Garry Wills

When Esquire magazine commissioned an article from Garry Wills about Richard Nixon and the New Hampshire primary—the opening salvo of the 1968 presidential election campaign— the assumption was that this would be a requiem for a has-been who had dictated his own political obituary to reporters six years earlier, at the close of his failed attempt to win the California governorship.
Yet less than one year later, when Nixon stood on the steps of the Capitol to take the oath of office, there show more was a sense of inevitability that he should become president at that fraught moment in U. S. history.
One of the points Wills stresses in Nixon Agonistes is that it’s a fallacy to believe that the lumbering, flawed American political process churns out, every four years, the best man (and it has always been a man so far). It would be more accurate, Wills maintains, to say that it serves up the most appropriate for a given moment. And this was never so true, in his view, as in 1968. As he writes in his Preface, “What is best and weakest in America goes out to reciprocating strengths and deficiencies in Richard Nixon.”
A second inevitability, in retrospect, is that one article assignment would lead to more, and these, in turn—given that Wills’s expertise extends to a deep-rooted knowledge of the origins of American political philosophy—would result in this book.
Nixon Agonistes stands out in the genre of books that report on political campaigns—a genre that blossomed in the wake of the success of T. H. White’s Making of the President 1960. Less than a third of its six hundred pages are devoted to that. And although Wills is an insightful, observant reporter, it is not this that gives this book its continued relevance.
Instead, the importance of this book lies in the interpretive framework Wills constructs for his deeper analysis. Much of what he writes in these chapters remains true of American society.
This framework views the American political experiment as a market, or rather an interplay of four markets—moral (personified by Ralph Waldo Emerson), economic (Adam Smith), intellectual (John Stuart Mill), and political (Woodrow Wilson). The underlying philosophy of these intersecting markets is, Wills writes, classic liberalism. For all the surface conflict between left and right in the American political spectrum, the debates are framed in terms that originate here, assumptions often unexamined.
Yet classic liberalism, which Wills explains as a combination of the political philosophy of John Locke and the economic views of Adam Smith, has broken into two branches, with those who continue to uphold Smith finding themselves on the right, where their strange bedfellows tend to authoritarian views, while students of Locke tend to cluster on the left. The last intellectual to fully unite both strands was John Stuart Mill. Even Woodrow Wilson was, in his time, an anachronism.
Yet it was Wilson who was Nixon’s model—something Nixon never hid and which Wills takes seriously. But if Wilson was already, in his time, a throwback to an earlier political philosophy, what does that make Nixon? For Wills, “Nixon’s victory was the nation’s concession of defeat, an admission that we have no politics left but the old individualism, a web of myths that have lost their magic.” Wills asks in the title of the book’s final chapter whether Nixon is not the last liberal. By the way, it’s important to recognize that, in addition to writing of “classic liberalism,” at times, Wills uses the term “liberal” in the way it’s commonly used in American political discourse, for instance, in his criticism of Arthur Schlesinger and other academics.
For all the strength of Wills’s analysis, suggesting that Nixon is the last liberal demonstrates the limits of punditry. Like Nixon’s election, this book is a product of its historical moment. Mired in an unwinnable war, riven by domestic turbulence, it truly seemed that—in the memorable phrase of Yeats that Wills used for the title of his second chapter—the center could not hold.
For Wills, classic liberalism, for all its accomplishments, was in terminal decline. The emphasis on individual achievement, inextricably wedded to emulation; the dream of getting ahead balanced by the fear of falling behind had created what he at one point calls “moral monsters.”The crisis of the self-made man Wills diagnoses in the subtitle of his book is not only Nixon but the mainstream American formed by Horatio Alger, Emerson, and Peale. He laments that “[t]here is, in our legends, no heroism of the office clerk, no stable industrial ‘peasantry’ of the men who actually make the system work.” His prescription is that the “facts of community life” be integrated into America’s political theory.
A half-century later, any faltering step in this direction is still decried as “collectivist,” and our political system seems even more in need of an overhaul than it did in 1968, placed in office in 2016, a caricature of Nixon’s worst traits and impulses. The American myth is nothing if not resilient. show less

Although I finished reading Gary Willis’ book The Rosary just this year, the book and I crossed paths eight years ago. Shortly after Cassie and I married, her paternal grandmother, Pauline (Mom-mom), passed away at the age of 96. We traveled by way of Ohio to Newark, Delaware to attend the funeral.

Mom-mom and her oldest daughter, Maria (Aunt Maya) were devout Catholics. They were sure to find a local Church to attend Mass when they visited Cassie’s family in Ohio. Mom-mom’s funeral show more Mass was the first time I’d ever set foot inside a Catholic church. I remember being, funeral aside, my interest in seeing what a Catholic church was like.

I recall the small fountain of water in the vestibule where people dipped their fingers and genuflected. I also noticed people bowing and kneeling at, what seemed to me, random spots in the church or before they entered their pews. Everywhere there were icons, crosses, and Christian religious symbols. There were a few prayer cards with different Saints on them, which I collected.

When mass began the priest entered the church swinging a large, smoking metal ball that filled the air with incense. I don’t remember much about the Mass except surprise that it didn’t feel “ungodly” as I had I had believed it might. I also remember there was a strange communion where the Priest handed each person the bread and everyone drank from the same cup. For some reason I do remember knowing that I wasn’t allowed to take part. I also remember my father-in-law participating in communion. It seemed strange to me at the time considering his views on church and Christianity, but looking back it makes sense. Being a bit older I can see it as beautiful and broken moment between mother and son.

After the mass I asked Aunt Maya a few questions about Catholicism. I don’t remember the specifics except for about the kneeling. She told me that it was proper to bow in reverence when passing in front of the alter. Suddenly all the kneeling didn’t seem so random anymore. She seemed excited to answer my questions and since religious knowledge is my drug of choice I was happy to receive.

Sometime after the funeral, during a visit to Ohio, Cassie’s dad handed me a book about the Rosary. He said that Aunt Maya had requested it from the Columbus library for me to read. It had a wonderful painting of muscled angels pulling men upwards with a beaded rope. The image was set against a striking blue back drop, the hue of which has never left my mind. The most striking thing I remember is the big red, gilded badge that held the book’s title and author’s name. The red circle against the alien blue was seared into my brain.

I took it home to Kentucky, but I’m not sure I read a full chapter. I flipping through a few pages and had some judgmental thoughts about about worshiping Mary. Flash forward to 2014. While browsing the basement shelves in my favorite used book store I see something standing out among the spines of the other books. It was like glittering topaz, so I pulled it out and saw the ruby-red badge. All those forgotten memories of Aunt Maya’s Rosary book came rushing back in an instant. Being a different person than I was eight years prior I bought it and committed to reading it this time.

I expected a historical or theological account of the Rosary, but I was pleasantly surprised. Willis relegates those two aspects to the introductory chapter, instead focusing on contemplative prayer. The entire feel like a guided contemplative journey.

For those unfamiliar, the Rosary isn’t just a hip piece of jewelry, it’s a tool for contemplative prayer. The crucifix, and each bead represent a creed to recite, prayer to say , or event to contemplate. The book gives cursory overview of the prayers and creeds. Spending a little time explaining how to pray the Rosary and giving a brief historical overview.

If you’re interested in knowing more about those things I’ve created a quick and dirty write up on the Rosary. You can read it here.

What Willis devotes his time and energy to is contemplating the events of Christ’s life. In the context of the Rosary, those events are The Mysteries. Each set of ten “Hail Mary” beads on the Rosary is separated by a single bead. That single bead marks where the supplicant is to contemplate The Mysteries.

There are four sets of Mysteries, the Joyful, The Luminous, the Sorrowful, and the Glorious. The Joyful mysteries recount events in Mary’s life from the Annunciation through Jesus’ childhood. The Luminous Mysteries focus on events and miracle from Jesus’ ministry. The Sorrowful mysteries remember events from Christ’s trial and crucifixion. The Glorious Mysteries reflect on Jesus’ resurrection, ascension, sending of the holy spirit.

For each Mystery the author first gives the reader the related biblical accounts of the event in his own translation. Then he spends 5-10 pages discussing various contemplative insights of those events in order to show how contemplation of the Mystery leads to the fruit of the Mystery. For example, contemplating the circumstances and characters of the crucifixion account may increase the spirit of forgiveness.

Willis also offers the paintings of Renaissance artist Tintoretto as another point of contemplation for each mystery. It may seem strange to include guidance in contemplating paintings as well, but it fits well with the intent of the book. The author’s goal is to encourage contemplative prayer, so by including the paintings he encourages readers to seek beyond the Rosary. He says: “Perhaps the most time-tested aids to meditation are visual images. The use of visual images to help one meditate on the gospel event is recommended by John Paul II who said: ‘Using a suitable icon to portray [the particular mystery] is, as it were, to open up a scenario on which to focus our attention’”

Given my past reasons for discounting this book, my favorite parts were about Mary. Most protestant children only know “the facts” about Mary, her viginity, her meek nature, her devotion to God. Willis’ contemplative thoughts about Mary go well past this low hanging fruit. He even goes as far to suggest that “facts” of Mary are inconsequential to the truth and meaning of her life. In my favorite passage, he explains:

“Christ was born of the Holy Spirit as well as of Mary. This is not a gynecological datum but a theological one. For the evangelist it was a visible sign of God’s gracious intervention in connection with the becoming of His son.

What is emphasized in the theological sense of [Mary’s] virginity is the fresh start being given to history, God breaking in on the run of human affairs with new things to be seen and done.Mary’s acceptance of this mystery is a model for us in staying open to the incursions of the divine into our life.

Christ will even make it possible for those in his mystical body to have their own kind of virgin birth. That is the meaning Saint Augustine found in the Annunciation: ‘You who are astonished at what is wrought in Mary’s body, imitate it in your souls inmost chamber. Sincerely believe in God’s justice, and you conceive Christ. Bring forth words of salvation, and you have given birth to Christ.’ We are taken, by the mystery of our rebirth into Christ in baptism, into the inner drama of the Incarnation, receiving Christ along with Mary and bringing him forth to others in our risen life. “

As I’ve said before, It’s a shame how much beauty and depth Protestant theology loses by discounting Mary. That little section still rocks my mind when I read it.

I think this book does a great service to the Rosary as well as other tools of religious contemplation, Christian or otherwise. When contemplative tools, like the Rosary get reduced to mechanical parsing of beads or rote repetition of prayers, the beauty and usefulness are lost. Contemplative tools (icons, altars, symbols, etc..) are not magic baubles, but if treated as such becoming just decoration. They are useful in so far as they help the devotee to focus their mind. This book does well to bring that to light.

I’m thankful that Aunt Maya planted the seed way back when. I’m grateful that this book re-found me later in life as well. Even if you have no interest in the Rosary, Catholicism, or contemplative prayer I still recommend this book. It’s filled with beautiful prose and challenging thoughts and readers will see the benefit of engaging contemplatively with the things they read. And hey! Isn’t reading a form of prayer anyway? show less

Five standalone essays comprise Wills's argument that Lincoln's very short address at Gettysburg in fact re-visioned the American (U.S.) nation's understanding of itself, a new understanding so broadly successful as to no longer seem novel or challenging, today.

EVENT
Lincoln's audience did not arrive at Gettysburg to hear him but for Edward Everett, the leading orator of the American Greek Revival. As anticipated, Everett's presentation took over 2 hours, delivered on a raised platform and show more from memory. As the American Founders looked to the Roman Republic for an ideal polity, so the Romanticists of the mid-1800s looked to Greek Democracy. Everett referenced Pericles' funeral oratory at Athens, comparing that funeral rite to the new cemetery at Gettysburg. At the time, Everett's speech was considered a resounding success; today, most Americans have no idea it was even delivered.

Lincoln had a message for the nation, but not the venue for delivering it. Everett and his venerating public provided one, and Lincoln knew how to best take advantage. Lincoln's oratory followed the expectations of adherents of the Greek Revival, broadly taking as his theme Birth - Death - Rebirth. But of what? Not of the North, nor even of those formerly enslaved. Not the Union government, nor its Army. Lincoln calls for the American Nation to be born again, and frames his appeal in terms of the Declaration of Independence, signed by individual Founders, not the U.S. Constitution, ratified by the several States.

CEMETERY
Gettysburg not only is the site of a battle but the resting place of soldiers fallen there. This was of necessity: the deaths on an immense scale and over just three days, in high summer. Such pragmatic motives might have rendered the resulting graveyard strictly utilitarian, but the nation also was in the midst of the rural-cemetery movement. Cemeteries were places of instruction for the living, not merely hygienic means for handling the dead, and so Gettysburg was designed to help "instill healing truths, of natural death and rebirth, in the cycle of seasons". [65]

Lincoln recognised the setting as well as as he did his audience in fitting his intended message. Lincoln's revolutionary claim, commonplace today, is that the core of the American Nation is an idea, not a legal structure or a political framework; this idea is expressed primarily not in the Constitution, rather in the Declaration of Independence; and the significance of the Civil War, and indeed of American history altogether, is thereafter defined in Lincoln's preferred understanding.

Lincoln wrote years before Gettysburg, prior to his first inauguration: "I am exceedingly anxious that that thing which they [American Revolutionaries] struggled for, that something even more than National Independence, that something that held out a great promise to all the people of the world for all time to come -- I am exceedingly anxious that this Union, this Constitution, and the liberty of the people shall be perpetrated in accordance with the original idea for which that struggle was made." [emphasis Wills] [85]

Since Lincoln thinks of America's claim as intellectual, the Gettysburg Address is highly abstract in its thought and language. But if the argument of Lincoln is abstract, generalizing, and intellectual, his imagery is organic and familial. This is taken from the rural cemetery's normal store of images, having to do with the fertility of nature, the life-giving earth to which the dead have returned. [87-88]

also: 19th Century America's Culture of Death, and concomitant preoccupation with melancholia and liminal states; William Saunders, the architect of Mount Auburn, America's cultural center and the inauguration of the rural-cemetery movement; Lincoln's psychobiographers.

TRANSCENDENTALISM
As a lawyer, Lincoln settled on a general strategy of identifying the "nub" of his position, and then framing his argument around that. Anything extraneous to that position was used as leverage against his adversary, whether to concede in argument, offer up for compromise, or sacrifice for the prime objective. Opponents and observers alike could be confused by this focus, thinking Lincoln did not believe in aspects which Lincoln ceded or on which he remained silent. Wills argues instead, these concessions and compromises merely indicate Lincoln did not deem the underlying points necessary, nothing more.

The opening third of the essay examines Lincoln's concern to preserve political equality, framing it as the chief American value as expressed in the Declaration of Independence; social equality may be desirable but is not crucial and so, subject to compromise if necessary. Wills reviews myriad compromises Lincoln made on matters respecting the black American's equality in society, to ensure never compromising or diluting each and every American person's equality when considered by government or the law.

The last two-thirds discusses Transcendental ideals generally, especially as enunciated by Francis Parker whom Lincoln read in some detail. Parker was one activist (not the sole) taking the position that the Declaration serves as the highest ideal of the American nation, rendering then the Constitution a vital symbol and yet only an approximation of the ideal. Parker's triple-expression of democracy as government "of the people, by the people, and for the people" a recurrent theme in Lincoln's own political speeches, indeed included at the conclusion of the Gettysburg Address.

Americans at that time were reverent toward (prejudiced in favor of) the Declaration of Independence; yet many of them were also prejudiced in favor of slavery. Lincoln kept arguing, in ingenious ways, that they must, in consistency, give up one or the other prejudice. The two cannot coexist in the same mind once their mutual enmity is recognized. [100]

PROPOSITION
Lincoln's political position can be summarized as consistent adherence to dual principles: the equality (political equality) of all people without exception, as argued in the preceding essay; and preserving the Union of the United States. Lincoln's rationale for Union followed Daniel Webster and Henry Clay, departing from these latter primarily insofar as each was willing, for separate reasons, to compromise on Slavery, which Lincoln would not do.

The Declaration of Independence also served Lincoln tactically when arguing for Union. "Webster argued that Americans had constituted themselves a single people long before the Constitution was drafted or ratified." [129] This also was grounds for Lincoln arguing that just as the Southern States had no ethical or political right to secede unilaterally, so too the Northern States had no right to emancipate unilaterally; the right rested with the entire American people, not the several or individual States. This position had practical ramifications which Lincoln was scrupulous to uphold: in how he understood his wartime powers as Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy, in how far and in which circumstances he could extend emancipation. His position, though it provoked confusion and frustration in others not understanding his careful reasoning, was consistent and of a piece with his thinking, and this position he framed in the Address at Gettysburg. Though not everyone understood it then any better than today, Wills argues it is significant that prior to the Address, the common phrase was "The United States are a free government" but afterward, it was always only "The United States is a free government." [145]

also: The status of belligerents versus (non-citizen) enemies of the state; legal grounds and extent for emancipation, as a purely military act; elevating equality to the level of a Constitutional principle (though the Constitution itself does not include the term).

RHETORIC
Lincoln's rhetoric thoroughly modern, even as it borrowed knowingly from classical tropes. The style, in marked contrast to Everett's two-hour-plus oration from memory, his prose flowery and mannered. Lincoln's address is exceedingly brief, just 272 words, a remarkably incisive statement of values. A story long shared: Lincoln's oration was over before the photographer had time for a picture; true or not, there are no known photographs of Lincoln giving his speech. And yet the brevity belies the sweeping compass of the Address, and in no way reflects Lincoln's casual approach to the remarks he gave. A lifelong student of rhetoric and speech, Lincoln worked hard at the style which would come to seem so effortlessly modern.

Lincoln's remarks anticipated the shift into vernacular rhythms that Mark Twain would complete twenty years later. Hemingway claimed that all modern American novels are the offspring of Huckleberry Finn. It is no greater exaggeration to say that all modern political prose descends from the Gettysburg Address. [148]

also: Lincoln's poetry and his rhetorical studies; John Hay; drafts of earlier speeches; relentless search for the "right word".

EPILOGUE
Lincoln's Second Inaugural as the "missing half" of the Gettysburg Address, considering "sin" as was wholly omitted at Gettysburg. His clear-eyed view of war as a cover for crimes and lost rationalism: the Mexican War he opposed, the Black Hawk War he served in, even including the Civil War he conducted.

//

APPENDICES
While Wills is remarkably concise in his essays, his argument is seldom straightforward in that he reviews myriad influences and historical trends. I found the essays difficult to summarize.

Surprisingly, fully half of the book's total pages are taken up with various appendices. These treat of variations in Lincoln's text, examined clearly but with an eye for meaningful variations in transcripts and drafts; disputes over just where in Gettysburg Cemetery the speech was delivered; and four funeral orations which influenced both Everett's and Lincoln's orations.

The essays are preceded by photos of principle personages, map of Gettysburg Memorial Cemetery -- but no photo of Lincoln at Gettysburg, as none was found until well after publication of this book.

//

Lincoln was able to achieve the loftiness, ideality and brevity of the Gettysburg Address because he had spent a good part of the 1850s repeatedly relating all the most sensitive issues of the day to the Declaration's supreme principle. If all men are created equal, they cannot be property. They cannot be ruled by owner-monarchs. They must be self-governing in the minimal sense of self-possession. Their equality cannot be denied if the nation is to live by its creed, and voice it, and test it, and die for it. All these matters are now contained in the pregnant formulae of the Address. Nothing more specific needs to be mentioned, because a nation free to proclaim its ideal is freed, again, to approximate that ideal over the years, in ways that run far beyond any specific or limited reforms, even one so important as emancipation. A return to the ideal is an escape from distracting particulars, a recovery of the long-term tasks of equality and self-government. [120] show less

PAPAL SIN should be required reading for all Catholic adults and highly recommended for everyone else.

An unintended result is that whatever religion you do or do not have,
you will become more aware of ALL lies and deceit, thanks to Saint Augustine,
and are likely to become a more moral person.

This book is meticulously researched and documented, chapter by chapter,
demonstrating the most recent (beginning around Pius IX) Vatican and Catholic deceits.

Its scope is worldwide and by now, 17 show more years after publication,
Garry Wills would be having an enhanced field day with the connections between
rampant world population, world climate change, and the Vatican's ongoing idiocy on contraception,
with professed celibates controlling the intimate lives of married and unmarried Catholics.

As well, all of his predictions
regarding an emerging Gay Priesthood have come true, with sad results and jaw-dropping deceits.

His coverage of the cult of the Virgin Mary confirms the bewilderment many of us feel at the endless
mention of SEX in a spiritual setting - why is her hymen glorified or how can you not think about sex
every time it is mentioned?

The Catholic Church, while offering much needed help and solace for the sick and dying,
is a troubling place.

As well, the author confirms that "popes" are never mentioned in the Bible and,
unlike the priests who are modeled after them,
all of the apostles were married.

The alleged divinity and infallibility of the popes receives the condemnation they each deserve.

Unforgettable. show less