As we have recently celebrated law day, it seems appropriate to post a speech which Carl Maughan delivered on the occasion of his Naturalization as a United States Citizen in which he addressed the rights and obligations of citizens under the constitution of the United States. Mr. Maughan was invited to give the speech at the Naturalization ceremony as a lawyer and representative of the the Wichita Bar Association which sponsored the ceremony. The speech is reproduced below:
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Ladies and Gentlemen, my fellow Americans. My name is Carl Maughan, I am a lawyer With the law firm Maughan Hitchcock, I am here today on behalf of the Wichita bar Association and the members of the legal profession to recognize and honor your decision to accept the mantle and responsibilities of citizenship and to extend our heartfelt thanks for, and admiration of, your commitment to this country and the ideals it represents.
Congratulations. You are now Americans. And So, In the spirit of Patrick Henry who, during the debate for the ratification of the constitution, Proclaimed, “I am no longer a Virginian, Sir, but an American,” I declare that you are no longer Mexicans nor Koreans nor Canadians. You are not French- Americans nor African-Americans nor Vietnamese Americans. You are Americans - and you now carry with you the legacy of all those who have gone before, you, who have lived and fought, struggled and died to create a nation and a political system which President Ronald Reagan so aptly described as a shining city on a hill. You now carry the duty and responsibility as an American to live and fight, to struggle and perhaps die to preserve this nation, its ideals and its philosophy for future generations of Americans.
This very idea, the idea that we hold this nation, this republic, this bastion of freedom, in trust for ourselves and those who come after us is recognized in the pre amble to the constitution itself. That the constitution was established to – “secure the blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our posterity” is no less than one of the fundamental reasons laid forth in the preamble for the establishment of the constitution of the United States of America.
It is not a small thing that we have accepted today, this duty of citizenship. By taking the oath we have just taken, we have pledged to do nothing short of keeping the city shining, of making it brighter, of preserving it as a beacon to guide us on to the fulfillment of our destiny.
That we have freely decided to accept this obligation rather than having it bestowed upon us as a birth right is a fitting tribute to a constitution which places the power in the hands of the people who decide to exercise it rather than in the laps of those who claim a divine right to govern. However, because we have freely decided to take on this role, the duties and the moral responsibility of citizenship, should burn brighter in our mind than in the minds of our fellow Americans who came by their citizenship without any active decision to accept that coveted status. It is we who have chosen to accept the challenge of preserving liberty for ourselves and for those who come after us. And so, it is we who must live up to that challenge.
It gives me the greatest of pleasure to address you as: “my fellow Americans”. As you saw, I too raise my right hand and took the oath and became a citizen today. While I do not claim to know the hardship, the struggle and the suffering that each of you have endured in order to get here, nor the joy that resided in your heart as you repeated the oath today, I do understand it and admire it. I understand it from undertaking the same struggle in my own small way and from experiencing the same great pleasure and honor of finally raising my hand and becoming American.
Ladies and Gentlemen, our long journey is over. We have made it. It is fitting that this ceremony is held at the birth of a new year, for, as with the ending of one year and the beginning of another, one chapter of our lives now draws to a close and a new chapter begins. And so, it is right that we should pause, to take time to relish our fortune, to thank God for our fortune and to celebrate. But we must also take time to gather our strength, for America needs our strength. Today we have pledged to take on a new burden, to heft a new pack upon our shoulders, to roll up our sleeves and to be a citizen and to accept all the inherent rights privileges and responsibilities of citizenship.
During the time that the constitution was being drafted, there was great speculation and concern about what type of political system the delegates would create. At the close of the convention as the delegates were leaving the hall, an old lady is reported to have approached one of the delegates and asked: “What hast though wrought?” The delegate apparently looked at her and responded: “A Republic, if you can keep it.”
It is the citizens of this country that have been entrusted with the responsibility of keeping the republic, of fostering it and maintaining this fragile political system that is our national treasure. That is now our responsibility.
The constitution lays out in explicit detail, your rights as an American. What it does not specify is your duties. But all rights come with responsibilities. Sadly, these responsibilities are all too often ignored by citizens of this country in favor of insistence upon the rights and benefits which are plentiful. As a result, we may be in danger of loosing the Republic which was so carefully crafted for us.
By taking the pledge today, we, like the founders before us, have pledged our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor to the task of preserving, restoring and keeping the promise of liberty for us and our posterity.
I am not sure who said it and I am sure they will forgive my loose paraphrasing, but it has been said that
A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. it will only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury. As a result the democracy slides into bankruptcy and eventually falls apart
It has also been said that the life cycle of a democratic political system is as follows:
From Bondage to spiritual faith;
From spiritual faith to great courage;
From courage to liberty;
From liberty to abundance;
From abundance to complacency;
From complacency to apathy;
From apathy to dependence;
From dependence, back into bondage."
The duties of citizenship are just not simple tasks, such as voting, or serving on a jury duty, although those are duties of citizenship. The true duty of citizenship is eternal vigilance against threats to our nation. Vigilance against the obvious, overt threats such as terrorism. Vigilance against the insidious, creeping threats of complacency and apathy. Vigilance against the greed of the voters who seek only benefits from the public treasury, and against the sloth of the officials who would give it to them. And vigilance against the erosion of our liberty in the name of security.
The duty of citizenship is the duty to educate yourself about what your elected officials are doing, it is the duty to speak out and act when the government fails to adhere to the true principals of the constitution. It is the duty to accept responsibility for yourself so that the government and your fellow citizens are not required to. It is the duty to insist that others do the same. And it is your duty to defend against the erosion of your rights and those of your fellow citizens.
You are now a citizen of one of the greatest nations to tread the pages of history and a member of one of the most perfect political systems ever devised by man. It is your solemn duty to preserve it and pass it on to those who are coming behind you. Much is made of the rights with which you have been endowed by your creator. The constitution itself lays forth many of those rights and, it is no accident that two of the ten amendments that form the bill of rights, the ninth and tenth amendments, refer to rights that are not specified in the constitution but retained by, or reserved to, the people. But remember there are responsibilities that go with those rights. Just as the rights which are not enumerated in the constitution are reserved to the people, so to are the duties reserved to the people.
You have a right to speak your mind. And a duty to become informed and to speak up against all those who would squelch the voice of another, no matter how much you may disagree with that voice
You have a right to bear arms. And a duty to defend against those who would disarm you.
You have a right to praise the god of your choice, and a duty to ensure that the government does not infringe upon that right by pushing your faith from the public square and insisting that you keep it hidden in the privacy of your home and heart.
You have a right to vote and a duty to be informed of the actions of those for whom you vote and to terminate their employment when they no longer serve the principals of the constitution.
You have a right to petition the government for grievances and a duty to know that the government is limited. It can not solve all your problems, nor should it.
You have a right to own property free from unreasonable government interference and a duty to defend your property and that of others from any such interference.
You have a right, and duty, to exercise every right bestowed upon you by God and memorialized by the constitution of the United States, and a duty to defend the rights of the person next to you to do the same.
You have a right to say “ I am a citizen of the United States” and a duty to ensure that this status is not diminished by those who would seek the rights, benefits, and privileges that this country offers without accepting the corresponding duties.
Some will say that I have been pessimistic by focusing on the duties of citizenship and not on the rights and privileges. But you must remember, I am a lawyer, it is in my nature to be pessimistic to focus on duties and responsibilities. After all, I am a member of a profession which works on a daily basis to preserve the delicate balance of duties and responsibilities whether that balance lies between two individuals, between an individual and a corporation, or between the powers of the government and the rights of the average man. And so, it is as a member of this profession that I am here to recognize that it is an awesome thing that you have done today. By taking the oath of citizenship, you have risen to your responsibilities and faced up to your duties. It is not something you were required to do, and yet, you chose to accept the duties of citizenship so that you may enjoy the rights and privileges that go along with it. For that I would like to thank you. Not just as a lawyer but as a human being and a fellow citizen who watched my two young children playing this morning and thought of a story I had heard recently about an immigrant who had escaped from some dictatorship or other had been granted asylum in the U.S. A reporter who was interviewing him commented that the man’s story made the reporter realize how lucky he is to live in America. The immigrant just shook his head and said. “It is me who is lucky. I had somewhere to escape to.”
If we fail in our duty to preserve liberty in this country where will our children escape to? If liberty should ever fall in the U.S, if we allow it to be overwhelmed by our demands for benefits from the public treasury or to be squashed by our desire for security or to slowly wither because of our apathy or lethargy, then where shall our children find freedom? It is for them, for the next generation that we undertake our duties as citizens. So they may continue to live in that shining city on a hill.
It is in recognition of our responsibility to secure the benefits of liberty, not just for our selves, but for those that come after us that I would like to leave you with this poem by Will Allen Dromgoole.
It is called the Bridge Builder:
An old man, going a lone highway,
Came, at the evening, cold and Grey,
To a chasm, vast and deep and wide,
Through which was flowing a sullen tide.
The old man crossed in the twilight dim;
The sullen stream had no fears for him.
But he turned when safe on the other side,
And built a bridge to span the tide.
“old man” said a fellow pilgrim near,
you are wasting strength with building here
your journey will end with the ending day;
you never again must pass this way.
You have crossed the chasm deep and wide.
Why build you the bridge at the eventide?
The builder lifted his old gray head;
Good friend, in the path I have come, -- he said,
There followeth after me today
A youth whose feet must pass this way.
This chasm which has been naught to me
May to that fair haired youth a pitfall be
He too must cross in the twilight dim
Good friend, I am building the bridge for him.
Once again, thank you for the commitment you have undertaken. If we keep the pledge we have taken today always in our mind, and strive to live up to the ideals we embraced when we decided to become a citizen, surely the city will shine for generations to come.
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Delivered at the Naturalization Ceremony January 12, 2007, Wichita, Kansas.
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