"It is reason, and not passion, which must guide our deliberations, guide our debate, and guide our decision"
About this Quote
Barbara Jordan urges the primacy of rational judgment at the very moments when emotions run hottest. The cadence of her line mirrors the stages of public decision-making: we deliberate, we debate, and we decide. At each step, she insists that evidence, logic, and constitutional principle must set the course. Passion is not vilified; it is acknowledged as a human force, but not as a compass. Reason must steer.
The context heightens the statement. Jordan spoke during the Watergate hearings in 1974, when faith in government was shaken and the temptation for partisan zeal or public fury to overwhelm sober judgment was acute. As the first Black woman elected to Congress from the South, she also embodied a moral authority grounded in the hard-won legitimacy of democratic inclusion. Her appeal to reason was not cold detachment; it was fidelity to the Constitution as a shared framework strong enough to withstand a national crisis.
Her rhetoric draws on Enlightenment values cherished by the framers whom she often invoked. A republic, they warned, can be undone by factionalism and heat. Jordan translates that warning into procedural ethics: let facts be tested, arguments weighed, and conclusions reached without bending to fear, anger, or adulation. The repetition of the verb guide emphasizes continuity across process, not just the final vote. If passion determines the debate, the decision will be brittle; if reason governs from the start, the outcome gains both legitimacy and durability.
The line also probes personal responsibility. To deliberate is to discipline oneself against reflex. To debate is to listen as well as speak. To decide is to accept accountability before law and history. Jordan elevates these civic habits above the spectacle of politics, a standard as urgent today amid polarized discourse and viral outrage as it was in her day. She argues for a public life where conscience is informed by evidence and power is constrained by principle.
The context heightens the statement. Jordan spoke during the Watergate hearings in 1974, when faith in government was shaken and the temptation for partisan zeal or public fury to overwhelm sober judgment was acute. As the first Black woman elected to Congress from the South, she also embodied a moral authority grounded in the hard-won legitimacy of democratic inclusion. Her appeal to reason was not cold detachment; it was fidelity to the Constitution as a shared framework strong enough to withstand a national crisis.
Her rhetoric draws on Enlightenment values cherished by the framers whom she often invoked. A republic, they warned, can be undone by factionalism and heat. Jordan translates that warning into procedural ethics: let facts be tested, arguments weighed, and conclusions reached without bending to fear, anger, or adulation. The repetition of the verb guide emphasizes continuity across process, not just the final vote. If passion determines the debate, the decision will be brittle; if reason governs from the start, the outcome gains both legitimacy and durability.
The line also probes personal responsibility. To deliberate is to discipline oneself against reflex. To debate is to listen as well as speak. To decide is to accept accountability before law and history. Jordan elevates these civic habits above the spectacle of politics, a standard as urgent today amid polarized discourse and viral outrage as it was in her day. She argues for a public life where conscience is informed by evidence and power is constrained by principle.
Quote Details
| Topic | Decision-Making |
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