John Lewis’s America

Wall Street Journal editorial: “We had differences with Lewis on policy, not least his opposition to the 1996 welfare reform when he predicted a catastrophe for the poor. The reform, passed by a GOP Congress and signed by President Bill Clinton, is the most successful bipartisan reform of the last 30 years.

“But these differences are trivial compared to the significance of Lewis’s life and contribution to America. He famously forgave George Wallace, Alabama’s segregationist Governor in the 1960s, in an example of reconciliation all of us should emulate. He never gave up his belief in nonviolence, despite the violence used against him. He never lost faith in the capacity of American democracy, despite its flaws, to strive for a more perfect union.”