The Justice Lets Us Walk Away with a Warning

by Kathryn Jean Lopez - October 17th, 2008 - National Review Online

The United States Constitution is “a tiny document that goes unread.” Americans’ ignorance of the Constitution “horrifies” Justice Thomas.

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At the end of every Court session, Justice Thomas reported, he takes his beloved clerks to Gettysburg. Especially after tough sessions, he wants them to be even more idealistic about liberty, the Constitution, and our country. In New York City, less than three weeks before Election Day, he recited words from Lincoln’s stirring address there:

It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Thomas implored those gathered Thursday night — and by extension anyone and everyone who reads these words and their crucial reminder relayed here — to “rededicate yourselves to the promise of liberty.” And in a land where others have died for the privileges we enjoy, ask ourselves “what any of us has done to deserve to live as a free people in a free country.” Let us rededicate ourselves to ensure that “their bequest, this republic, will not perish from this earth. And definitely not on our watch.”

Check back on November 5th. The answer ... to whether this nation is now peopled by such a "me, me, me" generation of selfish greedy grabbers that we are willing to throw away freedom for socialism ... will be known.