‘Sacred Fire of Liberty’ Blazes at Huntington
“Abill of rights is what the people are entitled to against every government on earth. . . .”
Three-hundred community leaders turned out in black tie Monday evening at the Huntington Library in San Marino to see the letter in which Thomas Jefferson wrote those words to James Madison and to hear former President Jimmy Carter appeal for human rights.
The evening, with cocktails under the Englemann (mesa) oak, opened “The Sacred Fire of Liberty: The Creation of the American Bill of Rights,” an exhibition celebrating the bicentennial of the first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution. The event also launched activities for the Constitutional Rights Foundation and the Huntington, leading up to the 200th anniversary of the Bill of Rights on Dec. 15.
Guests mingled among major items in the exhibit: letters by Jefferson and James Madison; the letter written by King George III giving independence to his former American colonies; rare drafts of the Constitution printed secretly for use by delegates during the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787; a 700-year-old copy of England’s Magna Carta, and originals of the Emancipation Proclamation and the 13th Amendment, which outlawed slavery, signed by Abraham Lincoln.
Guest speaker Carter was greeted by the evening’s co-hosts: Robert F. Erburu and his wife, Lois; Seth and Shirley Hufstedler (she is former U.S. secretary of Education), and Richard and Marjorie Stegemeier.
The hosts escorted Carter on a breeze-through of the exhibit and later the Huntington Art Gallery, where they stopped at Sir Thomas Lawrence’s “Pinkie” and Thomas Gainsborough’s “Blue Boy.”
When he was in the second grade, Carter explained, he received a print of “Blue Boy” as the grand prize for reading the most books in his class. He wanted to see the real thing.
As twilight fell on the rose garden and newly mowed Huntington lawns, guests sat for dinner on the South Terrace of the art gallery. Silver stars were entwined in tall red-white-and-blue floral arrangements. A rack of lamb dinner ended with dessert of warm lemon buttermilk pudding cake topped with berries.
Addressing guests, Carter called for “the nobility of our forefathers.” He spoke of the difficulties of managing the 140 languages spoken in Los Angeles schools and said: “I would hope we would appreciate the Bill of Rights in the finest way by sharing it with others.”
Rather than “a complacency of self-congratulation,” he suggested the country needs to strive harder, on both individual and group levels, to “grant the privilege of a humane society . . . to others that might not have access to the same kind of privilege.”
He noted: “Fifty thousand people sleep on the streets of New York. . . . We should be concerned after 200 years of promise of the glories of life, we still have this disparity of our citizens.”
In the crowd: Joyce and Kent Kresa, William Moffett (new director of the library), John Rhodehamel (curator of the exhibition), Ronald and Karen Beard, Alice Avery, Judge David and Peggy Thomas, Harry and Jane Usher, Marion and Earle Jorgensen, Larry and Mary Tollenaere, Bob and Ann Wycoff, Jack and Ann McQueen, Steve and Carol Meier, Ed and Nadine Carson, Gordon and Connie Fish, Bob and Loretta Smith and Gretchen and George Gibbs.