[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 144 (Monday, October 12, 1998)]
[House]
[Pages H10644-H10645]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




        WORDS OF SIR THOMAS MORE SHED LIGHT ON CURRENT DILEMMAS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Hawaii (Mr. Abercrombie) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, at the conclusion of the hearing held 
in the Committee on the Judiciary with respect to impeachment, a few 
words were uttered by Mr. Shippers. He said,

       I'm no longer speaking as Chief Investigative Counsel, but 
     rather as a citizen of the United States who happens to be a 
     father and a grandfather. To paraphrase Sir Thomas More in 
     Robert Bolt's excellent play, `A Man for All Seasons': The 
     laws of this country are the great barriers that protect the 
     citizens from the winds of evil tyranny. If we permit one of 
     those laws to fall, who will be able to stand in the gusts 
     that will follow?

  This was, as Mr. Shippers indicated, a paraphrase. But I suggest, Mr. 
Speaker, it was a lot more than that. It takes Robert Bolt's words, it 
takes the life of Sir Thomas More as recounted in the play, ``A Man for 
All Seasons'' and turns it upside down.
  Mr. Speaker, as one of the Members who has cited a ``A Man for All 
Seasons'' and Sir Thomas More's life in my own remarks on this floor 
previously, I would like to actually read for the Record what was said 
by Sir Thomas More as conceived by Robert Bolt.
  He describes More's son-in-law as William Roper, as follows: William 
Roper, a stiff body and an immobile face with little imagination and 
moderate brain, but an all too consuming rectitude, which is his cross, 
his solace, and his hobby.
  That may very well apply to some of the individuals who are taking 
and twisting Bolt's words, particularly as paraphrased by Mr. Shippers.
  What actually takes place is More, in discussion with his daughter 
and with his wife and with his son-in-law, concerning the law. The 
daughter says at one point to him, ``Father, that man is bad,'' 
referring to another individual. Sir Thomas More said, ``There is no 
law against that.'' The reply from Mr. Roper is ``There is, God's 
law.'' More says, ``Then God can arrest him.''
  Thinking that perhaps More is trying to set himself up above God's 
law with man's law, he remonstrates with More. And More says, ``Let me 
draw your attention to a fact. I'm not God. The currents and eddies of 
right and wrong, which you find such plain sailing, I can't navigate. 
I'm no voyager. But in the thickets of the law, oh, there I'm a 
forester. I doubt if there's a man alive who could follow me there, 
thank God.'' His daughter says to him, ``While you talk, he's gone,'' 
referring to the evil man to whom she had first referred.
  More says, ``And go he should, if he was the Devil himself, until he 
broke the law.'' His son-in-law says, ``So now you'd give the Devil 
benefit of law.'' And More said, ``Yes. What would you do? Cut a great 
road through the law to get after the Devil?'' Roper said, ``I would 
cut down every law in England to do that.'' And More said, ``Oh? And 
when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you, where 
you would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country's 
planted thick with laws from coast to coast--man's laws, not God's--and 
if you cut them down--and you're just the man to do it--do you really 
think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, 
I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake.''
  I suggest to Mr. Shippers what is at stake here is our law as 
embodied in

[[Page H10645]]

the Constitution. The President, all of us, are fully entitled to the 
protection of that Constitution. It is not the President, it is not 
those on the Democratic side of the aisle in the Committee on the 
Judiciary deliberations that are trying to cut down the law. They are 
trying to protect the law. They are trying to see that the law is 
implemented the way it was written, and it was written to protect all 
of us.
  If we allow Mr. Shippers, or anyone like him, to cut down the 
protection of law, then how will we be protected in turn? Yes, it is 
more than just the President's right to the rule of law being at stake 
here. What is at stake is whether or not we will, in turn, defend those 
laws. Because in doing so, we defend ourselves.
  So, I recommend, Mr. Speaker, to you and all who are interested, that 
we take up Sir Thomas More's cross, the one he bore, the one which he 
paid his life for. And that was that we obey the law in such a way as 
not to lose our sense of humanity in the process.
  Mr. Speaker, I commend to you, and I commend to all, Mr. Bolt's ``A 
man for All Seasons.'' I commend to Mr. Shippers and his defenders that 
they not twist the words, but bring them into the reality that reflects 
the best that is in America and the best that is in our Constitution, 
and that is the protection of one and all.

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