In her 2019 Bradley Prizes acceptance speech, the Honorable Janice Rogers Brown reminds us of the importance of instilling the value of American exceptionalism in our youngest citizens, and the essential role of education in this pursuit. The following excerpt is used with her permission.
The Framers of the Constitution were, in Calvin Coolidge’s words, people influenced by “a great spiritual development” who acquired “great moral power.” They were not oblivious to the perils of the kind of regime they sought to establish and they knew liberty would require citizens to be restrained enough to control their passion out of respect for the rights of others—with a knowledge of history and a firm grasp of language—a special lexicon—to guard themselves against tyranny. The Framers, then, understood that only a virtuous polity, capable of articulating its claim to liberty, would be capable of making self-governance work.
Still the Framers could not have anticipated this “generation of snowflakes” that William Voegeli describes as the “first revolutionaries to mount the barricades in the name of their own emotional fragility.” Thus, for millennials and even younger generations we have not yet labeled, the very idea of a “rule of law” has been reduced to a nonsensical meme. Quick to proclaim they know their rights, they are often more conversant with the comings and goings of pop culture divas or more concerned about the newest technology ecosystems than the correct construction of the privileges and immunities clause.
For the Constitution to endure, citizens must possess discipline and toughness. After all, the Constitution’s teachings are tough: the document imposes limitations on liberty. In theory, each individual’s freedom becomes bounded by restraint—the restraint imposed by the liberties equally guaranteed to others.
Today’s domestic terrorists have no need to operate in the shadows. These modern mandarins, who have mastered intimidation and bullying and weaponized shame, are more likely to be featured on the cover of Time magazine than to face condemnation. They wrap themselves in the mantle of civil rights though there is nothing civil about their actions or their intentions. No one can question their bona fides because those who claim victimhood must be obeyed; those who take offense must be appeased; and rational argument has been transformed into a hate crime.
America was founded as a natural rights regime—meaning axioms derived from nature—from natural rights—provided the guiding principles that helped shape the founders’ policies. For that generation, liberty and equality were virtual synonyms. The doctrine of equality expressed the view that no man was fit to be a natural master; no man destined to be a natural slave. Thus, the best way to ensure the protection of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness was to limit the design and end of government. A free creature capable of moral judgment ought not to be coerced.
The Civil Rights Movement was instigated by people seeking fully to join that polity. The equality America promised was the right not to be ruled except by consent. Proponents of civil rights characterized their actions as “cashing a promissory note” to fulfill the founding promises of the regime. They opposed invidious discrimination but accepted that the stresses and strains of our differences, like the engineering of a gothic cathedral, opened sacred spaces that made the nation’s architecture beautiful. They accepted without question the demands of the good.
The new rights claimants beg to differ. Instead, they insist equality requires the satisfaction of all desires—no matter how destructive—and they deny there is any such thing as the good. This is less a plea for civil liberties; more like a declaration of war. There can be no claim for a civil right that is only fulfilled by destroying the philosophical framework from which the right is purportedly derived. These self-appointed social justice warriors are not requesting admission; they are demanding submission. Midway through the Lenten season, Yale Law School proudly announced its decision to begin discriminating against religious students by denying them aid, and barring their participation in the school’s loan assistance program. What was the sin that caused these students to be deemed pariahs? Yale’s Federalist Society Chapter invited Kristen Waggoner, an attorney employed by the Alliance Defending Freedom, to speak on campus. LGBT protesters objected to Waggoner’s orthodox Christian beliefs and claimed she worked for a “homophobic, transphobic hate group” even though the ADF has won nine Supreme Court cases in the last seven years. The administration responded to the protesters' list of demands with the nuclear option—a veritable jihad against religious groups and students. Later the same month, at the beginning of the holiest week of the Christian calendar, Paris’ Notre Dame—a storied edifice whose history reaches back to the 12th Century—was ravaged by fire. But, out of that beauty, ruined, that sanctity, spoiled, something survived. Beyond the debris and destruction, above the rubble of 900-year-old timbers, a remnant remained. A couple of days after the fire, photos appeared on the internet. There, as if the gloom revealed it; in the midst of utter devastation, hung a gold cross, glowing as if lit from within. Suspended above an altar apparently untouched by the fire, undimmed by the soot and smoke of the conflagration, it defied the darkness. In every photograph, from every angle, it radiated light. Like a signal fire; like a beacon.
The persistence of that inexpressible light forbids us to accept the abolition of man and the destruction of the civilization that generations of men and women have built out of the toil and agony of these past 2,000 years. I believe that man, as Faulkner wrote, must not merely endure: he must prevail. At the base of our constitutional order is a profound insight into the nature and end of the human person. We may leave to the evolutionists to guess where we came from and to the futurists to prophesy where we are going.
What matters is how willing we are to defend the principles of liberty which are our rich inheritance. What America has tried to teach the world about the nature of human flourishing is fundamental. Truth and freedom live or die together. These ideals deserve not derision but allegiance and devotion. All our insights about human rights derive from, and were shaped by, the Christian revolution. The distinctive attributes our founding documents attribute to human beings—reason, free will, and moral choice—would be inconceivable in the absence of a Judeo-Christian worldview.
It takes a national commitment to “defend” a constitution. That is why the illumination and encouragement of organizations like the Bradley Foundation are so critically important. I am honored to receive this award. But in accepting your kind recognition, allow me to impose upon your generosity once more: let us join together in common defense of our Constitution. Let us work, each one of us, on building up a fortress of virtue, on speaking with clarity to the principles that ensure our liberty.