“Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once.” — Julius Caesar, Act II, Scene II
John F. Kennedy (1917-1963) wrote Profiles in Courage when he was a U.S. Senator. In it he recounted the stories of earlier senators who had acted courageously at the risk of their personal careers, doing the right thing based on principle even when it meant going against their own constituents and political parties. The book won the Pulitzer Prize for biography in 1957.
Of the eight historical figures covered by Kennedy, one was a Mississippian. Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar (1825-1893) served in both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives after the Civil War. Lamar had been a Confederate Army colonel in the 19th Mississippi Infantry Regiment. At the close of the War, when Robert E. Lee accepted the presidency of a small college in Virginia (now Washington & Lee University), Lamar took a law school professorship at the University of Mississippi. It was from there that he was elected to the House of Representatives in 1872.
While Lamar represented Mississippi in the House, Massachusetts was represented in the Senate by Charles Sumner. Senator Sumner was an abolitionist who hated the South and supported punishing the states that had left the Union. Ante bellum, Lamar had been a secessionist who supported slavery.
Senator Sumner died. As was custom between the two houses of Congress, when a member of the opposite body passed away one member of the other body would appear to formally recognize the decedent. In that capacity, Congressman Lamar was asked to come to the Senate floor to second a motion to honor Sumner.
To the surprise of the Senate chamber and its full gallery, Lamar delivered “a moving eulogy lamenting [Sumner’s] departure” in which he said:
[Charles Sumner] believed that all occasion for strife and distrust between North and South had passed away . . . Is not that the common sentiment – or if it is not, ought it not to be – of the great mass of our people, North and South? . . . Shall we not, over the honored remains of . . . this earnest pleader for the exercise of human tenderness and charity, lay aside the concealments which serve only to perpetuate misunderstandings and distrust, and frankly confess that on both sides we must earnestly desire to be one . . . in feeling and in heart? . . . Would that the spirit of the illustrious dead whom we lament today could speak from the grave to both parties to this deplorable discord in tones which should reach each and every heart throughout this broad territory: “My countrymen! Know one another, and you will love one another.”
Profiles in Courage, Harper & Brothers (1956).
Not quoted in Kennedy’s book, but also stirring, were the humble words with which Lamar began his eulogy:
It was my misfortune perhaps my fault, never to have know this eminent philanthropist and statesman. . . My regret is therefore intensified by the thought that I failed to speak to him out of the fullness of my heart while yet there was time.
Sons of the South, by Clayton Rand; Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York (1961).
When the speech ended, there was “a silence of both meditation and shock [and then] a spontaneous burst of applause rolled out from all sides [Democrat and Republican] . . . Few speeches in American political history have had such immediate impact. Overnight . . . it marked a turning point in the relations between North and South.” Profiles in Courage.
Newspapers in Boston, Massachusetts, praised the speech while newspapers in Canton, Columbus and Meridian, Mississippi, criticized the eulogizer. Kennedy noted that the speech “was a notable triumph [because of Lamar’s] devotion to the national interest and to the truth.” In his opinion, Lamar “was not only a statesman, but also a scholar and one of the few original thinkers of his day.” Id.
Thirty years after President Kennedy’s assassination, his family created the Profiles in Courage Award to recognize contemporary examples of courage that reflect those written about in JFK’s book. Two men with Mississippi connections have been so honored, the more familiar being Governor William F. Winter (1923-2020) who received the award in 2007 “for his extraordinary leadership in championing educational opportunity and racial equality for generations of Mississippi citizens.” Source: jfklibrary.org.
Lesser-known for his ties to this state is Alberto J. Mora (1952- ) who arrived in Mississippi at the age of seven when his father, a medical doctor, joined the faculty of the University of Mississippi Medical Center. The family had fled Cuba in 1959 after Castro’s takeover. Young Mora attended Saint Richard’s Catholic School and graduated from Saint Joseph High School before leaving the state for college and law school. He was appointed to government positions by three different presidents, including both Presidents Bush and Clinton. As General Counsel of the Navy, Mora was in the Pentagon when it was struck by Islamic terrorist high-jackers on September 11, 2001. It was for his opposition to the physical abuse of detainees at Guantanamo Bay in 2002 that Mora received the Profiles award in 2006. Id.
Profiles in Courage is a reminder that courage is an uncommon virtue and that public opinion misdirected by dishonorable politicians and deceptive commentators has always existed. In my opinion, one reason for the book’s appeal is that it reinforces hope that brave statesmen will always rise above popular opinion and act boldly in times of crisis in America. Like L.Q.C. Lamar, courageous men grow in character over time and sometimes even change their old convictions and prejudices. Pray that God will continue to bless America with such men, and women, one of whom might one day make a speech or gesture that ends the misunderstandings and distrust of today.
Chip Williams is a Northsider.
