Wednesday, September 26, 2007
From imperialism to a nation of law
Luanne Traud
Recent columns
- Marking a difficult anniversary
- My daughter, the voter
- A few new Voices would be nice
- A rush to legislate
From the RoundTable blog
Last week, Virginia Supreme Court Justice Donald Lemons shared a brief story with an audience of international delegates gathered in Colonial Williamsburg:
Stephen Adkins, chief of the Chickahominy tribe, had approached Lemons as he began to work as a member of the state steering committee for the Jamestown Commission. The committee faced the challenge of telling the story of the longest, continuous democracy. It is a story that begins in barbaric imperialism and evolves into a democracy based on the two-volume set of free and fair elections and the rule of law.
Adkins asked: "Tell me when the rule of law was with my people."
The query weighed heavily on the white, middle-aged male jurist. The committee, he said, knew that it could not call the marking of 400 years since Jamestown's founding a "celebration." Instead the word "commemoration" was precisely chosen.
The word allows the majority of Americans to remain unabashedly proud of our romanticized version of history, of our adventurous beginnings and journey to create and defend a liberal democracy.
Yet the word also recognizes that minority parties, two groups in particular, have horrifying stories to tell.
For Native Americans, the arrival of the Discovery, Godspeed and Susan Constant spelled the beginning of their end.
As historian Alan Taylor writes in the latest New Republic: "Preferring to bowl or to explore for gold, the early colonists barely survived by extorting corn from the Indians. Possessing scant surplus to spare for their uninvited guests, the Indians frequently lashed out. One set of villagers killed 17 intruding colonists, stuffed their dead mouths with corn as a sign of contempt, and left the corpses for their countrymen to discover. In revenge, the English resorted to their own theatrical forms of violence. Surprising that village, Captain George Percy and his men killed at least 65 Indians and burned their homes and cornfields. Heading back to Jamestown by boat, the victors threw captive children overboard to shoot for sport. Warfare and new diseases introduced from Europe combined to reduce the Indians of the Tidewater region from 24,000 in 1607 to just 2,000 by 1669."
To this day, the federal government has yet to recognize any of Virginia's native people.
For blacks -- referred to in the Constitution as peculiar forms of property -- the story is equally as brutal.
These 400 years later we're still figuring out relations between the majority and our expanding classes of minorities. We've gotten better at leaving it mostly to the courts to decide. That is how a democracy firmly wedded to the rule of law protects the rights of individuals. Without it, minorities would be forced to succumb to the majority's will.
The panel Lemons moderated during the World Forum on the Future of Democracy focused on protecting religious freedom and minority rights. Judging by the panelists' remarks, our struggles with bigotry, inclusiveness, diversity and crafting a colorblind society pale in comparison with emerging democracies that rely on the personalities of executives (elected and/or religious) rather than the strengths of legislative and judicial systems.
We no longer wage war on those the majority views as different. Or do we? We don't condone violent acts upon individuals, but we haven't as yet backed away from discrimination.
We amend state constitutions to provide that "marriage is between a man and a woman" to explicitly tell gays and lesbians we don't approve of their kind.
We demand action be taken against "illegals" moving into our communities by requiring identification be shown by anyone who doesn't look quite like most of us.
We proffer that our founders practiced Christianity; most of us are Christians; therefore, we do indeed have a national religion.
We allow a school in Louisiana to remain trapped in the pre-civil rights era so that black children must ask permission to sit under a whites-only tree.
We continue to do all this and more. Then we wait -- sometimes painfully long -- for the fair, impartial and independent judiciary, that former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor so eloquently champions, to sort it out. As she told the gathering, our democracy requires that "the rule of law would always constrain the rule of man."
Yes, it must, even when -- especially when -- we fear those who deviate from the majority's norm. This lesson, the very same one we preach to leaders in developing democracies such as those attending the forum, often remains lost on our own masses and some of our leaders. Thankfully, the rule of law mostly protects us from our ignorance.
Traud is a member of The Roanoke Times editorial board.
