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“I Beg Your Pardon”
It's that season once again. Oh, I don't mean the Christmas and New Year season. I'm talking about the season for presidential pardons. The tradition of U.S. presidents pardoning offenses against the law and commuting sentences goes back all the way to the Father of the nation, George Washington. He fought the Whiskey Rebellion when insurgents stood against a tax on whiskey intended to pay down the national debt. When the dust cleared in 1795, Washington granted the leaders pardons in the name of Tom the Tinker, a fictitious person.
One of the pardons had religious connections. In 1858 James Buchanan pardoned Mormon leader, Brigham Young, for his role in the Utah War in which a California-bound, civilian, wagon train was massacred during a struggle over control over the Utah Territory. In exchange, Utah agreed to submit to U.S. law.
One big bunch of pardons was a Christmas present. Andrew Johnson pardoned all Confederate soldiers on Christmas Day in 1868. It remained until Gerald Ford was president for Robert E. Lee to be fully pardoned and have his citizenship restored.
Harry Truman pardoned Oscar Collazo. This was especially magnanimous since Collazo had tried to assassinate Truman. Most presidents didn't pardon their enemies. Bill Clinton seemed to favor pardoning his friends, including his brother Roger.
Richard Nixon pardoned Jimmy Hoffa. Who says Republicans are against organized labor? George W. Bush pardoned Leslie Owen Collier whose crime was killing three Bald Eagles. Now, I ask you, how patriotic was that?
It fell to Ronald Reagan to pardon Junior Johnson, the man Esquire magazine called the “last American hero,” back in 1964. Junior is from over in Yadkin County, NC. He started NASCAR when he didn't have a load of moonshine to deliver. He went over to North Wilkesboro, entered a race instead, and won second place. He made NASCAR famous with his driving and race car ownership. But he went to jail for ten months when he got caught helping his father with a moonshine still in 1955.
Now, I'm in favor of presidential pardons. There have been more than 28,000 of them through the years. In every case the pardoned one had been declared guilty as charged. But, for whatever reason, the President of the United States of America pardoned the miscreant. What the pardon said to the recipient and society is, “Let it rest.” It is time to leave it in the past and move ahead. I like that. There is a fair amount of spiritual wisdom in this tradition. It belongs in the general area of what we pray for when we ask the Lord to forgive us our debts, sins, and trespasses as we forgive those who do such things against us. The trouble with unforgiveness is that it just hangs around and itches where we can't scratch until finally we give it up. I figure our best course of action is to cultivate the ability to nab, convict, punish, forgive and move on. We will be better off when we are relieved of the burden of carrying our unresolved anger.
This year I propose that we each issue some personal (if not presidential) pardons. In our hearts let us pardon some folk who have hurt us in some way in the past. It may be someone who is dead and buried. Or it may be someone who lives under the same roof with us. Let every Democrat pardon a Republican and vice versa. Let it be the most despicable person you can think of whom you pardon. Everyone needs to receive a pardon now and then. And everyone needs to give a pardon from time to time. There are no innocents. I could be wrong, of course, but I have a hunch that these pardons could help our world more than all the New Year's Resolutions we can cook up!
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