WASHINGTON — The nation bade farewell to former President Jimmy Carter on Thursday with a majestic state funeral for a man who saw himself as anything but, remembering a peanut farmer from Georgia who rose to the heights of power and used it to fight for justice, eradicate disease and wage peace not war.
Five living presidents and a broad array of other leaders gathered at Washington National Cathedral to pay tribute to the 39th president, not only for his accomplishments during four years in the nation’s highest office but also for his relentless humanitarian work in the four decades after he left the White House.
“Throughout his life, he showed us what it means to be a practitioner of good works, a good and faithful servant of God and of the people,” President Joe Biden said in a eulogy, delivered just 11 days before he too leaves office as a one-term Democrat. “Today, many think he was from a bygone era. But in reality, he saw well into the future.”
The grand service in the ornate cathedral on a hill was a classic Washington spectacle with all the rituals of a presidential passing and all the intrigues of a political convention. As organs played and choirs sang, many had their minds on the soon-to-be-inaugurated president as much as the one in the flag-draped coffin. Mourners craned their necks to gauge the body language as President-elect Donald Trump sat near his four peers, none of whom care for him and most of whom ignored him.
Adding to the unspoken drama, two leading figures from countries that Trump has threatened in recent days sat barely 30 feet away: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada and former President Martín Torrijos of Panama. Both of their fathers served in the same positions during Carter’s presidency, but more urgent at the moment was Trump’s talk of annexing Canada and seizing the Panama Canal.
Most of the tributes to Carter avoided the pointed commentary of recent funerals at the cathedral for President George H.W. Bush and Sen. John McCain that were at times seen as rebukes of Trump. But it was hard not to hear the implicit contrast drawn between Carter’s fundamental decency, integrity and commitment and Trump’s rough-hewed, combative and grievance-filled politics.
In his eulogy, Biden said that Carter’s most enduring attribute was “character, character, character” — a trait that he has maintained is missing in his predecessor turned successor.
“We’re all fallible, but it’s about asking ourselves, are we striving to do things, the right things?” Biden asked. “What value? What are the values that animate our spirit? To operate from fear or hope, ego or generosity. Do we show grace? Do we keep the faith when it’s most tested?”
“For keeping the faith with the best of humankind and the best of America,” he added, “is a story in my view, from my perspective, Jimmy Carter’s life.”
The service on a bitterly cold Washington day amid a more expansive security cordon than previous such events represented the pinnacle of America’s honors to Carter. From the splendor of the cavernous cathedral, he was flown to Georgia, where he was to be buried later in the day in a simple plot outside the modest $240,000 one-story ranch house in Plains, Georgia, where he lived most of his life.
James Earl Carter Jr., who died in that house last week at age 100, lived longer than any president in history, long enough to see his legacy transformed from that of a failed commander in chief to that of a public servant embodying faith, virtue and patriotism.