Noble government
Expect it, and assure it by your vote. It takes time and effort to learn who the candidates are and what they stand for, but weigh the consequences.
The earlier post on Congressman Henry Hyde’s seat up for election was hurried together, but I’ve been thinking…
I live in the 6th District of Illinois, Hyde’s district. He has long been a nobleman in my estimation. Why? Because regardless of the party initial after a Congress person’s name, he or she should be animated by a moral compass, a noble dignity, a spirit of honor and justice, charity and self-sacrifice. St. Thomas More embodied these virtues in such an outstanding witness in his public and personal life, he has been named the patron of politicians.
So it was no surprise, though it was a powerful testimony, when Congressman Henry Hyde invoked the name and words of Sir Thomas More on the floor of Congress during the impeachment hearings of President Clinton. I recall it well, and it lives on in archived reporting, especially in what modern politicians can learn from the great statesman.
What lessons can a man who died in 1535 give to today’s breed of spinners and dealmakers?
1) A promise is a promise
Not one to change his mind when it became convenient, More was executed because he would not swear an oath which accepted Henry VIII was head of the church – he remained committed to the supremacy of the Pope.
US Republican Henry Hyde cited More during President Clinton’s impeachment hearing, saying: “Sir Thomas More went to his death rather than take an oath in vain.”
He added words from Sir Robert Bolt’s play of More’s life, A Man for All Seasons: “As he told his daughter, Margaret, ‘When a man takes an oath, Meg, he’s holding his own self in his hands. Like water. And if he opens his fingers then – he needn’t hope to find himself again.”
It was a dramatic moment in the film, and on the floor of Congress, for the inherent truth it spoke about integrity. Few besides Hyde could have made that case, and so eloquently.
How else does history judge Thomas More, himself a great judge?
5) Man of ideas
More’s most famous work, Utopia, has become a byword for an ideal place or perfect state of affairs. The name comes from the Greek, meaning “no place”.
The book describes a state where everything is governed by reason, not by greed, corruption or self-interest.
It was a powerful statement of humanism; many a modern politician’s memoirs are barely remembered two weeks after they were published. More’s work has lasted nearly 500 years.
Hyde’s public service retires after 30 years. His book For Every Idle Silence records the story of this pro-life warrior’s struggle in Congress to secure the Hyde Amendment. It’s out of print now. The struggle in Illinois to secure his seat is between pro-life state senator Peter Roskam, and a pro-abortion political newcomer, Tammy Duckworth, who does not live in the 6th District and was recruited by party leaders to win this seat for their side of the aisle.
Which brings it back to the initial after the name and the party that’s funding that campaign from outside Illinois. We are far from a state where everything is governed by reason.
