32 pages • 1 hour read
John F. KennedyProfiles in Courage
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1955A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Political Courage
The first and most important theme of Profiles in Courage is the concept of "political courage.”Although Kennedy borrows from the lives and careers of the senators described in this book, his own idea of political courage is highly complex and peculiar. It reflects the vagaries and ambiguity of political life, and the unique history and problems of American political history. As Profiles in Courage argues and demonstrates, the nature of political courage is not defined by a generic style of action or model of decision-making, but, as Kennedy argues, remains radically dependent upon the needs of a specific situation.
Kennedy's opening images of political courage are shown through their detractors. The Federalists, who describe their fellow Federalist John Quincy Adams as "selfish" and as "Lucifer," give some indication to the highly personal character of Adams’s idea of political courage. Adams's opponents deride his commitment to his personal ideals over the perceived needs of the Federalist party and see these ideals as an intrusion of selfishness into his duties as a representative of a specific constituency. Through Adams, Kennedy rebuts this view, arguing that the higher duty of a senator is to aid in the creation and enactment of sound policy, policy that protects not just one man, or a state, or a region, and instead puts the nation first. In addition to the ethic of country over party, what the charge of "selfishness" illustrates is the deep alienation and loneliness that can accompany these instances of political courage, in which a senator can be cut off from his or her fellow senators and political party simply by holding true to one's convictions. Kennedy maintains throughout the book that compromise is at the heart of politics, particularly for those in a democracy.
Kennedy's example of Senator Daniel Webster and his role in the Compromise of 1850 provides an important illustration of this idea. In this instance, Daniel Webster seemingly goes against his immediate conviction when confronted with the real possibility of the Union's dissolution. Webster's course of action is one of compromise, which keeps the Union intact. Webster is scorned by his colleagues and the leaders of the contemporary abolitionist movement but Kennedy nonetheless praises the Compromise of 1850 as an act of political courage. In so doing, the example of Daniel Webster reveals the core of Kennedy's idea of "political courage": not holding to one's personal convictions, or the ability to find the most expedient course of action, but the realization of one's absolute responsibility to secure the interests of the nation, above all else.
Conscience and the Individual
Conspicuously absent in Profiles in Courage are objective evaluations of the worth or merit particular historical policies or positions possess. Kennedy goes out of his way to avoid taking sides. While this posture allows Kennedy to document these senator's lives and careers with the detachment of a historian, the same posture fails to engage with many issues that might complicate or challenge his idea of political courage. However, this lack of engagement does not reflect Kennedy's indifference to the ethical and moral ramifications of policy, but instead illustrates the specific focus of his book: the role of conscience in political decision-making. It is this focus that allows Kennedy to investigate and question finer points of the internal struggles of these senators without having to cast judgment, and justify his positions in doing so.
Second President John Adams's letter to his son, Massachusetts Senator John Quincy Adams, is an important example of Kennedy's limited focus and the special relevance of this focus. Former president Adams counsels his son, John Quincy Adams, on his party's abandonment of him on the issue of embargo. Instead of conferring with his son regarding the finer points of the policy, and the political factors, the elder Adams reassures his son as to his faith in his son's personal qualities: his honesty, independence, and brilliance. Both the elder Adams's choice of words and Kennedy's inclusion of this letter speak to the high importance attributed to personal conscience in the Senate, as well as Kennedy's own idealism and optimism. In discussing more controversial events and decisions, such as Senator Daniel Webster's advocacy for the Compromise of 1850, Senator Edmund G. Ross's refusal to vote to impeach Andrew Johnson in 1868, and Senator George Norris's filibuster of the arming of American shipping during World War I, Kennedy is less concerned with the success or failure of these initiatives than he is the internal capacity for these men to act in spite of vitriolic and even violent opposition. The crux of these reflections is that while the object of an act of conscience might not be correct, the exercise of conscience—particularly in an atmosphere seemingly designed to suppress conscience—is a good in itself, and must be protected.
Partisanship and Regionalism
Another important theme of Profiles in Courage is the place of Senate in the peculiar system of American democracy. How Kennedy chooses to interpret American political history is an important part of the book's significance. Kennedy's image of the Senate illustrates a body that is at the center of—and in many ways responsible for—the many strengths and weaknesses of the American political system. Throughout Profiles in Courage, familiar patterns emerge, with which Senators must engage, time and time again. Partisanship, regionalism, racial inequality, and international involvement factor heavily into Kennedy's assessments of the personal qualities of the senators he writes about, and shape his ideas about political courage. These are aspects of all political systems, yet Profiles in Courage seems to suggest that the ideals of American democracy have the potential to combat these ills, if not extinguish them entirely.
The role of partisanship and regionalism in American political history are crucial to the understanding of Kennedy's main arguments in Profiles in Courage. Specifically, Kennedy highlights the longstanding conflict in American history between its Northern and Southern states, a conflict for which the Civil War is the watershed moment but underlies nearly a century of competition and division, which continued long after the war ended. Given the Senate's uniform allotment of two senators to each state, the Senate becomes a figurative and even literal arena for these conflicts; the savage beating of Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner is one such example. However, the conflict between North and South adapts itself to partisan politics, beginning with the conflict between the Federalists and Democratic-Republicans and leading to the Democrats and Republicans. For Profiles in Courage the significance of these parties is that they are generally toxic to the idea of political courage; they introduce loyalties that distort and detract from senator's explicit duties and create systems of obligation, patronage, and coercion that dilute the Senate's original mission.
It is not difficult to see how Kennedy positions himself in this book, by implication: a Senator from Massachusetts, he is a Democrat and a Catholic. Both through the writing of this book, and the trajectory of his political career, Kennedy sees himself as one to bridge political divisions and see off the obstacles of partisanship and regionalism in pursuit of genuine national interest.
