Boehner are honored at the university of notre dame. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas gave the commencement address at Hillsdale College in michigan. He praised justice ant anyone scalia for his view of the law and talked about the profound impact it had an on him. [applause] justice thank you all. Thank you. [applause] thank you. Thank you. Thank you all. Dr. Orion, chairman broadback members of the board, members of the faculty family, friends most of all graduates im honored to be here. Im particularly honored because my bride is with me. And we spent quite a bit of time together, and we like, i think to have memories together. And this is indeed a memory. Again, id like to thank dr. Orion for inviting me. And, again i express my deep honor and gratitude to participate in these commencement exercises. This has been quite some years since virginia and i have been here together. Weve been here on separate occasions, but rarely together. Of course, we have known dr. Larry and mrs. Orion, penny for many years as dr. Orion has indicated. And we have been quite close to hillsdale throughout his tenure. We both admire the work that is being done here to educate young men and young women. I was fortunate to have had david morel, a hillsdale graduate clerk for me a few years back. He was an outstanding law clerk and a wonderful, brilliant young man. Hes also one of my daily mass companions. I also had a chance last evening, as dr. Orrin mentioned to visit with the Young Students who attend the academy in my hometown, savannah, georgia. What a wonderful idea. As dr. Orrin indicated, this is the very same school that i attended high school in, in the 1960s. This has been a most difficult term at the court. This difficulty is underscored by the sudden and tragic passing of my colleague and friend, justice antonin scalia. I think it is fitting to say a few word about him, particularly here. Many will focus on his intellect and legal prowess. I do not demure in either case. But there is so much more on to the man than that. When i think of justice scalia, i think of the good man whom i could instinctively trust during my first days on the court. And those were challenging days. He was, in the tradition of the south of my youth, a man of his word. A man of character. Over the almost 25 years that we were together, i think we made the court a better place for each other. [applause] i certainly know that he made it a better place for me. He was kind to me when it mattered most, in those early days. He is and will be sorely missed. As the years since i attended college etched toward a half century, i feel a bit out of place talking with College Students or recent graduates. Much has changed since i left college in 1971. Things that were once considered firm have long since lost their vitality. And much that seemed inconceivable is now firmly or universally established. Hallmarks of my youth, such as patriotism and religion, seem more like outliers, if not afterthoughts. So in a sense, i feel woefully out of place doing this or any commencement. My words will perhaps be more of a vintage nature than currently in than current in content. Words actually matter, not a current new speak. I admit to being unapologetically catholic, unapologetically patriotic and unapologyically a constitutionalist. [applause] in my youth, we had a small farm. I am convinced that the time i spent there had much to do with my firm resolve to never farm again. [laughter] work seemed to spring eternal. Like the weeds that consumed so much of our time and our lives and our efforts. One of the constantly conveyed messages was our obligation to taker care of the land and to use it to produce food for ourselves and for others. If there was to be independence, selfsufficiency or freedom then we had to first understand, accept and then discharge our responsibilities. The latter were the necessary but not always sufficient ante antecedents or precursors of the former. The only guarantee was, if you did not discharge your responsibilities, there could be no independence, no self sufficiency, no freedom, no crops. In a broader context we were obligated in our neighborhood to be Good Neighbors so that the neighborhood would thrive. Whether there was to be a clean thriving neighborhood was directly connected to our efforts and to our conduct. So there was always, to our way of thinking, a connection and a relationship between the things we valued most and our personal obligations or efforts. There could be no freedom without each of us discharging our responsibilities. That was first and foremost. In that con context, when we heard the words duty, honor country no more needed to be said. But that is a bygone era. Today we rarely hear of our personal responsibilities, in discussions of broad notions such as freedom or liberty. It is as though freedom and liberty exist wholly independent of anything we do. Seemingly it is our version of predestination or, as my grandfather often warned us, or told us, money didnt grow on trees. Perhaps we think liberty grows on trees. Their existence, and continuing, is independent of our conduct. In fact, this era is one in which any difference or different treatment is inherently suspect. Apparently we all deserve the same reward, the same status, notwithstanding the difference in our efforts or abilities. It is no wonder then that we hear so often what is deserved or to what one is entitled. I guess by this reasoning, the students who took full advantage of all the spring break debacle is apparently entitled to the same success as the conscientious, disciplined classmate who worked and studied while he played. Perhaps we should redistribute the conscientious students grades to make the frolicking classmate his or her equal. Im sure the top 10 students would love that. [laughter] this leads me to wonder if the same sense of entitlement applies to that which makes it possible for us to live in a free country. After the Constitutional Convention in philadelphia, Benjamin Franklin remarked, when asked what they had done, that they had given us a republic, if we can keep it. Nearly a century later, in his twominute speech at gettysburg, president lincoln again spoke of what was required of us, after the battle of gettysburg. He said, it is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us, that from these honored dead, we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation under god shall have a new birth of freedom and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth. Many who have gone before us have done precisely that. They have been dedicated to the preserving and enhancing our nation and the liberties upon which it is built, in war and in peace. They have made sure that those who gave the last full measure did not do so in vain. Because you all are graduates of Hillsdale College, it is quite appropriate and quite convenient to reflect briefly on their understanding of what was to be preserved, what had to be earned. The founders in many successive generations believed in natural rights and that, as the declaration of independence makes clear, to establish a government by consent, they gave up only those rights necessary to create a limited government. They then structured that government so that it could not jeopardize the liberty that flowed from these inherent or natural rights. Of course, these limitations have roots that go as far back as the original magna carta over 800 years ago. But even though this liberty is inherent, it is neither guaranteed nor assured. The very founding documents of our country, for example, are an assertion of this liberty against arguably the most powerful man in the world and it was secured at the risk of the lives, fortunes and sacred honor of those who dared to assert that liberty. Over the lifespan of our great country, occasions have arisen that required this liberty, as well as the form of government that ensures it, be defended if it was to survive. At the risk of understating what is necessary to preserve liberty and our form of government, i think more and more that it depends on good citizens, discharging their daily duties and their daily obligations. I resist what seems to be what formlaic or standard fair at commencement exercises, some complaint over environmental injustice and at least one exortation of young graduates to go out and solve the stated problem or otherwise change the world. Having been where you all are, i think it is hard enough to first solve your own problems. [laughter] not to mention those problems that often seem to defy solution. In addressing your own obligations and responsibilities in the right way, you actually help to ensure our liberties and our form of government. Throughout my youth, even as the contradictions of segregation persisted, we revered the ideals of our great nation. Of course, we knew that our country was, like all human institutions, a flawed nation. But we also knew that, in the ideal of liberty lay our last best hope. I watch with anguish as so many of the older people in my life groped and stumbled through the darkness of ill illiteracy or bear bare literacy yet they desperately wanted to know, to learn. They implicitly knew how important it was to enjoy the fullness of citizenship of this great country. They had spent an aggregation of lifetimes standing on the edge of that dual citizenship that is at the heart of the 14th amendment of our constitution. And even during the last world war, they were willing to fight for the right to die on foreign soil to defend their country even as their patriotic affections went unreciprocated or unrequited. They returned from that horrific war with dignity to face the indignity of discrimination at home. Yet the desire to push our nation to live up to its stated ideals persisted. I often wondered why any grandparents remained such model citizens, even when our countrys failures were so obvious. In the arrogance of my early adult life, i challenged my grandfather and doubted the ideals of our nation. He bluntly asked, so where else would you live . Though not a lettered man, he knew, that though not nearly perfect, our constitutional ideas were perfectible if we worked to protect them rather than to undermine them. As he said son dont throw the baby out with the bath water. That is, dont discard that which is precious along with that which is tainted. Sadly, today when it seems that grievances rather than personal conduct are the means of elevation, this may sound odd or at least discordant, but those around us, back then, seemed to have resolved to conduct themselves consistent with the duties that the ideals of our country demanded. They were lawabiding hardworking disciplined. They discharged their responsibilities to their families and neighbors as best they could. We were taught that despite unfair treatment, we were to be good citizens and good people. If we were to have a functioning neighborhood, then we had to first be Good Neighbors. And if we were to have a good city, state, and country, we had to first be good citizens. The same went for our school and our church. The corporal works of mercy, the greatest commandment Love Thy Neighbor as thyself. Just because someone else wronged us did not justify reciprocal conduct on our part. Right was right. And two wrongs did not make a right. As my grandfather often said, we were dutybound to do the right thing. To do unto others as we would have them do unto us. In a sense they were teaching us that what we wanted to do did not define what was right nor i might add did our capacious litany of wants define liberty. Rather, what was right defined what we were required to do and what we were permitted to do. It defined our duties and our responsibilities whether those duties meant cutting our neighbors lawn, visiting the sick, feeding the hungry, or in rare cases going off to war as my brother did we were to honorably discharge them. Shortly before his death in 1983 i sought my grandfathers advice about how to weather the first wave of criticism directed toward me. I admit to having been somewhat unnerved back then by the taunt of negativity. His Immediate Response was simple. Son, you have to stand up for what you believe in. To him that was my obligation and my duty. Perhaps it is at times like that when you lack both strength and courage that the clarity of our obligation supplies both, duty, honor, country. The clarity of obligation. As i admitted at the outset, i am of a different time. I knew no one, for example, who was surprised when president john f. Kennedy famously said at his inauguration in 1961, ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country. That sentiment was as common as saying the pledge of allegance and singing the starspangled banner and as pervasive as shopping at armynavy surplus stores. Today, of course there is much more focus on our rights as citizens and what we are owed. It is not often that one hears of our obligations or our duties as citizens, unless, of course theres talk about duty to submit to yet another new policy being suggested or proposed. My grandfather often said that if we didnt work, we didnt eat. Or if we didnt plant, we didnt harvest. There was always there would always be a relationship, as i said earlier between our responsibilities and our benefits. In agrarian societies, that is more obvious. As society becomes more complex and specialized, this is more difficult to discern. But lets look at this a different way. If you continue to run up charges on your credit card and never make a payment, at some point you reach your credit limit. If you continue to make withdrawals from your savings account and make no deposits eventually you deplete your funds. Why is it not the case, then, that if we continue to consume the benefits of a Free Society Without replenishing or nourishing it, we will eventually deplete it . If we are not making deposits to replenish our liberties then who is . Are we content to let others do the work to let a few give the last full measure for liberty while we consume the benefits . If so, perhaps one day we will run out of other peoples sacrifice and courage and perhaps we will run out of courageous people willing to make the sacrifice. But this is Hillsdale College. And you are special. That shining city on a hill. Hillsdale is a trustee of the heritage that finds its clearest expression in the american experiment of selfgovernment under law. The very existence of hillsdale connotes independence. It understands that liberty is an antecedent of government, not a benefit from government. However ii offer you graduates a free brief suggestions to make your contributions to liberty, your deposits to the account of liberty. Today is just the end of the beginning of your young lives. And it is the beginning the commencement of the rest of your lives. And hopefully they are long, fruitful lives in a free country. There is much more to come, and it will not be with the guiding hands of your parents, perhaps your hand will be required to guide them. Indeed, some of you will most assuredly be called upon to do the very hard thing, preserve liberty, perhaps even give the last full measure. But all of you will be called upon to provide that Firm Foundation of citizenship by carrying out your obligations much in the way that those around you did and so many did during my youth. You are to be the example of others that they were to you. The greatest lecture or sermon you will give is your example. What you do will matter far more than what you say. As the years have swiftly moved by, i have often reflected on the important citizenship lessons of my life. For the most part, it was the unplanned array of small things. There was the kind gesture from the neighbor. It was my grandmother dividing our dinner, because another person showed up unannounced. It was the strangers stopping to help us get our crops out of the field before a big storm. There were the irish nuns who believed in us and lived in our neighborhood. There was the librarian who brought books to mass so that i couldiwould not be without Reading Materials on the farm. Small lessons such as these became big lessons for how to live our lives. We watched and learned what it means to be a good person, a good neighbor, or a good citizen. Who will be watching you . And what will you be teaching them . After this commencement, i implore you to take a few minutes to thank those who made it possible for you to come this far. Your parents, your teachers, your pastor, your coaches. You know who helped you. Take a few minutes to show your gratitude. These are the people who have shown you how to sacrifice for those whom they love, even when that sacrifice is not always appreciated. As you go through life, try to be that person whose actions teach others how to be better people and better citizens. Reach out to that shy person who is not so popular. Stand up for others when theyre being treated unfairly, in small things and large. Take the time to listen to that friend who is having a difficult time. Do not hide your face and your beliefs under a bushel basket, especially in this world that seems to have gone mad with political correctness. Treat others the way you would like to be treated, if you stood in their shoes. These small lessons become the unplanned syllabus for becoming a good citizen. In your efforts to live them and your efforts to live them will help form the fabric of a Civil Society and a free and prosperous nation where inherent equality and liberty are in
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