What Makes A Great American? Essay 7

US Flag, backlit; photo by jnn13

Note from Steve: This is an essay submission for Steve’s Great American Essay Challenge. This was a late entry, but I will continue to post these whenever anyone wants to submit one.

What Makes a Great American

We remember Patrick Henry as a great American for rousing the Virginia Convention to send troops into war with his famous words, “Give me liberty or give me death.” We remember Thomas Jefferson as a great American for writing the inspirational words in the Declaration of Independence that held it was a self-evident truth that ” all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” And we remember George Washington as a great American for winning an impossible war with ill equipped and ill trained men against Great Britain and its vast resources, professional soldiers and the Hessians.

But mention Robert Carter III, a contemporary of Henry, Jefferson, and Washington, and instead of the word “great” popping into our minds, many of us ask “who?”

While Henry inspired the colonists to fight for freedom, Jefferson wrote eloquent words about freedom, and Washington physically fought for freedom, Robert Carter III did what none of them thought was possible due to the economic cost to the new nation. He freed his slaves while he was alive. Carter, one of the wealthiest families in Virginia walked into the Northumberland County courthouse on September 5, 1791 with a “deed of gift,” announcing his intention to free or manumit more than 500 slaves.

Patrick Henry stated that slavery was “inconsistent with the Bible and destructive to morality. Jefferson wrote of Henry’s beliefs that he was “even more determined in his opposition to slavery than the rest of us.” Yet upon his death Henry willed his 67 slaves to be divided among his wife and 6 sons.

Thomas Jefferson wrote this about slavery almost 30 years after Carter’s deed of gift: “As it is, we have the wolf by the ear, and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation in the other.” Thomas Jefferson owned some 600 slaves. He freed two of them while he lived, and 7 others upon his death.

George Washington wrote, “I never mean (unless some particular circumstance should compel me to try it) to possess another slave by purchase: it being among my first wishes to see some plant adopted by the legislature by which slaver in the Country may be abolished by slow, sure, and imperceptible degrees.” George Washington willed 123 of his slaves to be freed but not until his wife Martha’s death.

Yet Carter had provided great Americans like Henry, Jefferson, and Washington a blueprint for not only freeing their slaves, but for ensuring the freedmen could sustain themselves and even prosper and integrate into society. He didn’t talk about it. He didn’t write about it. He didn’t fight for it. He just quietly did it. His heirs were upset about their future loss of “property” and fought against it. His neighbors were scandalized when Carter joined a Baptist church that seated black and white people together, slave and free. But the impact of his deed lives on generations later.

Meriwether Gilmore grew up in Westmoreland County where Carter’s estate once spanned 2000 acres. She is related to Carter on her mother’s side. He father worked with Black churches in the area to commemorate the deed of gift’s bicentennial in 1991. She said:

“I think the story of Robert Carter III is incredibly important, and not just to glorify another rich, White man, but to show how personal convictions can be stronger than the status quo, that doing the right thing is often hard but important and that people matter — that people are more important than the work that they perform.”

Census records from 1850 showed that the descendants of the freed slaves had two parents, a rarity in an era when slaveholders ripped families apart. Tax records from 1880 show a trend of education, land ownership, and gainful employment, in a variety of occupations, not just agriculture. By the 1930s they were graduating from college and entering teaching and nursing professions. And in the 1950s, even the women were attaining professional degrees.

There is a lot of talk today about keeping our freedoms, such that it doesn’t matter if one person’s freedom impinges upon another’s freedom. This selfish attitude is reflected by the alteration of the word to describe those that insist upon their freedom even if it harms someone else as the “freedumb.”

I used to believe that freedom was the overriding principle that makes America great. After all, immigrants come here for the freedom and the opportunity it affords to improve their lives. Immigrants may come for the freedom, but they assimilate because of the love and kindness they are shown. They find safety in knowing mercy for some necessitates justice for others and that justice is applied equally to all.

Freedom makes America Great. But it is love in action that makes a Great American.

In a letter to the Galatians, Paul, a man inspired by God, wrote that they were “called to freedom.” But as often happens, many Christians remember only the part of the verse they like. The rest states, “But don’t use your freedom to satisfy your sinful nature. Instead, use your freedom to serve one another in love.” (Galatians 5:13, NLT)

We need people to speak inspiring words, to eloquently express thoughts through the written word, and to fight for the freedom to do so. But more than that, a Great American turns those words into love by putting them into action. Quietly or not, but always humbly.

Love as described in 1 Corinthians 13 demands action.

If I speak in the tongues[a] of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.

If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.

If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,[b] but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, Love is kind.
It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.
It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking,
It is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.
Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.
It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

In the end, these three things will remain:
Faith, Hope and Love.
But the greatest of these is Love.

Freedom makes America Great. But love demonstrated through action makes a Great American.

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