Leadership Quote by Jane D. Hull

The sentence is built like a civic anthem: three escalating clauses (“more steadfast,” “more courageous,” “more determined”) that turn September 11 from a wound into a proving ground. That’s the intent. Jane D. Hull, speaking as a politician in the immediate post-9/11 atmosphere, is doing what leaders are expected to do in crisis: convert fear into coherence, grief into a usable story about who “we” are.

The subtext is less soothing. “We emerged” implies a clean passage through trauma, a narrative of recovery that skips over the messier realities: panic, backlash, policy improvisation. The repeated “more” performs emotional arithmetic, suggesting tragedy can be redeemed by national hardening. It’s a rhetorical bargain: accept the pain, and you get moral elevation in return.

Most loaded is “protect our values.” It sounds like an appeal to democracy and pluralism, but it’s strategically elastic. In 2001, “values” could mean civil liberties, but it also became a catchall justification for expanded surveillance, aggressive foreign policy, and a tighter definition of belonging at home. Hull’s phrasing keeps the audience united by leaving the object undefined: protect values from whom, and by what means, goes politely unasked.

Context matters: this is political language designed for broad assent at a moment when dissent could be framed as disloyalty. The line works because it offers a flattering identity - steadfast, courageous, determined - while quietly setting the stage for extraordinary actions that might otherwise trigger extraordinary debate.