Yes, We Want Our Leaders to Be Moral

Why aren’t basic virtues, which distinguished many of our past leaders, part of the national conversation anymore?

Illustration by The Epoch Times, Getty Images, Shutterstock

A national poll conducted by Harris X in the summer of 2023 found that a majority of Americans thought that politicians should focus more on moral leadership than on practical outcomes. When asked a second question “What do you most closely associate with moral leadership?” a majority of Democrats, Republicans, and Independents selected trust and honesty for the top of the list.

Further agreement ended there. From the list provided by the pollsters, Democrats most closely associated moral leadership with DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) and fair treatment of others. Republicans selected family values and the ideals of the Founding Fathers. Independents selected family values for their second choice of association with moral leadership, then chose right vs. wrong for the number three slot.

So yes, Americans want moral leaders. Where we disagree is in our definition of moral.

What is striking about this survey are the absence of moral qualities that until recently would have served to define any virtuous American. Like those polled, earlier generations would have agreed that ethics and vision should guide practical decisions, and they, too, valued honesty and trustworthiness in others. But while they would have agreed that treating others fairly or that honoring the family were worthy measures of character, they would have first considered some more basic virtues that would qualify as admirable in a public figure.

Two weeks after nearly dying in an assassination attempt on March 30, 1981, Ronald Reagan wrote those words in his diary. During his time in the hospital, he had shown such great courage, laced with wit and humor, that the Speaker of the House, Democrat Tip O’Neill, echoed the sentiments of many Americans when he said in admiration, “The President has become a hero.”

President Ronald Reagan gives his famous speech, urging, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Germany, on June 12, 1987. Ronald Reagan Presidential Library & Museum

In “Tear Down This Wall: A City, a President, and the Speech that Ended the Cold War,” Reagan biographer Romesh Ratnesar recounts the president’s bravery following this shooting, including his diary entry, then profiles a different sort of courage the president displayed six years later.

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It was June 12, 1987, and Reagan delivered a speech at the Berlin Wall’s Brandenburg Gate. He spoke of freedom, of the Wall that divided the city and Germany itself. Then, referencing the Soviet Union’s General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev, the president said loudly and with some emotion, “Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate!” He waited for the cheering to die down, then spoke the line that pierced to the heart of communist oppression: “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”

On Nov. 9, 1989, the Berlin Wall came down, and East and West Germany began their reunification. Just over two years later, in an event that seemed miraculous to all those who had spent their entire lives in a Cold War, the Soviet Union ceased to exist.

Moral leadership means having the guts and the vision to pursue a worthy goal, however forlorn the chance of success. Whether he remembered the vow he had recorded in his diary is not known, but with his Berlin Wall speech Reagan demonstrated that courage essential to all great leaders.

A Code of Honor

Compared to his contemporaries like Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, George Washington was unremarkable in his formal education and intellectual powers. He had no higher learning or degree, a fact he lamented his entire life. To his shame, he spoke no foreign languages nor did he ever practice law, as did so many of America’s Founders. Though renowned today as a general, he was in fact a poor tactician, losing more battles than he won.

“General George Washington Resigning His Commission” by John Trumbull, 1824. Oil on canvas. Public Domain

Yet such was Washington’s prestige at the end of the Revolutionary War that many expected this general of the Continental Army to become king of the United States of America. Some even encouraged him to do so. When told that Washington would likely give up his sword and his command, and return to his farm in Virginia, Britain’s King George III purportedly exclaimed, “If he does that, he will be the greatest man in the world.”

On Dec. 23, 1783, Washington resigned his commission, taking “my leave of all the employments of public life,” and set out to spend Christmas at Mount Vernon.

Washington was revered for his virtues in part because he was a man of probity, which is an old-fashioned word combining honor, honesty, appearance, and integrity, particularly in public. In his boyhood, Washington had copied out “The Rules of Civility and Decent Behaviour in Company and Conversation,” which he made a part of himself. In addition to these rules for manner and conduct, he lived by a code of moral behavior that was as straight and as rigid as his soldier’s posture. It’s impossible to imagine him indulging in folksy wisdom and jokes like Abraham Lincoln or conducting “fireside chats” like Franklin Roosevelt.

No—with few exceptions, mostly on the battlefield—Washington was reserved, a model of classical rectitude and dignity.

The code was the man.

The Fundamental Things Apply

In an article on Calvin Coolidge, columnist Cal Thomas repeats the impression our 30th president made on British historian Paul Johnson: “No public man carried into modern times more comprehensively the founding principles of Americanism: hard work, frugality, freedom of conscience, freedom from government, respect for serious culture.”

President Calvin Coolidge signs a bill to funding the Veterans Bureau, at the White House in Washington on June 5, 1924. Public Domain

Like Washington, Coolidge was known among his contemporaries for his sense of propriety and his moral rectitude. Unlike so many politicians, he avoided unnecessary publicity and ducked away from attention. When asked to explain his role as governor of Massachusetts, he stated that he intended “to walk humbly and discharge my obligations.” Dubbed “Silent Cal” because of the reticence for which he was renowned, he presided over the booming economy of the 1920s, was an opponent of big government and social engineering, and believed that the American Dream rested on the twin pillars of morality and religion.

“Silent Cal” may sound mild-mannered, meek, or dull, yet at the core of this Vermont Yankee was the heart of a lion. In 1919, the Boston police force went on strike, demanding recognition of their union. With chaos threatening the city, then Governor Calvin Coolidge debated whether to call on the Massachusetts State Guard to keep order. As Cal Thomas tells us, “When he was about to sign the order calling out the National Guard, some colleagues warned him that it might destroy the Republican Party in Massachusetts and end his political career. Governor Coolidge took the pen and said quietly, ‘Perhaps you are right,’ then signed the document. No grandstanding. Just quiet strength.”

Like Reagan and Washington, Coolidge was willing to take the hard path and do the right thing.

President Coolidge raises his right hand during his swearing-in ceremony in Washington, D.C. Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Service

Time to descend a few rungs on this ladder of politics.

Few Americans will have ever heard of Boonville, North Carolina. Fewer still will know the name of Harvey Smith (1926-2018).

Harvey Smith owned a grocery store and meat market in this small town. For 34 years, he served as Boonville’s mayor. Once during that time when he stepped down and residents weren’t happy with his replacement, they wrote him in on the ballot at the next election, and he resumed office.

In addition, Smith was a veteran of World War II, served for 26 years as Boonville’s Fire Chief, was church treasurer at the local Baptist church, and owned a small airfield and plane, where many youngsters received their first ride into the skies over the fields and woods below.

One of those young passengers, Louis Fletcher, who later became a fireman himself, said after Smith’s death, “I always appreciated Harvey because he didn’t do things for recognition, for honor, he did things because it was the right thing to do. He did that, not only for the fire department here in Boonville, but for the entire town, for the community.”

Harvey Smith served in these offices because he loved Boonville and its people, and wanted to help take care of what he loved.

That may be what counts most in moral leadership—service in the name of love.

President and Founding Father John Adams once wrote, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” J. Helgason/Shutterstock

What About the Rest of Us?

We began with a poll. Let’s end with another.

A May 2023 Gallup poll found a record high 54 percent of American adults rated moral values in the country as “poor.” Another record was broken when the same poll revealed that 83 percent of Americans believe our standards of morality are getting worse.

In a democracy, elected leaders generally reflect the values of those who voted for them. John Adams likely had this equation in mind when he wrote, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

The message is unmistakable: If we want our elected politicians to display moral leadership, whether it be in the Oval Office or the Boonville Town Hall, then we ourselves must become a more moral people.