Elegy for Ellsberg
In contemplating my own ancestry on this Juneteenth, of which it is the early morning hours as I write this, I am reminded anew that some of them were slave owners. That fact about my history occasionally returns to me unbidden on days such as this, days such as Martin Luther King’s birthday. I’m reminded that in the ordinary business of men and women there are two laws, a moral law and a legislative law. I am reminded that the moral law is by far the higher of the two.
For example, it was once the case that, not only did my ancestors have the legal right to own slaves, they had the legal right to have anyone punished who aided or abetted those slaves in seeking their own freedom. We understand today what my ancestors did not understand so clearly, that that particular bit of legislation was evil, and the moral law, its complete opposite, was true and correct. Then as now human beings had murky ideas about right and wrong, and where such moral opposites belonged in everyday legislation.
Take the case of Daniel Ellsberg, for example, who died last Friday at the age of 92. At the time he released the so-called Pentagon Papers to the New York Times in 1969, he was, according to the law of the land, committing a felony. It was, then as now and technically speaking, unlawful for an employee of the United States government to impart state secrets to unauthorised persons. Doing so carried heavy penalties that included years or even decades in prison.
The moral conundrum involved is a bit more complicated than the issue of slavery. One human being owning another against his or her will is morally reprehensible — irrespective of what the law has to say about it. One human being divulging state secrets, on the other hand, is another matter. It all comes down, really, to what those state secrets are.
If the secrets being concealed hide a monstrous evil, such as the reasons why the United States government, administration after administration, continued to engage in a foreign war with a nation with which we had not official quarrel, a war that killed thousands of Americans every year, then I hope it’s clear by now that those secrets were evil. Our government was betraying us, and we had a right to know.
Our government was cowering behind the legislative law while violating the higher moral law. In divulging that secret, Daniel Ellsberg was serving the higher moral law at the risk of personal peril at the hand of the legislative law, and, in so doing, he became the embodiment of human courage at its very best.
It could be argued, and I think I am one who would tend to argue it, that the need to keep state secrets betrays a deep human weakness. We lock our front doors for ignoble reasons. We do it because we don’t trust our fellow creatures. We are constantly frustrated and inconvenienced when we forget our passwords and pin codes, but we wouldn’t have it any other way. The need for security is understood. The reasons behind it remind us of exactly what kind of species we are.
For the time being, and until we reach some future ultimate enlightenment, the need for government security is real. That need is mixed up with evils that our government occasionally commits. Those secrets are subject to the higher moral law and, except where divulging them could result in significantly greater harm, those secrets need to be known. Ultimately they need to be known anyway. Our governments have no business hiding its own moral criminality from the eyes of its citizens.
Which brings me to Donald Trump. It seems absurd to think that some people will favourably compare Donald Trump with Daniel Ellsberg, but they will. There is no comparison. Ellsberg risked his freedom to bring us the truth of a monstrous evil being perpetrated against us by our own government. Trump kept and divulged secrets that were and remain inimical to our safety and security, and the safety and security of our allies. Trump deserves to go to prison for what he did. Ellsberg deserves a hero’s funeral for what he did.
Ellsberg devoted much of his long life to speaking out against the dangers of nuclear weapons and nuclear war, about human rights versus the overreaches of the federal government. Donald Trump spends much of what remains of his pathetic life whining about the 2020 election, blaming others for his crimes and stirring up hatred between Americans.
Trump is nothing like Daniel Ellsberg. Trump is in constant violation of our higher moral laws. Daniel Ellsberg was a champion of higher moral laws. Let any confusion about the difference between the two men be forever laid to rest. And, as ever, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, comrades and friends, stay safe.
Robert Harrington is an American expat living in Britain. He is a portrait painter.