Jon Meacham's Fowler Program Talk

Jon Meacham’s qualifications as a presidential historian, Pulitzer Prize-winner, contributor to TIME and The New York Times Book Review, and author of The Soul of America, made him the perfect candidate to shed insight on the question “do we need to be good to be great?

Roughly 850 attendees were present at the Henry H. Fowler lecture series sponsored event to hear Meacham’s take on the importance of analyzing events of the American past and their meaning in the present.

“If we don’t look at where we started,” Meacham said, “you’re sure as heck not going to figure out where we should go.”

Meacham argued that “a devotion to the expansion of the application of Jefferson’s central premise of ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness…’ is the central piece of character moving forward in a democratic republic.’”

George H.W. Bush was accredited by Meacham as the exemplar of goodness and greatness through his character. “The character of [George H.W. Bush] shaped all of our [fates]. Our job is to make sure that our characters shape that fate for the good, as well.” Meacham knew the former President both personally and professionally, and later eulogized him at Bush’s funeral.

In regards to our responsibility to “shape fate for the good,” Meacham warned that we must be careful with our use of social media and cell phones, and that “just because you have the means to express an opinion quickly does not mean that you have an opinion worth expressing quickly.”