Fix your eyes on the greatness of Athens…. Fall in love with her, and when you feel her great, remember that this greatness was won by men with courage, with knowledge of their duty, and with a sense of honor in action.
My old boss John McCain was fond of Thucydides’ rendition of Pericles’ Funeral Oration. And rightly so: Unlike the presentism that pervades our social media and cable TV-driven discourse these days, history was alive for the old man. He saw himself as the son and grandson of admirals, just as he saw America—and the free world it built—as the product of the heroic struggle and sacrifice by those who came before him.
For McCain, America’s best days were always ahead of us, thanks to the enduring power of our founding ideals and their magnetic attraction to men and women everywhere. People in other countries did not want to be American, but they wanted to be free—and it was America’s responsibility to help them earn the liberty so many of us take for granted.
Senator McCain recognized that the United States was a different kind of great power. American influence did not stem simply from our military prowess, our economic dynamism, our resource endowments, or our geography. It was, first and foremost, a product of our foundational principles: “all men are created equal” means that not only are all Americans created equal, but all humankind. If we were endowed by our creator with inalienable rights to life and liberty, why would that not be true for all people everywhere?
For John McCain, the promise of American democracy was in its revolutionary potential to shape a world order that was freer, more just, and more peaceful than any that had come before. He dedicated his life to building that future—helping to advance democracy around the world through his service as Senator and as chairman of the International Republican Institute.
John McCain’s life story and family history is steeped in an understanding of the tragedy of war, and the honor of putting country ahead of self. His family fought
honorably in every conflict since the Revolutionary War; his father and grandfather were commanders in World War II; and McCain himself famously endured nearly six years of torture as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. Given this personal history, the dramatic end of the Cold War and the subsequent reunification of Europe under American leadership was nothing short of a miracle—and the opportunity it presented to build a freer, more just world was not one that he intended to waste.
McCain’s experiences as a POW meant that he knew what it’s like to be deprived of freedom. He took oppression personally and bonded with freedom fighters around the world because he understood, better than most, their sacrifice. He said that it was in solitary confinement that he fell in love with America – not its material blessings (which he had sometimes enjoyed to excess as a young man) but its moral attributes. And he understood that those who have been blessed with the opportunity to enjoy republican self-government founded in the natural rights of free citizens have a duty to help others achieve it as well.
As he put it in his final message to the American people:
Vintage McCain: America’s ideals did not hinder its pursuit of wealth and power. Forget what you learned in graduate school—foreign policy is never simply a binary choice between interests and values, hard and soft power. America’s founding principles ultimately are what made our extraordinary status as the world’s only superpower possible—by uniting a diverse nation around a set of shared principles, e pluribus unum, and by drawing a global coalition of allies to America’s side in ways that give us an enduring geopolitical advantage.
Here is how he put it in 2007, while running for president:
The nation and the world mourn Senator McCain’s loss. I grieve with them: I started working for him in 1995 and never really stopped. But I know my old boss would not want us to feel sorry for ourselves, or to lament that all is lost. He would ask Americans to commit those energies instead to a cause bigger than ourselves—to the America he imagined we could be, if we are willing to overcome our political tribalism, the natural insularity of a people surrounded by vast oceans, and the unnatural rejection of a proud immigrant-pioneer culture that made us who we are.
John McCain always put his country first, and he would want us now to do the same. He would want his life, more than his death, to inspire us to renew our national purpose, rooted in our founding principles, on the basis that what unites our people is far more powerful than what divides us.
McCain has now passed beyond the distant horizon. His faith stays with us. “America’s greatness is a quest without end, the object beyond the horizon,” I heard him say years ago in Philadelphia.
On that stage, he offered up his credo, a love song for America that is both a vision and a challenge: “I have faith that just beyond the distant horizon live a people who gratefully accept the promise of their freedom to make of their power and wealth a civilization for the ages—a civilization in which all people share in the promise of freedom.” He goes to his grave believing that America’s best days are ahead of us. It is now up to us to build a future worthy of McCain’s vision.
