Bitten By The Mania

Years ago, I penned a book on Abraham Lincoln following a couple of years of research. So it was that when Doris Kearns released a seminal study titled Team Of Rivals about Lincoln's ability to work with others, I picked it up and devoured it. Some paragraphs cemented themselves in memory before I could even finish the first portion of the book.To her abiding credit, Kearns examined in great detail the diaries and characters of the key players around Lincoln and yielded up some revealing truths about the nature of politics itself and its hold on people with ambition.One man challenging Lincoln for the Republican nomination was the well-respected Missouri elder statesman Edward Bates. While he had briefly held political office years earlier, his relationship with his wife and family were so defining and urgent that he returned to a private life he called "bliss". And his commitment to his own community was so profound that he often refused to leave it unless accompanied by his wife, and then only for brief periods.Kearns then provides a detailed account of how others colluded to get him back into the political game. It's a remarkable bit of narrative. Prior to their entrance into his circle, Bates wrote a friend:  "How happy is my lot!"  O it is a pleasure to work for such a family, to enjoy with them the blessings that God so freely gives."  Yet despite this ardour, influential people from the party believed they could still give him "the bug."  Bates initially fought them off, as his wife looked on in a bit of alarm. Fighting such heavy persuasion, Bates noted: "Ambition is a passion, at once strong and insidious, and is very apt to cheat a man out of his happiness and his true respectability of character."  It wasn't that he believed politics to be something bad, but that it had the power to bring out the more uncontrollable parts of human character.And so his recruiters set about flattering him from every angle, reminding him that only he could take the country where it needed to go.  It took some time before some cracks appeared in the man's protests, but finally one of the men charged with sweetening the pot wrote: "The mania has bitten old Bates very seriously." The hook was set and it was only a matter of time.And then Bates fell into the same rationale virtually every aspiring politician succumbs to. In his very personal diary he confesses: "Truly, if I can do my country that much good, I will rejoice in the belief that I have not lived in vain." It was over. He enlisted, eventually losing to Lincoln.How does somebody go from "bliss" to a totally political state in such a short period of time? And what can we make of his conclusion that he didn't want to live in vain? Only the year previous he had believed that his highest existence was lived in partnership with his wife and community.It strikes me that such an historic development of personality might just come in timely before all of us as MPs begin working our way to Ottawa tomorrow. We should all remind ourselves of what Helen Keller said:

I long to accomplish great and noble tasks, but it is my chief duty to accomplish humble tasks as though they were great and noble."

To my colleagues in all parties, before we put on the battle armour, I ask that we remind ourselves that to serve our constituents and country in humility is far more important than being a minister. To be kind and respectful to one another as MPs and Senators serves the public good far better than the seizure of power by whatever means. And to rush home to kiss our mates and abide with our children represents a greater accomplishment than any bill passed. Chances are slim, no doubt, but if we can bring decency and humility back to the House, we can bring respectability back home.