Be the Voice... Not the Echo

Samuel Chase, an American revolutionary, a signatory of the Declaration of Independence, passionate advocate against the Stamp Act, and Associate Supreme Court Justice appointed by President George Washington, faced politically driven impeachment trials.

Why?

For standing up against injustice on a newly born Republic from President Thomas Jefferson!
Jefferson and his allies abolished the lower courts and terminated all their Federalist judges,
despite lifetime appointments. Chase denounced this action when he spoke before a Baltimore
grand jury. Jefferson worked to silence Chase by attempting to impeach him. 

How can we stand for what's right when an institution, government, and
business pushes authentic leaders and new ideas out?

Let’s Analyze the Quote:

“Anyone can give up, it's the easiest thing in the world to do.
But to hold it together when everyone else would understand
if you fell apart, that's true strength.”

The system is not broken - the system is doing exactly what it's supposed to do.
It's designed to shut out change, new ideas, and revolution. 

As a youth ambassador that is apart of Generation Z, I can easily say that holding faith
in institutions is very difficult. Immigration, Environment, Healthcare, Education -
all systems that are designed to fail.

When we go back to the quote, it forces us to pose a question…

How can we NOT give up when the system, institution,
government, and/or establishment is completely unwilling to
change its ways of doing and thinking about things?

So what happened to Samuel Chase?

Samuel Chase stayed in the fight and stood for what he believed. Chase’s opponents failed to gather
the two-thirds majority needed to impeach him. The Senate’s failure to remove Chase from the bench
was seen as a victory for judicial independence and established the precedent that a judge
could not be removed as a result of stating political views from the bench. 

Samuel Chase stayed true to his morals and values regardless of the political threat.
As a result, his actions led to systematic change for generations to come.

Is that enough?

For someone that will always be remembered as the only Supreme Court Justice to ever face
impeachment trials, would it have been better to create change from outside of the system, or
rather create systematic change from within? These are two schools of thought that are both not wrong. 

The underlying point is, regardless of the system’s flaws, it's important to stand by our morals,
values, and ideals. In a world surrounded by the notion of “playing it safe” and “following the crowd,”
we must remember to think differently. Within the system, or from the outside, the pressures
one faces from being critical may result in being pushed out. The decision becomes playing
along until power is obtained, or always remaining an honest critic.
What will you do?

Signing off...

Sinan Kassim