Dear President-Elect Trump:
My son, Adam, graduated from The United States Military Academy at West Point. It was a grateful and proud day for us to watch him throw his hat in the graduation air with his fellow cadets after such an incredibly difficult four years.
West Point, the nation’s oldest military installation factored heavily in the American Revolution. General Benedict Arnold, obtained command of West Point. He planned to surrender West Point to the British and his subsequent defection to the British that branded him one of America’s most ignominious traitors.
R-Day—Reception Day—is the first day of a West Point education. It is held in June every year. I was surprised to learn from Adam that West Point’s first order of business on R-Day is requiring an oath of allegiance to the United States government over any state government.
The oath of cadet loyalty to the federal government overall state governments has its roots in the American Civil War. The outbreak of civil war saw 304 West Point graduates—one in every five cumulative West Point graduates to that point fight for the Confederacy. Senator Zachariah Chandler of Michigan summed up West Point with these words in 1862: “The Academy has produced more traitors within the last fifty years than all the institutions of learning and education that have existed since Judas Iscariot’s time.”
Indeed, Robert E. Lee, leader of the Confederate armies and many other Confederate officers were West Point graduates.
Little wonder that West Point’s first day includes an oath that its cadets remain loyal to the United States of America rather than to any of the 50 sovereign states that comprise her.
Most in America fail to realize that the nation of the United States is a collection of 50 independent sovereigns. We are reminded of this fact every presidential election, when states, not citizens, elect the President of the United States.
Much like a marriage, where each partner is an independent sovereign with equal power to that of the other, so too should be the relationship of the states to the federal government. It is a tricky relationship, one that at times in history has lost the equality that our constitution envisions.
Today—January 4th—is the 121st anniversary of Utah joining the United States of America. Before statehood, Utah existed as a territory of the United States. Today, as a state of the union, Utah enjoys equal footing of sovereignty along with the other 49 states, subject to Congress’s powers over interstate and foreign commerce and U.S. government lands.
As President of the United States, I hope that your focus will be on helping the fifty states become The United States of America in reality rather than merely in name only.
It’s tricky business; particularly when so many politicians retain power by sowing division among the states.
Making America great again requires collective unity among its fifty independent members. We’ll accomplish that as we focus or collective hearts on our commonalities at the same time as our collective minds work to find unity among our many differences.
Sincerely,
David O. Leavitt
