America will survive

America will survive
by
Chaplain Kathie Costos

As most Americans have spent the last few years stunned by what is happening to our country, I have often wondered if America can survive. People are out of work through no fault of their own. No matter how responsible they were, hard working, loyal, or how much they depended on their paycheck, they are left wondering how they are supposed to make it from one day to the next. Homeowners guilty of dreaming the great American dream of owning a home have seen those dreams turn into nightmares and they wonder how long they can hold on or where to go when they can hold on no more. The economical problems are now news because those who have had control over all of it are now the ones suffering. Average Americans have been suffering with these problems for years. It took the losses of some giants falling for the government to officially pay attention to the crisis we've all lived with while being ignored.

What many Americans do not remember is that these days are days we've lived through before, survived, overcame and held our heads high. It took average men of means and importance to achieve all of this each and every time but the first was when a lawyer from Massachusetts saw what was wrong and decided to do something about it. His name was John Adams.

Adams, John, 1735–1826, 2d President of the United States (1797–1801), b. Quincy (then in Braintree), Mass., grad. Harvard, 1755. John Adams and his wife, Abigail Adams, founded one of the most distinguished families of the United States; their son, John Quincy Adams, was also President.
Early Career
A plain-spoken, tough-minded lawyer, scrupulously honest and dauntingly erudite, but also sometimes quarrelsome and stubborn, Adams emerged into politics as an opponent of the Stamp Act and, after moving to Boston, was a central figure in the Revolutionary group opposing the British measures that were to lead to the American Revolution. Sent (1774) to the First Continental Congress, he distinguished himself, and in the Second Continental Congress he was a moderate but forceful revolutionary. He proposed George Washington as commander in chief of the Continental troops to bind Virginia more tightly to the cause for independence. He favored the Declaration of Independence, was a member of its drafting committee, and argued eloquently for the document.

Diplomatic Career
As a diplomat seeking foreign aid for the newly established nation, he had a thorny career. Appointed (1777) to succeed Silas Deane as a commissioner to France, he accomplished little before going home (1779) to become a major figure in the Massachusetts constitutional convention. He then returned (1779) to France, where he quarreled with Vergennes and was able to lend little assistance to Benjamin Franklin in his peace efforts. His attempts to negotiate a loan from the Netherlands were fruitless until 1782.

Adams was one of the negotiators who drew up the momentous Treaty of Paris (1783; see Paris, Treaty of) to end the American Revolution. After this service he obtained another Dutch loan and then was envoy (1785–88) to Great Britain, where he met with British coldness and unwillingness to discuss the problems growing out of the treaty. He asked for his own recall and ended a significant but generally discouraging diplomatic career.

Presidency
In the United States once more, he was chosen Vice President and served throughout George Washington's administration (1789–97). Although he inclined to conservative policies, he functioned somewhat as a balance wheel in the partisan contest between Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson. In the 1796 election Adams was chosen to succeed Washington as President despite the surreptitious opposition of Hamilton.

The Adams administration was one of crisis and conflict, in which the President showed an honest and stubborn integrity, and though allied with Hamilton and the conservative property-respecting Federalists, he was not dominated by them in their struggle against the vigorously rising, more broadly democratic forces led by Jefferson. Though the Federalists were pro-British and strongly opposed to post-Revolutionary France, Adams by conciliation prevented the near war of 1798 (see XYZ Affair) from developing into a real war between France and the United States. Nor did the President wholeheartedly endorse the Alien and Sedition Acts (1798), aimed at the Anti-Federalists. He was, however, detested by his Jeffersonian enemies, and in the election of 1800 he and Hamilton were both overwhelmed by the tide of Jeffersonian democracy. By the end of his term, Adams had proved to be a generally unpopular president, deeply respected but not beloved.

Retirement
After 1801 Adams lived in retirement at Quincy, issuing sober and highly respected political statements and writing and receiving many letters, notably those to and from Jefferson. Their famous correspondence was edited by Lester J. Cappon in The Adams-Jefferson Letters (1959). By remarkable coincidence he and Jefferson died on the same day, Independence Day, July 4, 1826.
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Adams, along with Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson decided that they could and should set their sites on a better nation, a more "perfect" nation. Others joined them but it took the vision and determination of the founding fathers to do it. Along with George Washington, they would stop at nothing until it was achieved.

These men were perfect in no way at all but it takes a unique individual to have that kind of mind that declared to the world, this tyranny will not stand. There were some loyalist to the King and England that caused some of our countrymen to fight against the Patriots causing a civil war as well as the Revolutionary war. Many times the founding fathers believed it was fighting a losing battle and they were beaten down but they rose up again and finished the battle for independence. They won and we, this young nation, became a symbol to the rest of the world.

This is something that we can do again. It takes men and women of courage, determination and an abundance of love for this nation to rise up and say, this tyranny will not stand once more. It takes a true patriot and visionary to see what we can become to lift us out of this despaired state. We have been here before and we will survive even this if people of good conscience once again have the passion which achieved all of this in the first place. America is loved always as we love our own children but when America is wrong, for the sake of the nation, we correct it's path and right it's way. We do not sit silently oblivious afraid to speak or see. We take pride in our country when our country does the right thing, takes care of her people and provides for the general welfare instead of the bank accounts of the mighty. We also feel shame when our leaders bring about changes that harm the people of this nation, destroy our reputation and word of honor. This nation means more than one man or one party. This nation will survive but if we do not find the loyalty to this nation that causes us to take action for her behalf, it will not thrive.

This requires the best and brightest minds we have within our lands to lead the way. It is also up to us to demand it.

Senior Chaplain Kathie Costos
Namguardianangel@aol.com
www.Namguardianangel.org
www.Woundedtimes.blogspot.com
"The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportional to how they perceive veterans of early wars were treated and appreciated by our nation." - George Washington