LITTLE ROCK – Two weeks ago, I traveled to Washington to attend the Winter Session of the National Governors Association. As I met with my fellow governors, I was inspired by our shared hope that America will continue to be the beacon of freedom to the world.
Our meeting included dinner at the home of the Swiss Ambassador to the United States. In his remarks to us, Ambassador Jacques Pitteloud recounted events, such as the first and second world wars, when the hopes of the Free World rested on our great nation. He was born in November 1962 during the Cuban Missile Crisis. He said the planet was on the brink of nuclear apocalypse, but the U.S. stood fast in confronting evil. His parents awakened him in the middle of the night to watch Neil Armstrong become the first person in history to walk on the moon. He was in Berlin in November 1989 when the wall crumbled. He said that once again, people knew the United States had won that victory for freedom.
The Ambassador then said: “This is how we cherish the memories of what America has achieved in the service of Freedom and Progress, not just for herself, but for all of Humankind.” But at this moment in history, he said, the world perceives that the United States is divided. “We sometimes get the feeling that this country has somehow lost the will to search for her better angels.”
The words of the ambassador hit home to many of the governors in the audience. He reminded us that the world needs an America that is strong and united.
The next evening at Mount Vernon, the First Lady of Arkansas and I dined in the same home where President Washington and the first First Lady of the United States ate their meals more than 200 years ago. We shared a table with Bill Ford, the great-grandson of both Henry Ford and Harvey Firestone, who is only three generations removed from two of the greatest business entrepreneurs in our history. His grandfathers traveled America in Model Ts on Firestone tires in the company of a third great inventor, Thomas Edison.
After dinner, we toured the Washingtons’ home. In the main hall of Mount Vernon, the key to the Bastille hangs high on a wall in the display case. The Bastille was the fortress in Paris that was home to kings and queens, a symbol of authoritarian rule where they imprisoned their political enemies in the Bastille’s dungeons.
The Marquis de Lafayette, who fought with President Washington in the American Revolution, also fought in the French Revolution twenty years later. Shortly after the revolutionists stormed the Bastille, Lafayette ordered its demolition. The Marquis kept the key to the main door as a symbol of freedom and wanted to present it to his mentor, George Washington. He entrusted the key to Thomas Paine, who ensured that it was delivered to President Washington. Two hundred years ago, men who helped birth the United States and free France had held this key in their hands. That evening, I stood close enough to it to touch it. For me, this simple artifact became a bridge across two centuries, stitching time together in a seamless flow of events that really aren’t that far apart when you consider the entire scope of history.
In the days since those transcendent moments I spent captivated by that key, my optimism has continued to grow that the United States will keep its better angels in sight. As with our founding fathers before us, we will unlock the doors that block history’s path to freedom.