Talk is Cheap

In the early1830s, several showdowns took place between the federal government and South Carolina, nominally over a taxation issue but in reality about something much more serious. The issue had been brewing for some years. With the federal government increasingly coming under northern domination, and the South fearful for its way of life—including its economy and the slavery on which it rested—southern states were getting leery of growing federal power.  in 1828, South Carolina published its Exposition and Protest, secretly authored by Vice President and South Carolinian John C. Calhoun. Calhoun’s penning of the Exposition and Protest was remarkably similar to Vice President Thomas Jefferson’s secret authorship of the Kentucky Resolution of 1798, which likewise denounced federal overreaching—in his case the Alien and Sedition Acts.

            By 1830 there were high-profile debates in Congress on state nullification of federal law, and even hushed talk of the possibility of state secession from the Union. On Jefferson’s birthday that year, there was a tense confrontation between states’ rights southerners and the unionist president.

            Unfortunately for South Carolina, Andrew Jackson—ironically, also a South Carolinian by birth—was that president. And Jackson was almost fanatically devoted to the Union. And Jackson was both a violent man and an almost unbelievably tough and willful one. With his Jefferson Day toast, he threw down the gauntlet. “Our Federal union. It must be preserved.” We have reports that that by the end of that toast, Calhoun’s hands were shaking so much that wine was spilling from his glass.

            Soon thereafter, a member of Congress from South Carolina called on Jackson and asked if the president had any message for his friends in that state. Jackson’s reply is legend.

“Tell them from me,” the president said “that they can talk and write resolutions and print threats to their hearts’ content. But if one drop of blood be shed there in defiance of the laws of the United States, I will hang the first man of them I can get my hands on to the first tree I can find.”

The thing to remember about this statement is that it was not empty posturing. Jackson meant it. Literally. He had actually, on his own authority, personally hanged people before (as well as shot them to death and beat them to within an inch of their lives).

Theodore Roosevelt, another vigorous president, followed the rule of speaking softly and carrying a big stick. Jackson wasn’t like that. His speech was violent and threatening. But he was perfectly willing and able to back that speech up with strong action when he needed to. You don’t believe him? You think he’s bluffing? Go ahead. Try him. Trust me, you’ll be sorry.

But though Jackson differed from Roosevelt in this way, there was one trap that both men assiduously avoided, and that is the mirror opposite of the big stick. The trap is simply this: screaming at the top of your lungs while shaking a twig. Jackson spoke; Roosevelt didn’t; but both of them had big sticks and were ready, willing, and able to use them.

To the point: I’m clad that Cardinal-designate Dolan has come out today and said that the so-called “compromise” that ourdread sovereign Obama has graciously deigned to offer us accommodates nothing,corrects nothing, and changes nothing. But all he’s done here is to advocate judicial challenges and legislative correction. I’ve written elsewhere that whether or not the courts will strike down the HHS ruling is somewhat iffy, and I can’t believe that enough congressional Democrats would go along with an attempt to overturn it. Cardinal-designate Dolan need to state, very clearly, that Catholic institutions will not—cannot—obey this law, no matter what the courts and Congress do (or fail to do). He needs the administration to be very clear on what is going to happen—massive civil disobedience to an unjust rule that arguably violates the First Amendment and certainly violates the natural law. He needs to go ahead and tell the administration the lengths to which Catholics will go. Were he to do so, it would save everybody a whole bunch of, in Jackson’s words, talk and resolutions.

Too much talk simply makes the administration think that this might actually be negotiable, that there is actually some sort of middle ground that will allow Catholics to violate their consciences, but only a little bit. From a Catholic perspective, this is simple. If the law forces us to cooperate in evil, then we can’t do it. So if Obama is really dead-set on having Catholics provide abortifacients to people, then let’s all get clear, right now, that despite whatever words are uttered or press releases issued or interviews granted or Oval Office meetings held, at the end either Obama backs down completely, or thousands—maybe millions—of Catholics go to jail—and in an election year.

Assuming, of course, that the bishops haven’t alienated all those Catholics in the last forty years.