INAUGURATION: 'We do not have to see eye-to-eye ... in order to stand shoulder-to-shoulder'
Gov. Abigail Spanberger appealed to the best in Virginia's history of pulling together to solve problems, while making it clear that tyranny has no place in the commonwealth.
By Martin Davis
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
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Every four years the Virginia governor’s inauguration has the eyes of the nation by virtue of the singular place the event holds on the national political stage.
Gov. Abigail Spanberger stepped into that moment on a blustery Richmond afternoon and spoke to Virginians, calling upon them to help her write the commonwealth’s next chapter, while standing against the threat of tyranny that Virginia’s first governor, Patrick Henry, warned against.
Spanberger quoted Henry’s words from a 1799 speech, delivered years after his “Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death” speech at St. John’s Church just blocks from where today’s inauguration took place: “United we stand, divided we fall. Let us not split into factions which must destroy that union upon which our existence hangs.”
She then reiterated those words, before noting: “That was the challenge Governor Henry put to Virginia at the close of the 18th Century. And it is the charge we must answer again today.”
The speech then threaded a needle, distinguishing between those politicians who stand for the common good, and those few who would flame the flames of factions.
Supporting the common good, Spanberger made clear, are politicians from across the political spectrum. “To my friends in the General Assembly — on both sides of the aisle — I look forward to working with you. … We will not agree on everything, but I speak from personal experience when I say that we do not have to see eye-to-eye on every issue in order to stand shoulder-to-shoulder on others.”
As to who would flame the flames of factionalism, Spanberger never mentioned the name Donald Trump, but there was no ambiguity as to who she sees was a modern manifestation of Henry’s 1799 warning.
You are worried about an administration that is gilding buildings while schools crumble, breaking the social safety net, and sowing fear across our communities — betraying the values of who we are as Americans, the very values we celebrate here on these steps.
Virginia is a place she said, that has “always been a place where we confront challenges, where we build coalitions, and where we prove that democracy still works.”
She pointed to the suffragist movement in Virginia, to Martin Luther King Jr.’s speech in Virginia imploring the governor to embrace Brown v. Board of Education, to Gov. Linwood Holton’s call for unity in 1970, and to the election of Gov. Douglas Wilder, Virginia’s first African American leader.
It is in that tradition that Spanberger made clear she would lead, a position most strongly stated when talking about Virginia’s immigrant community.
And in Virginia, our hardworking, law-abiding immigrant neighbors will know that when we say — we’ll focus on the security and safety of all of our neighbors, we mean them too.
Then, channeling the words of the late Robert Kennedy, Spanberger challenged Virginians to work with her to fix what is not working:
Today, we’re hearing the call to connect more deeply to our American Experiment — to understand our shared history, not as a single point in time, but as a lesson for how we create our more prosperous future. And so I ask — what will you do to help us author this next chapter?
Like Henry 250 years before her, Spanberger today leaned into the timeless values of cooperation and problem-solving that have defined Virginia, while sending a message to the country as a whole that Virginia will be a model for standing up to the factionalism that would divide — and ultimately destroy — our democracy.
Listen to the Governor’s Inaugural Address
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Martin, a very nice summary. Governor Spanberger is clear that our republic only works if we do. This is my understanding of her ask of Fredericksburg: it is up to communities like ours to organize, show up, and put those ideas into action—on housing, on schools, and in our democratic life. She is inviting us to work with our local government, to correct it when it drifts, and to guide it toward priorities that make life more affordable while protecting our democracy.
Optimism and outreach-that's our governor.