McPherson: Today's challenges call for courageous and creative responses

The attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, have cast a shadow over the class of 2004's college years. But, if history is any indication, the graduating seniors have reason to look forward to the future, said James McPherson at Princeton University's Baccalaureate service on Sunday, May 30.

"... my message to you today is: Take heart," said McPherson, the George Henry Davis '86 Professor of American History at Princeton and a pre-eminent Civil War scholar. "These are perhaps not the best of times to graduate. But neither are they the worst of times. Most of your student days have been lived in the shadow of 9/11. But from that experience you have gained the perspective to endure both the good and the bad times that will come in the future."

Baccalaureate, an interfaith worship service, dates to 1760 and is one of Princeton's oldest traditions. Held in the University Chapel, it includes prayers and readings reflecting the diversity of religious life at Princeton. A "sermon" or address is given by a speaker chosen by the president after discussion with class leaders.

"[Professor McPherson] has bridged the gap between academic and public history," said President Shirley M. Tilghman in her introduction of the speaker. "He has shown us that history has a universal message."

Legendary for his intellectual generosity, McPherson has shared his knowledge through courses in the history department that are consistently oversubscribed as well as through field trips to Civil War battle sites that draw large numbers of students and alumni. His best-selling book, "Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era," won the Pulitzer Prize in history in 1989.

In addition to marking the beginning of this year's Commencement-related activities, the Baccalaureate address served as a farewell of sorts for McPherson: He plans to retire this year after serving on the Princeton faculty since 1962. (The text of McPherson's full address is available online. The event also was Webcast live and will be available in WebMedia's archived special events.)

In an address titled "The Long View," McPherson encouraged the seniors to have some historical perspective when looking at world events. He began by using the cicadas -- returning for their once-every-17-years appearance in parts of the country, including the Princeton campus -- to illustrate his point.

"After waiting for 17 years they emerge from the ground and live for only a few weeks," he said. "The male cicadas make their unearthly mating call, the females lay their eggs, and then they die. Not much of a life! Where is the inspiration there for a Baccalaureate sermon?

"For that we must consider the long view. After 17 years their children are absolutely guaranteed to get into Princeton," he quipped to laughter and applause from the students. "And so are their grandchildren, and their descendants down to the last generation. Talk about legacy admissions! It's no coincidence they are black and orange. And these insect alumni will be even more loyal than the famously loyal human alumni of Princeton -- they will never leave the campus."

On a more serious note, McPherson talked about lessons from the past, reminding the seniors that dark moments often give way to illuminating experiences. During the Civil War, he said, more than 620,000 soldiers died -- 2 percent of the American population at the time. Some 200,000 women lost their husbands and a half million children lost their fathers. Much of the South was left in ruin.

"But that was only one side of the ledger," he said. "The outcome of the Civil War also preserved the United States as one nation, indivisible. It liberated 4 million slaves and their posterity. As Abraham Lincoln said in his dedicatory address for Union soldiers killed at Gettysburg, those soldiers gave the last full measure of devotion to assure that the democratic form of government represented by the United States would not perish from the earth but would have a new birth of freedom.

"The triumph of the Union in the Civil War, despite its terrible cost, liberated not only the slaves but also the energies of the American people to move toward a better future with greater opportunities for Southerners, both black and white, to improve their lot in society," he continued. "That did not happen overnight, and the process has not been completed even by our own time, but in the long perspective of a century and a half, the suffering and death of the Civil War gave rise to a stronger and more just society."

Turning to more recent times, McPherson cited the two world wars as well as the wars in Korea and Vietnam and the Great Depression of the 1930s. He mentioned problems such as poverty, disease and crime that have challenged this country's leaders.

"... through it all, the republic survived, the social contract did not break down, the economy recovered from depressions, life expectancy steadily increased, infant mortality declined, epidemic diseases that had been the scourge of humanity for millennia were vanquished, opportunities and rights for women and minorities expanded, America grew and prospered," he said. "Human beings are remarkably resilient; most of us believe in a better future in the long run, we behave and plan on that assumption, and for most of us that better future eventually comes to pass."

McPherson recalled a defining moment for a generation of Americans: the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

"That traumatic event issued in several years of despair and pessimism that included the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy in 1968, the quagmire in Vietnam and devastating racial riots in American cities," he said. "Yet those were also the years when Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the years when Princeton went co-educational in 1969 and also made a successful effort to recruit substantial numbers of minority students -- achievements that have made this best old place of all even better. So also may we hope that the current blight of terrorism and war will be mixed with and eventually give way to better things."

Focusing on the defining moment for the class of 2004 -- the terrorist attacks on the twin towers in New York and the Pentagon in Washington at the beginning of their sophomore year -- McPherson admitted the present and immediate past may not seem very encouraging. He pointed to the subsequent stock market dip, corporate scandals and economic recession as well as the war in Iraq and the standing of the American government abroad.

"If I stopped here, I would leave you so depressed that you would want to join the cicada larvae and spend the next 17 years underground," he said. "But that would be the short-term view."

Going back to his Civil War scholarship, McPherson quoted Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., who was wounded three times in that conflict and went on to become a Supreme Court justice. In a Memorial Day address 20 years after the war, Holmes said: "The generation that carried on the war has been set apart by its experience. Through our great good fortune, in our youth our hearts were touched with fire. It was given to us to learn at the outset that life is a profound and passionate thing."

"I would certainly not go so far as to describe 9/11 as your 'great good fortune,'" McPherson said. "But it did touch your hearts with fire and teach you that life is a profound and passionate thing. Generations that have gone before have been similarly touched. They responded to the challenges with courage and creativity. I am confident that you will do the same."