Citizen Tom

Usually we do not think of majority rule as tyrannical.  Alexis De Tocqueville, however, had no such illusions.  He understood that more than one republic had passed into despotism because of majority rule.  And from his observations of 1831-32 America, he also understood just how tyrannical the majority might be.

What follows is an excerpt from  Democracy in America, Chapter II, Section 1 Volume 2 (of 2).  In this excerpt, Tocqueville explains the frightful power with which the majority can enforce its will.

When the ranks of society are unequal, and men unlike each other in condition, there are some individuals invested with all the power of superior intelligence, learning, and enlightenment, whilst the multitude is sunk in ignorance and prejudice. Men living at these aristocratic periods are therefore naturally induced to shape their opinions by the superior standard of a person or a class of persons, whilst they are averse to recognize the infallibility of the mass of the people.

The contrary takes place in ages of equality. The nearer the citizens are drawn to the common level of an equal and similar condition, the less prone does each man become to place implicit faith in a certain man or a certain class of men. But his readiness to believe the multitude increases, and opinion is more than ever mistress of the world. Not only is common opinion the only guide which private judgment retains amongst a democratic people, but amongst such a people it possesses a power infinitely beyond what it has elsewhere. At periods of equality men have no faith in one another, by reason of their common resemblance; but this very resemblance gives them almost unbounded confidence in the judgment of the public; for it would not seem probable, as they are all endowed with equal means of judging, but that the greater truth should go with the greater number.

When the inhabitant of a democratic country compares himself individually with all those about him, he feels with pride that he is the equal of any one of them; but when he comes to survey the totality of his fellows, and to place himself in contrast to so huge a body, he is instantly overwhelmed by the sense of his own insignificance and weakness. The same equality which renders him independent of each of his fellow-citizens taken severally, exposes him alone and unprotected to the influence of the greater number. The public has therefore among a democratic people a singular power, of which aristocratic nations could never so much as conceive an idea; for it does not persuade to certain opinions, but it enforces them, and infuses them into the faculties by a sort of enormous pressure of the minds of all upon the reason of each.

In the United States the majority undertakes to supply a multitude of ready-made opinions for the use of individuals, who are thus relieved from the necessity of forming opinions of their own. Everybody there adopts great numbers of theories, on philosophy, morals, and politics, without inquiry, upon public trust; and if we look to it very narrowly, it will be perceived that religion herself holds her sway there, much less as a doctrine of revelation than as a commonly received opinion. The fact that the political laws of the Americans are such that the majority rules the community with sovereign sway, materially increases the power which that majority naturally exercises over the mind. For nothing is more customary in man than to recognize superior wisdom in the person of his oppressor. This political omnipotence of the majority in the United States doubtless augments the influence which public opinion would obtain without it over the mind of each member of the community; but the foundations of that influence do not rest upon it. They must be sought for in the principle of equality itself, not in the more or less popular institutions which men living under that condition may give themselves. The intellectual dominion of the greater number would probably be less absolute amongst a democratic people governed by a king than in the sphere of a pure democracy, but it will always be extremely absolute; and by whatever political laws men are governed in the ages of equality, it may be foreseen that faith in public opinion will become a species of religion there, and the majority its ministering prophet.

Thus intellectual authority will be different, but it will not be diminished; and far from thinking that it will disappear, I augur that it may readily acquire too much preponderance, and confine the action of private judgment within narrower limits than are suited either to the greatness or the happiness of the human race. In the principle of equality I very clearly discern two tendencies; the one leading the mind of every man to untried thoughts, the other inclined to prohibit him from thinking at all. And I perceive how, under the dominion of certain laws, democracy would extinguish that liberty of the mind to which a democratic social condition is favorable; so that, after having broken all the bondage once imposed on it by ranks or by men, the human mind would be closely fettered to the general will of the greatest number.

If the absolute power of the majority were to be substituted by democratic nations, for all the different powers which checked or retarded overmuch the energy of individual minds, the evil would only have changed its symptoms. Men would not have found the means of independent life; they would simply have invented (no easy task) a new dress for servitude. There is—and I cannot repeat it too often—there is in this matter for profound reflection for those who look on freedom as a holy thing, and who hate not only the despot, but despotism. For myself, when I feel the hand of power lie heavy on my brow, I care but little to know who oppresses me; and I am not the more disposed to pass beneath the yoke, because it is held out to me by the arms of a million of men.

“For nothing is more customary in man than to recognize superior wisdom in the person of his oppressor.”  Consider some examples. 

• Do you believe in global warming?   Are you familiar with the argument that global warming must be true because it is supposedly the overwhelming consensus of scientists?  Consensus?  Is that the way science is suppose to work?
• Do you think the two-party system consisting of the Democratic Party and the Republican Party is best?  Why?  What would be wrong with a multi-party system?
• What is the importance of polls?  Do you feel reassured that you are right only when you are in the majority?
• Why was the idea of Negro inferiority so difficult to overcome?
• What is the basis for the argument supporting same-sex marriage?  Does it have anything to do logic or “majority consensus”?
• Why do political advocates work so hard to “prove” the majority sides with them?

Every news source has a fault, and Mark Levin most certainly has his.  Levin is an angry man, and anger tends to be both infectious and tiring.  Nonetheless, I listen to Levin.  Why?  Levin does his research and presents supporting facts.

After I started listening to Levin, I decided to read his books.  Here is my report on Men in Black: How the Supreme Court Is Destroying America.

What Is The Book About?

Men in Black came out in 2005.  So it is not a brand new book.  That, however, does not make the book any less relevant.  The issues Levin writes about have grown more acute.   Because of the Democratic Party’s election victories, it is now even less likely that the Supreme Court’s rulings will support and defend our Constitution.

Levin begins his book by pointing out what should be obvious; Supreme Court justices are only men and women, not gods and goddesses.   That is why, he explains, the Constitution gives the Supreme Court no special right to interpret the Law.   Levin underlines this argument with a surprisingly long list of justices who have had mental problems, grown senile in office, or behaved irresponsibility.

Levin then talks about legal issues, and he explains how judges use their position to promote their own personal agendas.  The book provides each of the following subjects its own chapter:

• The philosophy that underlies judicial activism.  Some judges, for example, consider okay to cite foreign law.
• An explanation of judicial review.  This addresses the court’s “constitutional argument“ for overturning laws or imposing new laws.
• The so-called wall separation of church and state.   This chapter answers a question.  How do legal activists use a false interpretation of the Constitution to promote their agenda?
• Abortion and the “right to privacy.” Levin argues that the right to abort evolved through a series of concocted legal decisions.
• Same-sex “marriage.” Levin discusses how justices are promoting the legal right to same-sex marriage one court decision at a time.
• Affirmative action.   This chapter explains how judges promote affirmative action, racism.
• Immigration law.  Here Levin explains how the Court is setting immigration policy by establishing nonexistent rights for illegal immigrants.
• The court’s interference in the war with Al Qaeda.   With its overreaching, the court undermines the power of the Commander in Chief to make war.
• The commerce clause and creeping socialism.  This chapter is almost funny.  Congress and the Supremes have so broadly interpreted the commerce clause Levin can make it seem funny.
• Freedom of speech.  This chapter is scary.  What politicians do most expertly is run for public office.  Nonetheless, Congress passed the McCain-Feingold Act without reading or understanding the bill.
• Growing court interference in elections.  This chapter provides a great explanation of what happened when Al Gore and George Bush fought over the results of the 2000 presidential election in Florida.
• Stacking the bench.  Only this chapter specifically relates to situation at the time the book was written.  Levin provides advice on how to fight Liberal efforts to stack the bench.
• Eliminating the Supreme Court’s abuse of its powers.  Here Levin provides his proposals for reforming the Supreme Court.

Other Views

When the Washington Post reviewed the book (here), their reviewer stressed who was reading the book, just Conservatives.  Without saying so, the Post’s reviewer also made it clear he also had not bothered to read the book.  He had almost nothing to say about its actual content.

Rush Limbaugh, obviously partisan, provided his review of the book here.  Limbaugh recommended the book as a must read.  Its contents arm Conservatives with arguments against judicial activism.

Conservatives must explain to the American people that Senate Democrats want activist justices who will continue to impose their personal policy preferences on society by fiat, thereby disenfranchising them and undermining the entire notion of representative government. Conservatives must tap into the public’s growing frustration with the Supreme Court’s increasingly radical and elitist decisions in order to build popular opposition to it.

The best guide to this approach is a timely new book by Mark R. Levin – “Men in Black, How the Supreme Court is Destroying America.” In a scholarly yet readable prose, Levin makes the conservative case. He argues that the time is long overdue to strip the veneer from the facade of the Court. There have been only slightly over 100 justices in our history. They’ve not been imbued with more wisdom or better judgment than the rest of us.

The Heritage Foundation hosted a speech by Levin (see here).  The invite endorses the book, making the point that “a Court that imperiously strikes down laws and imposes new ones purely on its own arbitrary whims” is tyrannical.

Even if you have no inclination to read Levin’s book, listen to Levin’s speech.  The speech provides a good summary of the book.

The above picture is from a National Park Service web page (here).  Here is the caption. 

Under Washington’s firm guidance, Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute in his own lifetime grew from a small collection of dilapidated buildings (top) and 30 students to a 2,000-acre campus of 107 buildings, more then 1,500 students, and nearly 200 faculty members. The students themselves constructed most of the school’s buildings. (Top: Booker T. Washington National Monument; Bottom: Library of Congress)

The students also made most of their own bricks. 

When James Atticus Bowden commented on the previous post, he mentioned an amazing story that Booker T. Washington told in his autobiography,  Up From Slavery: An Autobiography.   It is a story about perseverance and the hard struggle of learning.  Here is the story.

In the early days of the school I think my most trying experience was in the matter of brickmaking. As soon as we got the farm work reasonably well started, we directed our next efforts toward the industry of making bricks. We needed these for use in connection with the erection of our own buildings; but there was also another reason for establishing this industry. There was no brickyard in the town, and in addition to our own needs there was a demand for bricks in the general market.

I had always sympathized with the “Children of Israel,” in their task of “making bricks without straw,” but ours was the task of making bricks with no money and no experience.

In the first place, the work was hard and dirty, and it was difficult to get the students to help. When it came to brickmaking, their distaste for manual labour in connection with book education became especially manifest. It was not a pleasant task for one to stand in the mud-pit for hours, with the mud up to his knees. More than one man became disgusted and left the school.

We tried several locations before we opened up a pit that furnished brick clay. I had always supposed that brickmaking was very simple, but I soon found out by bitter experience that it required special skill and knowledge, particularly in the burning of the bricks. After a good deal of effort we moulded about twenty-five thousand bricks, and put them into a kiln to be burned. This kiln turned out to be a failure, because it was not properly constructed or properly burned. We began at once, however, on a second kiln. This, for some reason, also proved a failure.  The failure of this kiln made it still more difficult to get the students to take part in the work. Several of the teachers, however, who had been trained in the industries at Hampton, volunteered their services, and in some way we succeeded in getting a third kiln ready for burning. The burning of a kiln required about a week. Toward the latter part of the week, when it seemed as if we were going to have a good many thousand bricks in a few hours, in the middle of the night the kiln fell. For the third time we had failed.

The failure of this last kiln left me without a single dollar with which to make another experiment. Most of the teachers advised the abandoning of the effort to make bricks. In the midst of my troubles I thought of a watch which had come into my possession years before. I took the watch to the city of Montgomery, which was not far distant, and placed it in a pawn-shop. I secured cash upon it to the amount of fifteen dollars, with which to renew the brickmaking experiment. I returned to Tuskegee, and, with the help of the fifteen dollars, rallied our rather demoralized and discouraged forces and began a fourth attempt to make bricks. This time, I am glad to say, we were successful. Before I got hold of any money, the time-limit on my watch had expired, and I have never seen it since; but I have never regretted the loss of it.

Brickmaking has now become such an important industry at the school that last season our students manufactured twelve hundred thousand of first-class bricks, of a quality stable to be sold in any market. Aside from this, scores of young men have mastered the brickmaking trade–both the making of bricks by hand and by machinery–and are now engaged in this industry in many parts of the South.  (from here)

Washington then went on to explain what he learned from these difficulties.   Because of what he had learned, he gained satisfaction and pleasure.   That  satisfaction and pleasure did not come merely from overcoming the difficulties he had encountered.   It came from things unexpected that he learned.   Thus Washington felt he was more than amply rewarded by his hard work.

Up From Slavery: An Autobiography, by Booker T. Washington, is one of the most fascinating books I have read in a long time.  Imagine what it must have been like.

This experience of a whole race beginning to go to school for the first time, presents one of the most interesting studies that has ever occurred in connection with the development of any race. Few people who were not right in the midst of the scenes can form any exact idea of the intense desire which the people of my race showed for an education. As I have stated, it was a whole race trying to go to school. Few were too young, and none too old, to make the attempt to learn. As fast as any kind of teachers could be secured, not only were day-schools filled, but night-schools as well. The great ambition of the older people was to try to learn to read the Bible before they died. With this end in view men and women who were fifty or seventy-five years old would often be found in the night-school. Some day-schools were formed soon after freedom, but the principal book studied in the Sunday-school was the spelling-book. Day-school, night-school, Sunday-school, were always crowded, and often many had to be turned away for want of room.  (from here)

The American Civil War ended when Washington was still a boy, and he seized every opportunity to educate himself.   Washington finished (assuming anyone ever does) his own education at what was then known as Hampton Institute (history here).   Eventually he taught at Hampton Institute, even helping to establish its alumni association (here).

What Washington became most noted for, however, was the establishment of the Tuskegee University (history here).  This job and the fame he achieved allowed Washington to become a spokesman for America’s former slaves.

Below is perhaps the most famous speech made by Washington.  It is the address which he delivered at the opening of the Atlanta Cotton states and International Exposition, at Atlanta, Ga., September 18, 1895.  At this exposition, Blacks, then referred to as Negros, had their own exhibit hall.

Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Board of Directors and Citizens.

One-third of the population of the South is of the Negro race. No enterprise seeking the material, civil, or moral welfare of this section can disregard this element of our population and reach the highest success. I but convey to you, Mr. President and Directors, the sentiment of the masses of my race when I say that in no way have the value and manhood of the American Negro been more fittingly and generously recognized than by the managers of this magnificent Exposition at every stage of its progress. It is a recognition that will do more to cement the friendship of the two races than any occurrence since the dawn of our freedom.

Not only this, but the opportunity here afforded will awaken among us a new era of industrial progress. Ignorant and inexperienced, it is not strange that in the first years of our new life we began at the top instead of at the bottom; that a seat in Congress or the state legislature was more sought than real estate or industrial skill; that the political convention or stump speaking had more attractions than starting a dairy farm or truck garden.

A ship lost at sea for many days suddenly sighted a friendly vessel. From the mast of the unfortunate vessel was seen a signal, “Water, water; we die of thirst!” The answer from the friendly vessel at once came back, “Cast down your bucket where you are.” A second time the signal, “Water, water; send us water!” ran up from the distressed vessel, and was answered, “Cast down your bucket where you are.” And a third and fourth signal for water was answered, “Cast down your bucket where you are.” The captain of the distressed vessel, at last heading the injunction, cast down his bucket, and it came up full of fresh, sparkling water from the mouth of the Amazon River. To those of my race who depend on bettering their condition in a foreign land or who underestimate the importance of cultivating friendly relations with the Southern white man, who is their next-door neighbour, I would say: “Cast down your bucket where you are”–cast it down in making friends in every manly way of the people of all races by whom we are surrounded.

Cast it down in agriculture, mechanics, in commerce, in domestic service, and in the professions. And in this connection it is well to bear in mind that whatever other sins the South may be called to bear, when it comes to business, pure and simple, it is in the South that the Negro is given a man’s chance in the commercial world, and in nothing is this Exposition more eloquent than in emphasizing this chance. Our greatest danger is that in the great leap from slavery to freedom we may overlook the fact that the masses of us are to live by the productions of our hands, and fail to keep in mind that we shall prosper in proportion as we learn to dignify and glorify common labour and put brains and skill into the common occupations of life; shall prosper in proportion as we learn to draw the line between the superficial and the substantial, the ornamental gewgaws of life and the useful. No race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem. It is at the bottom of life we must begin, and not at the top. Nor should we permit our grievances to overshadow our opportunities.

To those of the white race who look to the incoming of those of foreign birth and strange tongue and habits of the prosperity of the South, were I permitted I would repeat what I say to my own race: “Cast down your bucket where you are.” Cast it down among the eight millions of Negroes whose habits you know, whose fidelity and love you have tested in days when to have proved treacherous meant the ruin of your firesides. Cast down your bucket among these people who have, without strikes and labour wars, tilled your fields, cleared your forests, builded your railroads and cities, and brought forth treasures from the bowels of the earth, and helped make possible this magnificent representation of the progress of the South. Casting down your bucket among my people, helping and encouraging them as you are doing on these grounds, and to education of head, hand, and heart, you will find that they will buy your surplus land, make blossom the waste places in your fields, and run your factories. While doing this, you can be sure in the future, as in the past, that you and your families will be surrounded by the most patient, faithful, law-abiding, and unresentful people that the world has seen.  As we have proved our loyalty to you in the past, nursing your children, watching by the sick-bed of your mothers and fathers, and often following them with tear-dimmed eyes to their graves, so in the future, in our humble way, we shall stand by you with a devotion that no foreigner can approach, ready to lay down our lives, if need be, in defence of yours, interlacing our industrial, commercial, civil, and religious life with yours in a way that shall make the interests of both races one. In all things that are purely social we can be as separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress.

There is no defence or security for any of us except in the highest intelligence and development of all. If anywhere there are efforts tending to curtail the fullest growth of the Negro, let these efforts be turned into stimulating, encouraging, and making him the most useful and intelligent citizen. Effort or means so invested will pay a thousand per cent interest. These efforts will be twice blessed–”blessing him that gives and him that takes.”

There is no escape through law of man or God from the inevitable:–

The laws of changeless justice bind
Oppressor with oppressed;
And close as sin and suffering joined
We march to fate abreast.

Nearly sixteen millions of hands will aid you in pulling the load upward, or they will pull against you the load downward. We shall constitute one-third and more of the ignorance and crime of the South, or one-third its intelligence and progress; we shall contribute one-third to the business and industrial prosperity of the South, or we shall prove a veritable body of death, stagnating, depressing, retarding every effort to advance the body politic.

Gentlemen of the Exposition, as we present to you our humble effort at an exhibition of our progress, you must not expect overmuch. Starting thirty years ago with ownership here and there in a few quilts and pumpkins and chickens (gathered from miscellaneous sources), remember the path that has led from these to the inventions and production of agricultural implements, buggies, steam-engines, newspapers, books, statuary, carving, paintings, the management of drug-stores and banks, has not been trodden without contact with thorns and thistles. While we take pride in what we exhibit as a result of our independent efforts, we do not for a moment forget that our part in this exhibition would fall far short of your expectations but for the constant help that has come to our education life, not only from the Southern states, but especially from Northern philanthropists, who have made their gifts a constant stream of blessing and encouragement.

The wisest among my race understand that the agitation of questions of social equality is the extremest folly, and that progress in the enjoyment of all the privileges that will come to us must be the result of severe and constant struggle rather than of artificial forcing. No race that has anything to contribute to the markets of the world is long in any degree ostracized. It is important and right that all privileges of the law be ours, but it is vastly more important that we be prepared for the exercises of these privileges. The opportunity to earn a dollar in a factory just now is worth infinitely more than the opportunity to spend a dollar in an opera-house.

In conclusion, may I repeat that nothing in thirty years has given us more hope and encouragement, and drawn us so near to you of the white race, as this opportunity offered by the Exposition; and here bending, as it were, over the altar that represents the results of the struggles of your race and mine, both starting practically empty-handed three decades ago, I pledge that in your effort to work out the great and intricate problem which God has laid at the doors of the South, you shall have at all times the patient, sympathetic help of my race; only let this be constantly in mind, that, while from representations in these buildings of the product of field, of forest, of mine, of factory, letters, and art, much good will come, yet far above and beyond material benefits will be that higher good, that, let us pray God, will come, in a blotting out of sectional differences and racial animosities and suspicions, in a determination to administer absolute justice, in a willing obedience among all classes to the mandates of law. This, this, coupled with our material prosperity, will bring into our beloved South a new heaven and a new earth.  (from here)

Because he so overshadows other heroes, we often think of the Civil Rights Movement as beginning in the 1950’s with Dr. Martin Luther King.  In reality, progress has been incremental.  Because we are so stubborn, we make progress in small steps.  Thus the Civil Rights Movement goes back much further than five or even ten decades, and many would say the movement has yet to end.

In retrospect, I now find it strange how I was taught history.  Instead of reading the writings of the people who lived during the times I studied, my teachers primarily instructed from history books.  I would happily have read both works from the period of study and history books, but that never seemed to be a matter of much consideration.

Admittedly, because its English is so remote from our time, Shakespeare is hard to read.  Yet with a little practice, high school students still do it, but it seems to me they now do it less often.  Franklin’s autobiography, however, is eminently readable.  So for your enjoyment and edification, I offer a couple of passages from The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin.

The first is a list of virtues.  Conscious that his character needed improvement, Franklin set about the task.   He contrived a written plan, and in this plan he identified the virtues he thought important.

These names of virtues, with their precepts, were:

1.  TEMPERANCE.  Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation.

2.  SILENCE.  Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation.

3.  ORDER.  Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time.

4.  RESOLUTION.  Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve.

5.  FRUGALITY.  Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; i.e., waste nothing.

6.  INDUSTRY.  Lose no time; be always employ’d in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions.

7.  SINCERITY.  Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly, and, if you speak, speak accordingly.

8.  JUSTICE.  Wrong none by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that are your duty.

9.  MODERATION.  Avoid extreams; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve.

10.  CLEANLINESS.  Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, cloaths, or habitation.

11.  TRANQUILLITY.  Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable.

12.  CHASTITY.  Rarely use venery but for health or offspring, never to dulness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another’s peace or reputation.

13.  HUMILITY.  Imitate Jesus and Socrates.

Note that Franklin’s original list contained but twelve virtues.  Here he explains.

My list of virtues contain’d at first but twelve; but a Quaker friend having kindly informed me that I was generally thought proud; that my pride show’d itself frequently in conversation; that I was not content with being in the right when discussing any point, but was overbearing, and rather insolent, of which he convinc’d me by mentioning several instances; I determined endeavouring to cure myself, if I could, of this vice or folly among the rest, and I added Humility to my list, giving an extensive meaning to the word.

I cannot boast of much success in acquiring the reality of this virtue, but I had a good deal with regard to the appearance of it.  I made it a rule to forbear all direct contradiction to the sentiments of others, and all positive assertion of my own. I even forbid myself, agreeably to the old laws of our Junto (a group of men with which Franklin carried on carefully conducted discussions), the use of every word or expression in the language that imported a fix’d opinion, such as certainly, undoubtedly, etc., and I adopted, instead of them, I conceive, I apprehend, or I imagine a thing to be so or so; or it so appears to me at present.  When another asserted something that I thought an error, I deny’d myself the pleasure of contradicting him abruptly, and of showing immediately some absurdity in his proposition; and in answering I began by observing that in certain cases or circumstances his opinion would be right, but in the present case there appear’d or seem’d to me some difference, etc.  I soon found the advantage of this change in my manner; the conversations I engag’d in went on more pleasantly.  The modest way in which I propos’d my opinions procur’d them a readier reception and less contradiction; I had less mortification when I was found to be in the wrong, and I more easily prevail’d with others to give up their mistakes and join with me when I happened to be in the right.

And this mode, which I at first put on with some violence to natural inclination, became at length so easy, and so habitual to me, that perhaps for these fifty years past no one has ever heard a dogmatical expression escape me.  And to this habit (after my character of integrity) I think it principally owing that I had early so much weight with my fellow-citizens when I proposed new institutions, or alterations in the old, and so much influence in public councils when I became a member; for I was but a bad speaker, never eloquent, subject to much hesitation in my choice of words, hardly correct in language, and yet I generally carried my points.

In reality, there is, perhaps, no one of our natural passions so hard to subdue as pride.  Disguise it, struggle with it, beat it down, stifle it, mortify it as much as one pleases, it is still alive, and will every now and then peep out and show itself; you will see it, perhaps, often in this history; for, even if I could conceive that I had compleatly overcome it, I should probably be proud of my humility.

[Thus far written at Passy, 1784.]

It is fortunate that Franklin added humility to his list.  Pride is the greatest of sins.   Pride is the sin that led to Lucifer’s downfall.

The Fall of Lucifer

¹² “ How you are fallen from heaven,
O Lucifer, son of the morning!
How you are cut down to the ground,
You who weakened the nations!
¹³ For you have said in your heart:

‘ I will ascend into heaven,
I will exalt my throne above the stars of God;
I will also sit on the mount of the congregation
On the farthest sides of the north;
¹⁴ I will ascend above the heights of the clouds,
I will be like the Most High.’
¹⁵ Yet you shall be brought down to Sheol,
To the lowest depths of the Pit.
¹⁶ “ Those who see you will gaze at you,
And consider you, saying:

‘ Is this the man who made the earth tremble,
Who shook kingdoms,
¹⁷ Who made the world as a wilderness
And destroyed its cities,
Who did not open the house of his prisoners?’
¹⁸ “ All the kings of the nations,
All of them, sleep in glory,
Everyone in his own house;
¹⁹ But you are cast out of your grave
Like an abominable branch,
Like the garment of those who are slain,
Thrust through with a sword,
Who go down to the stones of the pit,
Like a corpse trodden underfoot.
²⁰ You will not be joined with them in burial,
Because you have destroyed your land
And slain your people.
The brood of evildoers shall never be named.
²¹ Prepare slaughter for his children
Because of the iniquity of their fathers,
Lest they rise up and possess the land,
And fill the face of the world with cities.”

Isaiah 14:12-21 (New King James Version)

These names of virtues, with their precepts, were:

1.  TEMPERANCE.  Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation.

2.  SILENCE.  Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself;
avoid trifling conversation.

3.  ORDER.  Let all your things have their places; let each part
of your business have its time.

4.  RESOLUTION.  Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without
fail what you resolve.

5.  FRUGALITY.  Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself;
i.e., waste nothing.

6.  INDUSTRY.  Lose no time; be always employ'd in something useful;
cut off all unnecessary actions.

7.  SINCERITY.  Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly,
and, if you speak, speak accordingly.

8.  JUSTICE.  Wrong none by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits
that are your duty.

9.  MODERATION.  Avoid extreams; forbear resenting injuries so much
as you think they deserve.

10.  CLEANLINESS.  Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, cloaths,
or habitation.

11.  TRANQUILLITY.  Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents
common or unavoidable.

12.  CHASTITY.  Rarely use venery but for health or offspring,
never to dulness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another's
peace or reputation.

13.  HUMILITY.  Imitate Jesus and Socrates.