I don’t know if we are in the midst of a revolution; or maybe multiple revolutions. It feels like it.  There are a lot of issues that don’t seem to be related—whether to wear a face mask, race and the police, reinterpreting our history and questioning who should be celebrated—yet each ultimately comes down to questions concerning liberty, equality, and justice.  That’s why they matter.  Every major political or social issue in United States history has gotten traction when they dig into one or all of those fundamental American values.  Which brings me to the Declaration of Independence.

The approval of the Declaration by the Second Continental Congress on July 4^th is celebrated as our nation’s birthday.  No matter that it wasn’t the act that actually established independence.  That was accomplished two days earlier with the vote on the Resolution for Independence on July 2^nd—a day no one remembers.  How wonderful that our nation’s birthday is not marked by a political or military event, but by Thomas Jefferson’s grand statement of universal principles about how people are supposed to live.  We must recognize our inherent equality, be free to make our own choices, participate in the making of laws that will limit those choices, and feel safe as we go about pursuing happiness. 

Often when I read the Declaration, a different word or phrase will pull me in.  Perhaps in response to the current confusing swirl of events, I have been drawn to the less well-known second half of the second paragraph, and specifically to the word “prudence.”

“Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes;”

Jefferson was a careful writer; probably more so than ever when writing the Declaration.  There were no platitudes or words that were not thoughtfully chosen.  In the middle section of the introduction, in his wonderfully concise and graceful way of expressing the most complicated ideas, Jefferson was assuring mankind that although the American people were talking revolution there was a proper way to bring about change.  We were proceeding with prudence.  We were not in some hot mess of inflamed passions.  On this July 4^th 2020, I am thinking about the need for prudence.

Jefferson’s choice of that word reflected the influence of Aristotle.  Prudence was the most important of Aristotle’s intellectual virtues.  It was central to how a good person goes about doing the right thing in the right way.  At the heart of prudence was deliberation among a range of values: What is useful? What is noble?  What is just? What is appropriate?

I’d like to select just one of the topics off the front-pages.  What to do about past choices to celebrate some of the mighty men with statues and namesake buildings?  Statues should not be removed by mobs with chains, or by meek mayors and governors trying to placate those mobs.  There are a range of important values that need to be carefully considered.  The recent decision by Princeton University to remove Woodrow Wilson’s name from a building provides a good template for prudent decision making.  The Princeton Board of Trustees began deliberating over the name change in 2015.  After an extensive review of the legacy of Woodrow Wilson, it was decided to be more honest about his history, but to keep names when “the original reasons for adopting the names remain valid.”  The Board recently took up the topic again, and concluded—if I may paraphrase them by quoting Jefferson—that names on buildings “long established should not be changed for light and transient causes.”  The Board appears to have carefully balanced the fact of Wilson’s contributions that should be honored with his attitudes and actions that were harmful.  The Board concluded that “Wilson’s racism was significant and consequential even by the standards of his own time. He segregated the federal civil service after it had been racially integrated for decades, thereby taking America backward in its pursuit of justice.”

Many will not be happy with the decisions that are made about any of the problems that are currently consuming the news. Custom is conservative and change is hard. How far wrong can we go if we follow the advice of Aristotle as seconded by Jefferson?

Happy birthday America!  The land of the free and the prudent.