Presidential Courage And Human Rights: From John Quincy Adams To Barack Obama

One of the most important roles of a President is to be a moral leader, a person who sets the standard for what is moral and ethical in public affairs,

And nothing is more important than to have the courage to take leadership on human rights matters, whether in the United States or in other nations.

In that regard, Barack Obama will always stand out for what he did on Wednesday, speaking up for gay rights, including the right to marry.

Who else among our Presidents can be seen as a moral leader on human rights issues?

John Quincy Adams, as President and in his post Presidential career in the House of Representatives, campaigned against slavery and the slave trade, and was censured by the House of Representatives for fighting the gag rule (forbidding discussion of slavery in the House chamber) over and over again. He also represented the slaves aboard the slave ship Amistad, and won the court case for their freedom in 1841.

Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, a move many thought was unwise and might undermine the Union effort during the Civil War. But he believed that African Americans should be given freedom.

Harry Truman took the earliest steps in promoting civil rights for African Americans in the 1940s when segregation reigned in the South, and he went ahead anyway and promoted integration of the military and of the nation’s capital, Washington, DC.

Dwight D. Eisenhower alienated the white South when he sent in National Guard troops to Little Rock, Arkansas, to enforce integration of a public high school.

John F. Kennedy followed Eisenhower’s lead, in promoting National Guard intervention at the University of Mississippi and the University of Alabama, to bring about integration, and also proposed a civil rights law that he had to know would be extremely difficult to accomplish.

Lyndon B. Johnson, despite his Southern heritage, became the great proponent of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, knowing it would turn the white South over to the Republican Party, as it did.

Richard Nixon signed affirmative action into law, which became one of the great advancements in civil rights for women and minorities.

Jimmy Carter became the advocate of promoting human rights overseas, instead of accepting violations by so called “friendly” nations, as part of the business of diplomacy. He was bitterly criticized as naive, but his human rights beliefs remain one of his great legacies.

And now Barack Obama joins this group on Presidential courage in relation to the advancement of human rights! Kudos to him!

3 comments on “Presidential Courage And Human Rights: From John Quincy Adams To Barack Obama

  1. Engineer of Knowledge May 11, 2012 8:38 am

    Hello Professor,
    For those whom are so violently opposed to Gay or Lesbian Marriages…my only statement is that within 10 to 20 years it will just not be so distasteful or even a factor of consideration.

    I remember well those in the 1960’s against the Civil Rights Amendments here in the South and how distasteful it was for many of those “O’l Johnny Rebels,” but today it is not even on the radar screen. Upon signing the “Civil Rights Amendments,” President Johnson said, “We Democrats have just lost the South for a generation but this is the right thing to do.”

    It was shortly after the signing, the Republican Party sent then Maryland Governor Agnew to court the Southern States and he did a good job in doing so. By accomplishing this task for the Republican Party is what gave him the credentials and the demographics needed to secure the South for the Nixon / Agnew Presidential election in 1968.

    There was a famous German Philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer (1788 – 1860) and he is quoted:
    “All truth passes through three stages.
    First, it is ridiculed.
    Second, it is violently opposed.
    Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.”

    Well we have seen Gay marriage ridiculed.
    We have seen Gay marriage violently opposed.
    The final step will be when it is accepted as being self-evident. It is going to happen at some point and time.

  2. Dominick May 17, 2012 2:32 am

    Hello Professor.

    Was wondering who was the first President that ever mention the word Gay in a speech or an interview or what ever, either in a positive or negative way.

    I’ve been trying to find information on Presidents regarding Gay rights or even the word gay in general in all of our 44 presidents history. All I can find is Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. Did Ronald Reagan ever mention the gay community in his eight years as President, ever once through the Aids epidemic? and I can’t find much..

    Can you please help?

  3. Ronald May 17, 2012 7:46 pm

    Dominick, the word “gay” is a fairly recent term, but beyond Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and George H W Bush gave attention to the issue of homosexuality, in regards to the AIDS epidemic worldwide, as well as in the United States, and even Ronald Reagan, after ignoring the issue during his first term in the 1980s, dealt with it due to the deaths of hemophiliac Ryan White and actor Rock Hudson. Jimmy Carter referred to it after his Presidency, when AIDS emerged in the early month of the Reagan Presidency. Whether all of them used the term “gay” is uncertain, however.

    Other Presidents had “gay” staff or friends, including Richard Nixon, Lyndon B. Johnson, John F. Kennedy, and Franklin D. Roosevelt for sure, while Dwight D. Eisenhower signed an Executive Order banning gays and lesbians from working for the government in his first year in office, claiming they were national security threats. Of course, Senator Joseph McCarthy used the issue as a weapon, even though he had aides who were gay, and may have been gay himself.

    This is a subject worthy of great research as a potential scholarly book!

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