[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 14]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages 19916-19917]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                     VIEWPOINTS OF WALKER F. RUCKER

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. HOWARD COBLE

                           of north carolina

                    in the house of representatives

                      Tuesday, September 26, 2000

  Mr. COBLE. Mr. Speaker, Walker F. Rucker of Greensboro, North 
Carolina, is a veteran of the Second World War, a lay historian, and a 
man unafraid to speak his mind. Along with 38 other veterans from the 
Greensboro area, Mr. Rucker wishes to have his thoughts on the conduct 
of the President recorded for posterity.
  Mr. Rucker has written and spoken eloquently of the sacrifices which 
his generation has made on behalf of our Republic. In light of their 
contributions, and those of preceding generations, these men are 
disturbed by the President's conduct during his two terms in office, 
which they believe manifests a basic disrespect for the values which 
they hold in such high regard. They are especially appalled by the 
events in the White House and elsewhere that led to the President's 
impeachment; and further object to his fund-raising tactics, his 
motivations for shaping certain foreign policy scenarios, his posture 
toward and treatment of our military, and a seeming disinterest in the 
imperative to adhere to the rule of law.
  Mr. Speaker, I have paraphrased Mr. Rucker's views at this point. 
Anyone who knows him can fully appreciate his passion for a cause, his 
command of the King's English, and his sense of history. Accordingly, I 
thought it also appropriate to quote from a petition which he has 
circulated on this subject. Mr. Rucker notes that historical precedents 
teach us that external forces do not fell great Republics such as ours; 
they implode from within. To invoke Mr. Rucker verbatim:


[[Page 19917]]

       ``The Tree of Liberty has never been toppled by an external 
     whirlwind. Rather, in the past it has perished because a vine 
     which grows in its shadow and under its protection eventually 
     smothers it. In nature this is the work of the strangler fig; 
     in Government, this is the work of Corrupt Political 
     Adventurers. Republics are a tenuous form of Government. 
     Their demise does not come about by a single seismic 
     political event, but rather is initiated by an unchallenged 
     violation of its Founding Precepts. Thus the first successful 
     violation of a State's Tenants of Faith begins the inevitable 
     Decline and Fall of that State. Thus: (1) ``Democratic Athens 
     did not fail because of the annihilation of its fleet in 404 
     B.C. by Sparta. Rather a generation earlier Alcibides, when 
     summoned to appear in Athens to explain the Syracuse Debacle, 
     deserted first to Sparta and later to Persia. (2) 
     ``Republican Rome fell, not because Julius Caesar crossed the 
     Rubicon, but because a score of years earlier Sulla violated 
     the Roman Constitution by leading seven renegade legions into 
     the defenseless city. (3) ``The First Republic of France 
     succumbed to Bonapartism because a decade earlier the 
     ``Incorruptible'' Assembly was replaced by the Corrupt 
     Directorate.
       ``Some 162 years ago, a 28-year-old frontiersman who became 
     our 16th President foresaw such a challenge to our nation's 
     foundation and told us how to respond:
       At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By 
     what means shall we fortify against it? Shall we expect some 
     transatlantic military giant to step the ocean and crush us 
     at a blow? Never! All the armies in Europe, Asia, and Africa 
     combined, with all the treasures of the earth (our own 
     excepted) in their military chest; with a Bonaparte for a 
     commander could not by force take a drink from the Ohio, or 
     make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand 
     years. At what point then is the approach of danger to be 
     expected? I answer, if it ever reaches us, it must spring up 
     amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our 
     lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a 
     nation of free men we must live through all time or die by 
     suicide. The question recurs, ``How shall we fortify against 
     it?'' The answer is simple. Let every American, every lover 
     of liberty, every well wisher of this posterity, swear by the 
     blood of the (American) Revolution never to violate the least 
     particular, the laws of the country, and never tolerate their 
     violation by others.--(Abraham Lincoln, The Perpetuation of 
     Our Political Institution, Springfield Lyceum, January 27, 
     1838.)''

  Mr. Speaker, Mr. Rucker and his colleagues believe that the President 
should resign prior to January 3, 2001, in deference to their beliefs 
and reading of American history. I believe that this is an old war that 
distracted the Congress from its business and the nation from its 
tranquility. Given the President's transgressions, however, it had to 
be fought, and as a result the President became the second man to be 
impeached by the House of Representatives. I do not wish to fight this 
war again, but I have enough respect for Walker Rucker and like-minded 
men to submit their views on this unfortunate subject in our nation's 
history for inclusion in the Congressional Record.

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