"Let it be told to the future world..."

The past and the future came together in Obama's inauguration this week. Among the many changes he is making, Obama is setting a very different tone down to the way he uses history. While his predecessor, President Bush, referred most often to history as that field which would vindicate him in the future, Obama is looking to the past to learn its lessons. That turn backward often leads to Philadelphia.

The inaugural weekend began with a train trip from Philadelphia to Washington, echoing the trip Abraham Lincoln made at his inaugural. Obama's new home street is so named because it connects the capitol and the White House, and Pennsylvania is where the Constitution (establishing these branches of government) was written. When he took his oath of office, he read words written in Philadelphia by the founders. Finally, he closed his speech with a rather strange choice of quotes: a writing by Thomas Paine, published in Philadelphia and read to the troops at Trenton during the American Revolution under George Washington's orders.

Paine, a radical revolutionary who is rarely quoted today, wrote a book called The American Crisis in the freezing winter of 1776 to boost the morale of the troops. Opening with the phrase, "These are the times that try men’s souls," Paine continued on with the words Obama quoted:
"Let it be told to the future world, that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive, that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet [it]." Just as Obama emphasized the need for all Americans to take action and effect change, Paine continued, "throw not the burden of the day upon Providence, but 'show your faith by your works.'"

I have a hard time imagining that what Obama calls "this winter of our hardship" is as desperate and daunting as the prospect before most American in the winter of 1776. Indeed, Obama's speech today was unusually grave. Will today be the start of a revolution? As I suggested before, I think it will be a peaceful revolution, more centered on how we live and think than how we govern ourselves. I hope it will be told to the future world that we succeeded in creating a new and better era in America.