Noah Webster's Letter
to "President" Clinton
Noah Webster writing President Clinton? Well, not exactly. But in 1801 Noah
Webster did write a letter on the Presidency which, when read today, certainly
seems to most readers to be directed at the Presidency of Bill Clinton. See
what you think.
(Noah Webster, authored the first American
dictionary, and served as a soldier in the American Revolution and as a
legislator in Massachusetts following the Revolution. He was one of the first
Americans to call for the Constitutional Convention, was responsible for the
copyright and patent protection clause in Article 1, Section 8, Paragraph 8 of
the Constitution, and was a leader in securing the ratification of the
Constitution. Webster helped found Amherst College, was a leading textbook
writer, and is titled "Schoolmaster to America" for helping set
American education on a sound footing. He was born in 1758 and died in 1843.)
Noah Webster's Observations on the
President's Views of Morality
Is it possible that you have adopted the opinion . . . that integrity in
private life has no manner of connection with political character? . . . This
opinion is now openly and unblushingly defended by a large proportion of your
supporters.
Whatever may be the fact in regard to your opinions, of your practice the
citizens of the United States must of right be competent judges. It is an
unquestionable fact that in selecting men for the Executive offices of
government, you have had no regard to their moral characters, nor to the estimation
in which they are held by the moral and respectable part of their
fellow-citizens. You have taken as your confidential advisers, and appointed to
important places of trust, men who openly revile and hold in contempt the
religious institutions of their country - men who openly blaspheme the name and
attributes of God and Jesus Christ men who live in the habitual indulgence of
the most detestable vices, as adultery and lewdness - men of desperate fortunes
and suspected integrity - men who violate the laws and destroy the peace of
their families by these and other atrocious crimes - men who aim to destroy the
first and most essential duties of life by publicly reviling the ordinance of
marriage and its consequent duties. In this practice, you have departed from
the maxims which all nations have heretofore held sacred and opened a wide door
for the entrance of every species of corruption and disorder in the Executive
departments. . . .
However lightly you may think of this subject, all history is a witness of
the truth of the principle, that good morals are essential to the faithful and
upright discharge of public functions. The moral character of a man is an
entire and indivisible thing - it cannot be pure in one part and defiled in
another. A man may indeed be addicted, for a time, to one vice and not to
another; but it is a solemn truth that any considerable breach in the moral
sense facilitates the admission of every species of vice. The love of virtue
first yields to the strongest temptation; but when a part of the rampart
[defense] is broken down, it is rendered more accessible to every successive
assailant. Hence, no man whose character is stained with habitual vices can
possibly deserve and enjoy a full portion of confidence in a public office.
But a worse consequence, if possible, flowing from your practice of
appointing profligate [immoral] men to office, is the encouragement it offers
to vice. Nothing tends more to restrain men from open licentiousness than for
public opinion to frown on immorality. . . . But when the most impious and
scandalous vices are no objection against a candidate for office, what a flood
of immoralities may we not expect from the removal of this powerful restraint
on the vicious propensities of man! . . . Corruption of morals is rapid enough
in any country, without a bounty [assistance] from government. And . . . the
Chief-Magistrate [the President] of the United States should be the last man to
accelerate its progress.
Noah Webster's Observations on the
President's Not Telling the Truth
[W]hen [leaders] depart from the plain, strait path of justice, into the
crooked, blind ways of intrigue and party policy, and instead of aiming with a
single eye at the public good, consult their own private views and those of
their friends, it is hardly possible for them not to cross their own track. The
path of rectitude [honesty] is so broad and strait that the difficulty is not
so much in keeping as in mistaking it. . . . [I]t is scarcely possible for a
man of pure rectitude [honesty] of mind to fall into an inconsistency. This is
remarked by judges of courts who have numberless opportunities to observe the
hearts of witnesses. The witness who is under no bias and has a single view to
truth, however ignorant of letters he may be, is never embarrassed to make his
narration agree in all its parts. He tells a plain, strait, probable story, and
no sophistry of the parties or their lawyers can make one part inconsistent
with another.
Noah Webster's Observations on the
President's Not Respecting the Law
When men of no principle observe others violating the laws with impunity
[without punishment], they are emboldened to enter upon violations of the same
or other laws; and who can calculate what immense mischief will result to
society from the removal of those restraints which all nations, as well as our
own legislature, have judged it expedient to impose on the licentious desires
of men? Who will respect laws that are not enforced? Who will regard the
administration of justice when the Chief-Magistrate [the President] strips . .
. the law of its terrors, and disarms even legislation of its operative force,
by annihilating the effect of its sanctions? . . .
If the Chief-Magistrate is induced to dispense with the execution of
salutary [wise] laws for the sake of conciliating the favor of a party and
securing a re-election, our quadrennial choice [four-year elections] of that
officer will operate to enervate [weaken] the Executive powers of the
government and be subservient to the purposes of ambition.
Noah Webster's Observations on the
President's Appointments
[Y]ou represent it as a difficult thing, and one that excites anxious
concern, to place the interests of your fellow-citizens in the hands of honest
men, with understanding sufficient for their station. No, Sir, this is not the
point of difficulty - honest men of understanding sufficient are to be found in
multitudes in every town in the [nation]. The difficulty with you has been to
select honest men with understanding sufficient from among your partizans; and
this, in some places, is a thing of extreme difficulty. - Another thing equally
embarrassing to you has been so to distribute offices as to reward your most
faithful servants with the best places, and at the same time, give the least offence
to those who could not be gratified. . . . In every nation, a disregard of the
moral character of a candidate for office has accompanied the progress of
national decline and been the prelude to great public calamities or total
destruction.
Noah Webster's Observations on the
President's Lack of Religious Sincerity
You . . . mention the subject of religion in a way calculated to remove from
the public mind the impression that you are an infidel. . . . [I]t is a truth
sanctioned in history that in the most profligate [immoral] ages and most
corrupt states, that man has been most esteemed and confided in who has
venerated religion and obeyed its injunctions. . . . In this particular, as in
many others, we see no marks of great talents or sound intelligence - no proofs
of a clear discernment of the nature of your duties and the danger of your
station; but unequivocal evidence of vanity, self-sufficiency and extreme
imprudence.