Conservative French president Nicolas Sarkozy is visiting the United States to win the hearts of Americans after frosty former relationships. This turnaround is really a flashback of Revolutionary War days and memories of the Statue of Liberty.
George Washington won at Yorktown in large measure because 5,000 French troops under French General Rochambeau marched from Rhode Island (across New Jersey, camping a few hundred yards from our headquarters) and joined in the siege at Yorktown when British General Cornwallis surrendered. Received as a gift from the French in 1885, Lady Liberty was dedicated by President Grover Cleveland the following year.
Sarkozy’s visit recalls another Frenchman, statesman-historian Alexis DeTocqueville, who toured America in the 1830s seeking the reason for national greatness in so young a nation. His conclusions endure as a monumental testimony:
"…Christianity therefore reigns without obstacle, by universal consent; the consequence is, as I have before observed, that every principle of the moral world is fixed and determinate. I sought for the key to the greatness and genius of America in her harbors…; in her fertile fields and boundless forests; in her rich mines and vast world commerce; in her public school system and institutions of learning. I sought for it in her democratic Congress and in her matchless Constitution. Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits flame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because America is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great."
Let us hope that Sarkozy will conclude the same.
David Virkler
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