant’s forgotten role in placing America’s 16th president on a path to the White House complements his statement on the buoyancy of truth. It was Bryant who invited candidate Abraham Lincoln to speak at New York’s Cooper Union Institute, which proved to be the launch pad for Lincoln’s presidential campaign. The rest is history.

As president, it is Lincoln’s most memorable phrase that gives clarity to the role of representative government in American life. It is a statement that stands sentinel as the standard by which we have come to measure the performance of those who would claim our trust in office. Paraphrasing Daniel Webster, President Lincoln spoke plainly without embellishment. In the open air at Gettysburg, his words like a banner of freedom unfurled and planted themselves in the heart of the nation. The peoples’ president said that “Under God,” it is our high resolve that “government of the people, by the people and for the people shall not perish from the earth.” In the performance of public duty, there are no better words to prescribe the rule by which to serve the nation.

— Cameron S. Brown is president of the Kalamazoo Abraham Lincoln Institute and a former Michigan State Senator. Follow him at HistoryFrontiers.blog.

This article originally appeared on Sturgis Journal: Cameron Brown: America, Bryant and Machiavelli