Remarks Before the New York City Bar<\/p>\n
The Honorable Judge Michael Luttig<\/p>\n
May it please the court. I have not often found myself on this intimidating side of the Bench, with an unforgiving red light and a presiding judge who informed me I have but minutes before my microphone will be turned off. I will try my very best to observe the rules, but I beg the court\u2019s forgiveness in advance.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Thank you, the City Bar of New York & President Muhammad Faridi, from the bottom of my heart. I am humbled. I am grateful. And I am honored beyond words to accept Honorary Membership in this, the most illustrious Bar, not just in the United States, but indeed, the world.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Save one, Honorary Membership in your Bar is the greatest honor of my life, second only to the honor that has been mine over the past five tumultuous years in America to speak with the American People, and they with me, about our beloved country and its uncertain future on the 250th Anniversary of its Founding.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I must take judicial notice that I do not belong in the company of the luminaries to whom you have previously awarded Honorary Membership in your distinguished Bar. Among those giants of the law are the preeminent jurists in their respective countries at the time, Warren E. Burger, the 15th Chief Justice of the United States and The Right Honourable Lord Denning, Master of the Rolls and \u201cthe people\u2019s judge.\u201d British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher once said Lord Denning was \u201cprobably the greatest English judge of modern times.\u201d Chief Justice Burger was my mentor and dear friend, and Lord Denning was also my friend, through the good offices of the Chief Justice.<\/p>\n
I also want to thank my wonderful wife of 45 years who is with me here tonight. It is she who has borne the heavy burden of my conversation with our fellow Americans for the last five years, an unconscionable burden that no one should ever have to bear for merely telling the truth, least of all in the United States\u00a0of America.\u00a0<\/p>\n
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *\u00a0<\/p>\n
Now, friends, listen not for my words, but for the words of George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Thomas Paine. Listen for the words of Abraham Lincoln and for the words of Martin Luther King, Jr. And hear.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThese are the times that try men\u2019s souls\u201d \u2014 as were the times that tried our souls 250 years ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese are the times that try men\u2019s souls\u201d \u2014 as were the times that tried our souls 250 years ago.[1] In these times, as in those, and in those times 163 years ago, we \u201care engaged in a great civil war, testing whether this nation, or any nation so conceived . . . in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal can long endure.\u201d<\/p>\n
In these times, as in those, and in those times 163 years ago, we \u201care engaged in a great civil war, testing whether this nation, or any nation so conceived . . . in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal can long endure.\u201d[2]<\/p>\n
As we dedicated ourselves here before, we must now \u201chere dedicate ourselves again to the great task that yet remains before us \u2013 that this nation, under God, and this government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.\u201d[3]\u00a0<\/p>\n
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *\u00a0<\/p>\n
Since its very Founding, America has been the envy of the world and the beacon of freedom and liberty because of the shining light of its Democracy and its Rule of Law. But today, as we celebrate the 250th\u00a0Anniversary of America\u2019s birth, America is not that same envy to the world and not that same beacon of freedom and liberty to the world that it has been since its beginning.<\/p>\n
We pray that tomorrow America will once again assume its deserved place as the envy of the world.\u00a0<\/p>\n
January 6, 2021, was a dark day in American history. On that day, the 45th\u00a0President of the United States instigated a war on America\u2019s Democracy and forced upon this nation an unpeaceful transfer of power for the first time in almost 250 years. From that day until this day, he has persisted in the prosecution of that war, presenting himself to America and to the world as a \u201cclear and present danger to American Democracy.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Four years later, on January 20, 2025, the same man, the 47th\u00a0President of the United States and now wannabe king, declared war on the Constitution, the Rule of Law, and the nation\u2019s Federal Judiciary.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But where, say some, is the King of America? I\u2019ll tell you, friend, he reigns above, and doth not make havoc of mankind like the Royal Brute of Great Britain. . . . Let a crown be placed thereon, by which the world may know, that so far as we approve of monarchy, that in America the law is king. For as in absolute governments the King is law, so in free countries the law ought to be king; and there ought to be no other. But lest any ill use should afterwards arise, let the Crown at the conclusion of the ceremony be demolished, and scattered among the people whose right it is.[4]<\/p>\n
The Founders believed that were such a demagogue ever to come into power in America, he would, having once been elected \u201cand at a second or third election outvoted by one or two votes, pretend false votes, foul play, and hold possession of the reins of government.\u201d[5]\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Founders of this, the greatest nation on earth and the greatest experiment in self-government in all of civilization, feared this man who has waged these wars on America\u2019s Democracy and Rule of Law, and they feared these times. They believed these times would mark the end of the nation they had founded. Alexander Hamilton writing to George Washington in 1792:<\/p>\n
Those then, who resist a confirmation of public order, are the true Artificers of monarchy . . . When a man unprincipled in private life desperate in his fortune, bold in his temper, possessed of considerable talents, having the advantage of military habits\u2014despotic in his ordinary demeanour\u2014known to have scoffed in private at the principles of liberty\u2014when such a man is seen to mount the hobby horse of popularity\u2014to join in the cry of danger to liberty\u2014to take every opportunity of embarrassing the General Government & bringing it under suspicion\u2014to flatter and fall in with all the non sense of the zealots of the day\u2014It may justly be suspected that his object is to throw things into confusion that he may \u201cride the storm and direct the whirlwind.\u201d<\/p>\n
A half century later, a young man of mere twenty-eight years who would one day become the 16th\u00a0President of the United States also foretold of this \u201cdanger\u201d to the Republic \u201cfrom within\u201d:\u00a0<\/p>\n
We toiled not in the acquirement or establishment of them\u2013they are a legacy bequeathed us, by a once hardy, brave, and patriotic, but now lamented and departed race of ancestors. Their\u2019s was the task (and nobly they performed it) to possess themselves, and through themselves, us, of this goodly land; and to uprear upon its hills and its valleys, a political edifice of liberty and equal rights; \u2019tis ours only, to transmit these . . . to the latest generation that fate shall permit the world to know.\u00a0<\/p>\n
At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step the Ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never! . . .\u00a0<\/p>\n
At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time or die by suicide.<\/p>\n
I hope I am over wary; but if I am not, there is, even now, something of ill-omen, amongst us. I mean the increasing disregard for law which pervades the country; the growing disposition to substitute the wild and furious passions, in lieu of the sober judgment of Courts; and the worse than savage mobs, for the executive ministers of justice.[6]\u00a0<\/p>\n
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *\u00a0<\/p>\n
The \u201cdanger from within\u201d has arrived and America\u2019s time of testing has come.\u00a0<\/p>\n
What, then, must we do if we are to bequeath this \u201cpolitical edifice of liberty and equal rights\u201d to our descendants, this legacy that was bequeathed to us by \u201cour once hardy, brave, and patriotic, race of ancestors\u201d?[7]<\/p>\n
We must \u201cdedicate ourselves to the great task that yet remains before us\u201d 250 years later. \u201c[\u2018T]is ours only, to transmit this \u2018goodly land\u2019 and this \u2018political edifice of liberty\u2019 . . . to the latest generation that fate shall permit the world to know.\u201d[8]\u00a0<\/p>\n
We must, finally, summon the courage that has eluded us in our all-consuming fear. Americans must summon from deep within the courage that was once our Founders\u2019 courage when, \u201cwith a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, they mutually pledged to each other their Lives, their Fortunes and their sacred Honor.\u201d[9]\u00a0<\/p>\n
The time has come again, as it has come before, when the \u201cappalling silence of the good people\u201d is now \u201cbetrayal.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
We must stand, raise our voices, and speak out against what we are witnessing in America today. We must \u201cbreak the silence of the night.\u201d[10]<\/p>\n
For, as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., warned, \u201cIn the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.\u201d[11]<\/p>\n
If we but find the courage to speak truth to power now, today, as did the Founders and our ancestors when their time of testing came, the United States of America will endure forever as the beacon of freedom and liberty to the world. America will once again be the envy of the world.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Thank you, again, City Bar of New York. And thank each and every one of you for coming tonight.\u00a0<\/p>\n
[1] Thomas Paine, The American Crisis, December 19, 1776.\u00a0<\/p>\n
[2] Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address, November 19, 1863.\u00a0<\/p>\n
[3]Id.\u00a0<\/p>\n
[4] Thomas Paine, Common Sense (1776).\u00a0<\/p>\n
[5] Letter Thomas Jefferson to James Madison December 20, 1787.\u00a0<\/p>\n
[6] Abraham Lincoln, The Perpetuation of Our Political Institutions, Address Before the Young Men\u2019s Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois, January 27, 1838.\u00a0<\/p>\n
[7]Abraham Lincoln, Address Before the Young Men\u2019s Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois, January 27, 1838.\u00a0<\/p>\n
[8]Id.\u00a0<\/p>\n
[9] Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776.<\/p>\n
[10] Martin Luther King, Jr., Speech at Riverside Church, New York City April 4, 1967.\u00a0<\/p>\n
[11]Id.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Remarks Before the New York City Bar The Honorable Judge Michael Luttig May it please the court. I…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":138830,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[9,24,55,54,56],"class_list":{"0":"post-138829","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-new-york","9":"tag-new-york-city","10":"tag-new-york-city-headlines","11":"tag-new-york-city-news","12":"tag-ny"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138829","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=138829"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138829\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/138830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=138829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=138829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=138829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}