He'd taken a seat beside me and was leaning forward on his cane. That seemed a habit, as if he was leaning into life, not waiting for it to get to him. He had been mostly talking to the darkening sky before us, and only occasionally turning to me to include me in his remembering.
In that short story I saw why George Washington Jones or, as Andrew Johnson dubbed him, "Friend Jones of Old Lincoln" had been successful for fifty years in public service. He could gauge people, had a pretty candid understanding of himself, knew human nature, and was unabashed in engaging others. Straight, kind, attentive, intelligent involvement without pretense when dealing with others compliments the other person. Most people feel that and appreciate it. Folks want others to be interested in them and respectful of who they are.
"Jones and Johnson of Tennessee, saddler and tailor, spent many years engaged in the state and then the nation's business. You both walked the corridors of power and lived in turbulent times." I stated the historically obvious, letting him go where he wanted.
"Yes, sir, we saw most things alike." He paused to gather his thoughts, and then began a short discourse on political theory.
"Power is an interesting thing, sir. I contend that there are three sources of power: ideas, force, and numbers of people. Our blessed republican form of government; democracy, sir, rule of the people, is a set of rules that arbitrate those powers, the powers inherent in citizenship: freedom of thought, action, and association. Well, I suppose those are powers basic to every person. The old world tried to subjugate those powers, control them. Be it king or 'the better people,' the inalienable rights of persons were denied by imposed tradition and force.
"Any two of those freedoms-ideas, force, or association-united can rule, even dominate a state, a nation, a world. The most potent of the three is association, the strength of numbers. Join numbers with ideas, and force can be overcome. It does not matter if the force is money or armies. It was true of our noble revolution. Well, with a little luck, I'll grant." He chuckled at having modified an absolute. "Ideas of liberty and enough people pledged and faithful to them overcame the rule of royalty and force of the greatest nation in the world. We wore them out, held on to our ideas. Enough people cared, endured, and recruited allies to create an independent nation founded on ideals of liberty."
The opening was too inviting. Like a prosecuting attorney pouncing on contradictory testimony, I asked, "And what of slavery? What of liberty's significance then? Slavery and liberty are surely always in uncompromising conflict."