The Symbolism of Hope
In the heart of Capitol Hill, surrounded by polished marble that holds America’s history, I was struck not by policy briefings—but by a story.
During the American Civil War (1861-1865), a young nation—born to be a democracy—teetered on the brink of collapse. Abraham Lincoln made a decision that seemed, to many, absurd: he ordered construction of the United States Capitol building to continue. It seemed foolish to focus on aesthetics while cannons fired and the nation bled from within. But Lincoln knew what he was doing. He understood the symbolism. Halting construction would signal defeat.
America—raw with pain, wrestling with the moral stain of slavery and the contradictions of equality—was not done building. To keep building the Capitol building was to proclaim something far deeper than strategy: that this fractured nation was still worth healing. While brother turned against brother, the unfinished dome was raised, iron beam by iron beam—lifted into a sky heavy with silence, pressed against a bleeding horizon.
This story is a powerful metaphor for when the nation stands today. We are a country still under construction. To stop building in the face of political polarity, economic uncertainty, and civil unrest is to signals defeat. It is our responsibility as the democracy to build on the work of our countries founders.
The truth is: America is still young. Our policies are still raw. Our systems—sophisticated but often siloed.
Freedom, equity, and health are not finished projects. We are shaping what comes next.
“With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”