The Sheila Variations

Today in history: April 18-19, 1775: "I set off upon a very good Horse"

On the night of April 18, into April 19, in 1775, Paul Revere made his famous ride.

The spring of 1775 was a tense time. Prominent Bostonians were under constant threat of arrest from the British, and many of them - to avoid this - moved their families to outlying communities. However, two of the main patriotic leaders (Benjamin Church and Joseph Warren) stayed in Boston. Paul Revere did as well, and kept a close eye on British movements through that spring. Revere was trusted as a messenger, he knew everybody.

In mid-April, Revere started to notice some ominous signs: mainly that the British ships were taken out of the water, to be worked on, repaired. He could sense that something was coming. He felt the British were preparing for some kind of attack.

Revere went to Concord on April 16 (most of the weaponry was stored there) and warned the leaders of that community that the British were preparing something, they were up to something, and if they were going to strike, they would most definitely try to seize the weapons stash in Concord. So the people of Concord went to work, hiding their store of weapons in barns, cellars, swamps, etc. (Like I mentioned: Paul Revere was trusted. He knew everybody. If you're interested, read the excerpt I posted of Malcolm Gladwell's fascinating analysis of Paul Revere - and Gladwell's comparison with the far less successful messenger on that very same night - William Dawes.)

So. April 16. Revere returned to Boston from Concord, and met with other revolutionary leaders, and that is when they came up with the "one if by land, two if by sea" warning system. Revere knew they needed a way to have some advance warning about which route the British were going to take when they finally did attack.

By land? Or by sea?

So, Revere set up the system: Signal lanterns would be placed in the belfry of Old North Church (the steeple can be seen across the Charles River). If two lanterns were hung, then the British would be crossing the Charles by boat. If one lantern was hung, then the British would choose to attack using a land route.

"One if by land, two if by sea."

The plan was put in place just in time. On April 18, in the early evening, a stable boy came to Paul Revere, telling him that he had overheard some British soldiers discussing the upcoming attack, and that it was planned for early the next morning. The stable boy knew who to bring this information to, and that was Paul Revere. (Again, check out Gladwell's analysis of Paul Revere's personality. Really interesting.)

Revere, on receiving this urgent piece of information, knew he had to get the warning out (and that he especially had to warn John Hancock and Samuel Adams who, at that time, were hiding out in Lexington).

So off he went on his now legendary ride (here's a cool map of the route he took). Revere took the water route out of Boston, rowed across the Charles, and galloped through the communities north of Boston sounding the alarm. (Medford, Charlestown, Lexington, Concord.) Because of Paul Revere, the British had completely lost the element of surprise. When they came to attack, they found the rebellious colonists waiting for them everywhere, ambushing them left and right, from behind stone walls, hiding behind trees ...

An interesting tidbit (this is why I love this time in American history - yeah, the events themselves are really cool ... but it's details like the following one that really have me hooked, like a crack addict):

In his hurry to depart, Revere forgot to bring along pieces of cloth to wrap the oars of his boat. The purpose of the cloth would be to muffle the sound of the oars cutting through the water. The Somerset (the British man-of-war) was at anchor, right there in the harbor. Paul Revere had to row right by them, and so any sound at all would have alerted the crew, and if Revere was busted, the whole jig would be up. Revere was in a bit of a pickle ... standing by his boat, trying to figure out how he could improvise ... could he take off his stockings? Tie them around the end of the oars?

One of the boatmen involved in helping Revere make this crossing came to the rescue. He ran to his girlfriend's house and asked her for her petticoat. One can only imagine her startled response to the nighttime demand at her door from her beau: "Please, dear. It's 10 pm, and I need you to take off your petticoat, give it to me, and don't ask me ANY questions about it!!" But apparently, this girl, whoever she was, complied - took off her petticoat, handed it over, and Revere used it to wrap up the ends of his oars.

I love that woman, whoever she is. You're part of this story, dear, even though your name has not been passed down through the ages.

So. In honor of this great moment in American history -here is Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's celebrated poem "Paul Revere's Ride". And below that, I am posting an old essay I wrote about babysitting Cashel - which is relevant to this date in history. A couple years ago, I read the Cashel piece on a radio program, which was a pretty cool experience - and reading over the piece today makes me nostalgic for when Cashel was so little!!

But back to the poem: I know large swaths of it by heart ... I grew up hearing it. I'm an East Coast girl, most of my family is from Boston. So all of these places in the poem are places I had been to many times as a child, and not just a tourist ... but just because we lived near them. That piece of history felt very real to me. The poem is thrilling to me - because of the story it tells, of course, but also because of its rollicking perfect rhythm, you can feel the suspense, you can feel the urgency, the whole thing ends up sounding like the clatter of horses hooves galloping through the night. It's meant to be read out loud. Try it for yourself!! The last stanza is beyond compare. "For borne on the night-wind of the Past ..." I mean, come ON!! I love, too, how Longfellow includes the bit about the "muffled oar". These things pass on into folk tales at some point, a local mythology, and that's part of the reason why I love it.

April 18, 1775. A great day in American history. "The fate of a nation was riding that night." One of my personal favorite stories of the American revolution.

Paul Revere's Ride

Listen my children and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.
He said to his friend, "If the British march
By land or sea from the town to-night,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch
Of the North Church tower as a signal light,--
One if by land, and two if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country folk to be up and to arm."

Then he said "Good-night!" and with muffled oar
Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore,
Just as the moon rose over the bay,
Where swinging wide at her moorings lay
The Somerset, British man-of-war;
A phantom ship, with each mast and spar
Across the moon like a prison bar,
And a huge black hulk, that was magnified
By its own reflection in the tide.

Meanwhile, his friend through alley and street
Wanders and watches, with eager ears,
Till in the silence around him he hears
The muster of men at the barrack door,
The sound of arms, and the tramp of feet,
And the measured tread of the grenadiers,
Marching down to their boats on the shore.

Then he climbed the tower of the Old North Church,
By the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread,
To the belfry chamber overhead,
And startled the pigeons from their perch
On the sombre rafters, that round him made
Masses and moving shapes of shade,--
By the trembling ladder, steep and tall,
To the highest window in the wall,
Where he paused to listen and look down
A moment on the roofs of the town
And the moonlight flowing over all.

Beneath, in the churchyard, lay the dead,
In their night encampment on the hill,
Wrapped in silence so deep and still
That he could hear, like a sentinel's tread,
The watchful night-wind, as it went
Creeping along from tent to tent,
And seeming to whisper, "All is well!"
A moment only he feels the spell
Of the place and the hour, and the secret dread
Of the lonely belfry and the dead;
For suddenly all his thoughts are bent
On a shadowy something far away,
Where the river widens to meet the bay,--
A line of black that bends and floats
On the rising tide like a bridge of boats.

Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride,
Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride
On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere.
Now he patted his horse's side,
Now he gazed at the landscape far and near,
Then, impetuous, stamped the earth,
And turned and tightened his saddle girth;
But mostly he watched with eager search
The belfry tower of the Old North Church,
As it rose above the graves on the hill,
Lonely and spectral and sombre and still.
And lo! as he looks, on the belfry's height
A glimmer, and then a gleam of light!
He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns,
But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight
A second lamp in the belfry burns.

A hurry of hoofs in a village street,
A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,
And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing, a spark
Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet;
That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the light,
The fate of a nation was riding that night;
And the spark struck out by that steed, in his flight,
Kindled the land into flame with its heat.
He has left the village and mounted the steep,
And beneath him, tranquil and broad and deep,
Is the Mystic, meeting the ocean tides;
And under the alders that skirt its edge,
Now soft on the sand, now loud on the ledge,
Is heard the tramp of his steed as he rides.

It was twelve by the village clock
When he crossed the bridge into Medford town.
He heard the crowing of the cock,
And the barking of the farmer's dog,
And felt the damp of the river fog,
That rises after the sun goes down.

It was one by the village clock,
When he galloped into Lexington.
He saw the gilded weathercock
Swim in the moonlight as he passed,
And the meeting-house windows, black and bare,
Gaze at him with a spectral glare,
As if they already stood aghast
At the bloody work they would look upon.

It was two by the village clock,
When he came to the bridge in Concord town.
He heard the bleating of the flock,
And the twitter of birds among the trees,
And felt the breath of the morning breeze
Blowing over the meadow brown.
And one was safe and asleep in his bed
Who at the bridge would be first to fall,
Who that day would be lying dead,
Pierced by a British musket ball.

You know the rest. In the books you have read
How the British Regulars fired and fled,---
How the farmers gave them ball for ball,
From behind each fence and farmyard wall,
Chasing the redcoats down the lane,
Then crossing the fields to emerge again
Under the trees at the turn of the road,
And only pausing to fire and load.

So through the night rode Paul Revere;
And so through the night went his cry of alarm
To every Middlesex village and farm,---
A cry of defiance, and not of fear,
A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,
And a word that shall echo for evermore!
For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,
Through all our history, to the last,
In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
The people will waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,
And the midnight message of Paul Revere.

Paul Revere himself wrote of that time (it's such a cliffhanger, with people threatening to "blow his brains out" every other second):

In the Fall of 1774 and Winter of 1775 I was one of upwards of thirty, cheifly mechanics, who formed our selves in to a Committee for the purpose of watching the Movements of the British Soldiers, and gaining every intelegence of the movements of the Tories.

We held our meetings at the Green-Dragon Tavern. We were so carefull that our meetings should be kept Secret; that every time we met, every person swore upon the Bible, that they would not discover any of our transactions, But to Messrs. HANCOCK, ADAMS, Doctors WARREN, CHURCH, and one or two more.

About November, when things began to grow Serious, a Gentleman who had Conections with the Tory party, but was a Whig at heart, acquainted me, that our meetings were discovered, and mentioned the identical words that were spoken among us the Night before. . . . We removed to another place, which we thought was more secure: but here we found that all our transactions were communicated to Governor Gage. (This came to me through the then Secretary Flucker; He told it to the Gentleman mentioned above). It was then a common opinion, that there was a Traytor in the provincial Congress, and that Gage was posessed of all their Secrets. (Church was a member of that Congress for Boston.) In the Winter, towards the Spring, we frequently took Turns, two and two, to Watch the Soldiers, By patroling the Streets all night. The Saturday Night preceding the 19th of April, about 12 oClock at Night, the Boats belonging to the Transports were all launched, and carried under the Sterns of the Men of War. (They had been previously hauld up and repaired). We likewise found that the Grenadiers and light Infantry were all taken off duty.

From these movements, we expected something serious was [to] be transacted. On Tuesday evening, the 18th, it was observed, that a number of Soldiers were marching towards the bottom of the Common. About 10 o'Clock, Dr. Warren Sent in great haste for me, and beged that I would imediately Set off for Lexington, where Messrs. Hancock and Adams were, and acquaint them of the Movement, and that it was thought they were the objets. When I got to Dr. Warren's house, I found he had sent an express by land to Lexington—a Mr. Wm. Daws. The Sunday before, by desire of Dr. Warren, I had been to Lexington, to Mess. Hancock and Adams, who were at the Rev. Mr. Clark's. I returned at Night thro Charlestown; there I agreed with a Col. Conant, and some other Gentlemen, that if the British went out by Water, we would shew two Lanthorns in the North Church Steeple; and if by Land, one, as a Signal; for we were aprehensive it would be dificult to Cross the Charles River, or git over Boston neck. I left Dr. Warrens, called upon a friend, and desired him to make the Signals. I then went Home, took my Boots and Surtout, and went to the North part of the Town, Where I had kept a Boat; two friends rowed me across Charles River, a little to the eastward where the Somerset Man of War lay. It was then young flood, the Ship was winding, and the moon was Rising. They landed me on Charlestown side. When I got into Town, I met Col. Conant, and several others; they said they had seen our signals. I told them what was Acting, and went to git me a Horse; I got a Horse of Deacon Larkin. While the Horse was preparing, Richard Devens, Esq. who was one of the Committee of Safty, came to me, and told me, that he came down the Road from Lexington, after Sundown, that evening; that He met ten British Officers, all well mounted, and armed, going up the Road.

I set off upon a very good Horse; it was then about 11 o'Clock, and very pleasant. After I had passed Charlestown Neck, and got nearly opposite where Mark was hung in chains, I saw two men on Horse back, under a Tree. When I got near them, I discovered they were British officer. One tryed to git a head of Me, and the other to take me. I turned my Horse very quick, and Galloped towards Charlestown neck, and then pushed for the Medford Road. The one who chased me, endeavoring to Cut me off, got into a Clay pond, near where the new Tavern is now built. I got clear of him, and went thro Medford, over the Bridge, and up to Menotomy. In Medford, I awaked the Captain of the Minute men; and after that, I alarmed almost every House, till I got to Lexington. I found Messrs. Hancock and Adams at the Rev. Mr. Clark's; I told them my errand, and inquired for Mr. Daws; they said he had not been there; I related the story of the two officers, and supposed that He must have been stopped, as he ought to have been there before me. After I had been there about half an Hour, Mr. Daws came; we refreshid our selves, and set off for Concord, to secure the Stores, &c. there. We were overtaken by a young Docter Prescot, whom we found to be a high Son of Liberty. I told them of the ten officers that Mr. Devens mett, and that it was probable we might be stoped before we got to Concord; for I supposed that after Night, they divided them selves, and that two of them had fixed themselves in such passages as were most likely to stop any intelegence going to Concord. I likewise mentioned, that we had better allarm all the Inhabitents till we got to Concord; the young Doctor much approved of it, and said, he would stop with either of us, for the people between that and Concord knew him, and would give the more credit to what we said. We had got nearly half way. Mr Daws and the Doctor stoped to allarm the people of a House: I was about one hundred Rod a head, when I saw two men, in nearly the same situation as those officer were, near Charlestown. I called for the Doctor and Daws to come up;—in an Instant I was surrounded by four;—they had placed themselves in a Straight Road, that inclined each way; they had taken down a pair of Barrs on the North side of the Road, and two of them were under a tree in the pasture. The Docter being foremost, he came up; and we tryed to git past them; but they being armed with pistols and swords, they forced us in to the pasture;—the Docter jumped his Horse over a low Stone wall, and got to Concord. I observed a Wood at a Small distance, and made for that. When I got there, out Started Six officers, on Horse back, and orderd me to dismount;—one of them, who appeared to have the command, examined me, where I came from, and what my Name Was? I told him. He asked me if I was an express? I answered in the afirmative. He demanded what time I left Boston? I told him; and aded, that their troops had catched aground in passing the River, and that There would be five hundred Americans there in a short time, for I had alarmed the Country all the way up. He imediately rode towards those who stoppd us, when all five of them came down upon a full gallop; one of them, whom I afterwards found to be Major Mitchel, of the 5th Regiment, Clapped his pistol to my head, called me by name, and told me he was going to ask me some questions, and if I did not give him true answers, he would blow my brains out. He then asked me similar questions to those above. He then orderd me to mount my Horse, after searching me for arms. He then orderd them to advance, and to lead me in front. When we got to the Road, they turned down towards Lexington. When we had got about one Mile, the Major Rode up to the officer that was leading me, and told him to give me to the Sergeant. As soon as he took me, the Major orderd him, if I attempted to run, or any body insulted them, to blow my brains out. We rode till we got near Lexington Meeting-house, when the Militia fired a Voley of Guns, which appeared to alarm them very much. The Major inquired of me how far it was to Cambridge, and if there were any other Road? After some consultation, the Major Rode up to the Sargent, and asked if his Horse was tired? He answered him, he was--(He was a Sargent of Grenadiers, and had a small Horse)—then, said He, take that man's Horse. I dismounted, and the Sargent mounted my Horse, when they all rode towards Lexington Meeting-House. I went across the Burying-ground, and some pastures, and came to the Revd. Mr. Clark's House, where I found Messrs. Hancok and Adams. I told them of my treatment, and they concluded to go from that House to wards Woburn. I went with them, and a Mr. Lowell, who was a Clerk to Mr. Hancock. When we got to the House where they intended to stop, Mr. Lowell and my self returned to Mr. Clark's, to find what was going on. When we got there, an elderly man came in; he said he had just come from the Tavern, that a Man had come from Boston, who said there were no British troops coming. Mr. Lowell and my self went towards the Tavern, when we met a Man on a full gallop, who told us the Troops were coming up the Rocks. We afterwards met another, who said they were close by. Mr. Lowell asked me to go to the Tavern with him, to git a Trunk of papers belonging to Mr. Hancock. We went up Chamber; and while we were giting the Trunk, we saw the British very near, upon a full March. We hurried to wards Mr. Clark's House. In our way, we passed through the Militia. There were about 50. When we had got about 100 Yards from the meeting-House the British Troops appeard on both Sides of the Meeting-House. In their Front was an Officer on Horse back. They made a Short Halt; when I saw, and heard, a Gun fired, which appeared to be a Pistol. Then I could distinguish two Guns, and then a Continual roar of Musquetry; When we made off with the Trunk.

As I have mentioned Dr. Church, perhaps it might not be disagreeable to mention some Matters of my own knowledge, respecting Him. He appeared to be a high son of Liberty. He frequented all the places where they met, Was incouraged by all the leaders of the Sons of Liberty, and it appeared he was respected by them, though I knew that Dr. Warren had not the greatest affection for him. He was esteemed a very capable writer, especially in verese; and as the Whig party needed every Strenght, they feared, as well as courted Him. Though it was known, that some of the Liberty Songs, which We composed, were parodized by him, in favor of the British, yet none dare charge him with it. I was a constant and critical observer of him, and I must say, that I never thought Him a man of Principle; and I doubted much in my own mind, wether He was a real Whig. I knew that He kept company with a Capt. Price, a half-pay British officer, and that He frequently dined with him, and Robinson, one of the Commissioners. I know that one of his intimate aquaintances asked him why he was so often with Robinson and Price? His answer was, that He kept Company with them on purpose to find out their plans. The day after the Battle of Lexington, I met him in Cambridge, when He shew me some blood on his stocking, which he said spirted on him from a Man who was killed near him, as he was urging the Militia on. I well remember, that I argued with my self, if a Man will risque his life in a Cause, he must be a Friend to that cause; and I never suspected him after, till He was charged with being a Traytor.

The full letter can be read here.

ONE IF BY LAND: An afternoon with Cashel
We colored for a while. As we waited for the pizza to arrive. Cashel commanded me to draw a house. So I did. Cashel was basically the architect and the interior designer. Telling me what he wanted to see.

"Put a playroom in the attic."

"But Auntie Sheila -- where are the stairs??"

I drew the bathroom, and the mere sight of the toilet caused Cashel to dissolve into mirth. Yes. Toilets are hilarious.

I drew a spiral staircase which blew Cashel away. "That's so COOL." Then I drew the living room. I said, "I think there needs to be a picture on the wall. Or a portrait. Whose picture should be on the wall, you think?"

Cashel said bluntly, "Einstein."

Okay, then. Einstein. So I drew this little cartoon of Einstein, with the crazy hair coming up, and Cashel said seriously, with all of his knowledge, "That really looks like Einstein."

We ate our pizza together, talking about stuff. Star Wars, Ben Franklin. Cashel informed me, "Ben Franklin discovered lightning."

Cashel is a wealth of information. Randomly, he told my parents that Vincent Van Gogh never sold a painting while he was alive, but that after he died, he became famous.

I read him a story. It was from the book of "Disney stories" which I had given him for his birthday. He loves it. He pulled it out of the bookshelf, and I said, "Oh! I gave that to you!" Cashel said, a little bit annoyed, "I know that."

He had me read the story of the little mouse who hung out with Ben Franklin, and basically (in the world of Disney) was the inspiration for all of Ben Franklin's famous moments. Cashel would shoot questions at me. "Why is Ben Franklin's hair white?" "Well ... he's old now. But also, in those days, men wore powdered wigs." Cashel's little serious face, listening, sponging this all up. Probably the next day he informed his friends that men in the olden days wore powdered wigs. He's that kind of listener, that kind of learner.

Then he put on his Obi Wan Kenobi costume which Grandma Peggy made him for Christmas. A long hooded brown cloak ... and he hooked his light saber into his waist, and galloped off down the hall. A mini Jedi knight.

I had him pick out three stories to read before bedtime. He sat beside me, curled up into me, looking at the pictures as I read to him. The last one we read was Longfellow's poem "Paul Revere's Ride". This poem was a favorite of ours, when we were kids. My dad would read it to us, and even now, when I read the words, I hear them in my father's voice. A magical poem. The way my dad read it to us (along with Longfellow's help) made us SEE it. The clock tower, the moon, the darkness ... the sense of anticipation, of secrecy, of urgency. It was thrilling. So I love that this is being passed on to Cashel! I've never read the poem outloud before, so I had one of those strange moments of the space-time continuum bending, me stepping into my father's shoes, Cashel 5 years old beside me, feeling the ghost of my own 5 year old self listening.

I also remember how Brendan and I used to chime in gleefully: "ONE IF BY LAND, TWO IF BY SEA!" And Cashel did the same thing. I paused before that moment in the poem, glanced down at him, and he screamed out, "ONE IF BY LAND, TWO IF BY SEA!"

There was also a subtlety of understanding in Cashel. For example, I read this part:

And lo! as he looks, on the belfry's height
A glimmer, and then a gleam of light!
He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns,
But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight
A second lamp in the belfry burns.

And Cashel exclaimed, in a sort of "Uh-oh" tone, "They're comin' by sea!!" Now the words don't actually SAY that, but he remembered the "one if by land two if by sea" signal, and puts it all together. That's my boy!

I remembered the first lines from memory:

Listen my children and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.

Again, those are just words on the page. But to me, they are filled with the echoes of my father's voice.

Cashel and I, as we went through the poem, had to stop many times for discussions.

There was one illustration of all the minute-men, hiding behind the stone walls, with a troop of Redcoats marching along, walking straight into the ambush. Cashel pointed at it, and stated firmly, "That's the civil war."

"Nope. Nope. That is actually a picture from the American Revolutionary War."

Cashel pondered this. Taking it in. Then: "The minute-men were in the civil war." But less certain. Glancing up at me for explanation.

"Nope. The minute-men were soldiers in the American Revolution. Do you know why they called them that?"

"Why?"

"Cause they were farmers, and regular people ... but they could be ready to go into battle in a minute."

Again, a long silence. Cashel filed this away for safekeeping. He forgets nothing.

"So ... Auntie Sheila ... what is the difference between the Revolutionary War and the Civil War?"

Woah. Okay. This will be a test. How to describe all of that in 5-year-old language. I mean, frankly, Cashel is not like a five-year-old at all. But still. Everything must be boiled down into its simplest components.

"Well. America used to be a part of England, and the American Revolutionary War was when America decided that it wanted to be free ... and Americans basically told the Brits to go home." Uh-oh. Brits? This is an inflammatory term. I corrected myself. "America told Great Britain that it wanted to be its own country. And the Civil War ... " Hmmm. How to begin ... what to say ... I know it was about more than slavery, but I decided to only focus on that one aspect. Economic theory and regional cultural differences would be too abstract. "In those days, Cashel, black people were slaves. And it was very very wrong. Can you understand that?"

He nodded. His little serious face.

"And the people in the South wanted to keep their slaves, and the people in the North said to the people in the South that they had to give up their slaves. And they ended up going to war. And eventually all the slaves were free."

Cashel accepted this explanation silently. Then he pointed back to the Paul Revere poem. "Read." he commanded.

Today in history: April 13, 1743

Thomas Jefferson was born.

James Parton:

A gentleman of 32 who could calculate an eclipse, survey an estate, tie an artery, plan an edifice, try a cause, break a horse, dance a minuet, and play the violin.

From David McCullough's John Adams:

[Thomas] Jefferson was devoted to the ideal of improving mankind but had comparatively little interest in people in particular. [John] Adams was not inclined to believe mankind improvable, but was certain it was important that human nature be understood.

Thomas Jefferson, 1787:

The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other. Our children see this, and learn to imitate it - The parent storms, the child looks on, catches the lineaments of wrath, puts on the same airs in the circle of smaller slaves, gives a loose to his worst passions, and thus nursed, educated, and daily exercised in tyranny, cannot but be stamped by it with odious peculiarities. The man must be a prodigy who can retain his manners and morals undepraved by such circumstances - if a slave can have a country in this world, it must be any other in preference to that in which he is to be born to live and labor for another - or entail his own miserable condition on the endless generations proceeding from him - Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep forever.

Excerpt from Paul Johnson's magnificent History of the American People:

In terms of all-round learning, gifts, sensibilities, and accomplishments, there has never been an American like him, and generations of educated Americans have rated him higher even than Washington and Lincoln…

We know a great deal about this remarkable man, or think we do. His Writings, on a bewildering variety of subjects, have been published in twenty volumes. In addition, twenty-five volumes of his papers have appeared so far, plus various collections of his correspondence, including three thick volumes of his letters to his follower and successor James Madison alone. In some ways he was a mass of contradictions. He thought slavery an evil institution, which corrupted the master even more than it oppressed the chattel. But he owned, bought, sold, and bred slaves all his adult life. He was a deist, possibly even a skeptic; yet he was also a 'closet theologian,' who read daily from a multilingual edition of the New Testament. He was an elitist in education – 'By this means twenty of the best geniuses will be raked from the rubbish annually' – but he also complained bitterly of elites, 'those who, rising above the swinish multitude, always contrive to nestle themselves into places of power and profit'. He was a democrat, who said he would 'always have a jealous care of the right of election by the people.' Yet he opposed direct election of the Senate on the ground that 'a choice by the people themselves is not generally distinguished for its wisdom'. He could be an extremist, glorying in the violence of revolution: 'What country before ever existed a century and a half without rebellion?…The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.' Yet he said of Washington: 'The moderation and virtue of a single character has probably prevented this revolution from being closed, as most others have been, by a subversion of that liberty it was intended to establish.'

No one did more than he did to create the United States of America. Yet he referred to Virginia as 'my country' and to the Congress as 'a foreign legislature'. His favorite books were Don Quixote and Tristam Shandy. Yet he lacked a sense of humor. After the early death of his wife, he kept – it was alleged – a black mistress. Yet he was priggish, censorious of bawdy jokes and bad language, and cultivated a we-are-not-amused expression. He could use the most inflammatory language. Yet he always spoke with a quiet, low voice and despised oratory as such. His lifelong passion was books. He collected them in enormous quantity, beyond his means, and then had to sell them all to the Congress to raise money. He kept as detailed daily accounts as it is possible to conceive but failed to realize that he was running deeply and irreversibly into debt. He was a man of hyperbole. But he loved exactitude – he noted all figures, weights, distances, and quantities in minute detail; his carriage had a device to record the revolutions of its wheels; his house was crowded with barometers, rain-gauges, thermometers and anemometers. The motto of his seal-ring, chosen by himself, was 'Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.' Yet he shrank from violence and did not believe God existed.

Jefferson inherited 5,000 acres at fourteen from his father. He married a wealthy widow, Martha Wayles Skelton, and when her father died he acquired a further 11,000 acres. It was natural for this young patrician to enter Virginia's House of Burgesses, which he did in 1769, meeting Washington there. He had an extraordinarily godlike impact on the assembly from the start, by virtue of his presence, not his speeches. Abigail Adams later remarked that his appearance was 'not unworthy of a God'. A British officer said that 'if he was put besides any king in Europe, that king would appear to be his laquey.' His first hero was his fellow-Virginian Patrick Henry (1736-99), who seemed to be everything Jefferson was not: a firebrand, a man of extremes, a rabble-rouser, and an unreflective man of action. He had been a miserable failure as a planter and storekeeper, then found his metier in the law courts and politics. Jefferson was seventeen when he met him and he was presenting 1765 when Henry acquired instant fame for his flamboyant denunciation of the Stamp Act. Jefferson admired him no doubt for possessing the one gift he himself lacked – the power to rouse men's emotions by the spoken word.

Jefferson had a more important quality, however: the power to analyze a historic situation in depth, to propose a course of conduct, and present it in such a way as to shape the minds of a deliberative assembly. In the decade between the Stamp Act agitation and the Boston Tea Party, many able pens had set out constitutional solutions for America's dilemma. But it was Jefferson, in 1774, who encapsulated the entire debate in one brilliant treatise – Summary View of the Rights of British America. Like the works of his predecessors in the march to independence – James Otis' Rights of the British Colonists Asserted (1764), Richard Bland's An Inquiry into the Rights of the British Colonists (1766), and Samuel Adams' A statement on the rights of the colonies (1772) – Jefferson relied heavily on Chapter Five of John Locke's Second Treatise on Government, which set out the virtues of a meritocracy, in which men rise by virtue, talent, and industry. Locke argued that the acquisition of wealth, even on a large scale, was neither unjust nor morally wrong, provided it was fairly acquired. So, he said, society is necessarily stratified, but by merit, not by birth. This doctrine of industry as opposed to idleness as the determining factoring a just society militated strongly against kings, against governments of nobles and their placement, and in favor of representative republicanism.

Jefferson's achievement, in his tract, as to graft onto Locke's meritocratic structure two themes which became the dominant leitmotifs of the Revolutionary struggle. The first was the primacy of individual rights: 'The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time: the hand of force may destroy, but cannot disjoin them.' Equally important was the placing of these rights within the context of Jefferson's deep and in a sense more fundamental commitment to popular sovereignty: 'From the nature of things, every society must at all times possess within itself the sovereign powers of legislation.' It was Jefferson's linking of popular sovereignty with liberty, both rooted in a divine plan, and further legitimized by ancient practice and the English tradition, which gave the American colonists such a strong, clear, and plausible conceptual basis for their action. Neither the British government nor the American loyalists produced arguments which had a fraction of this power. They could appeal to the law as it stood, and duty as they saw it, but that was all. Just as the rebels won the media battle (in America) from the start, so they rapidly won the ideological battle too.

From David McCullough's John Adams:

[Jefferson] worked rapidly [on writing the Declaration of Independence] and, to judge by surviving drafts, with a sure command of his material. He had none of his books with him, nor needed any, he later claimed. It was not his objective to be original, he would explain, only "to place before mankind the common sense of the subject."

"Neither aiming at originality of principle or sentiment, nor yet copied from any particular and previous writing, it was intended to be an expression of the American mind, and to give to that expression the proper tone and spirit called for by the occasion."

He borrowed readily from his own previous writing, particularly from a recent draft for a new Virginia constitution, but also from a declaration of rights for Virginia, which appeared in the Pennsylvania Evening Post on June 12. it had been drawn up by George Mason, who wrote that "all men are born equally free and independent, and have certain inherent natural rights - among which are enjoyment of life and liberty." And there was a pamphlet written by the Pennsylvania delegate James Wilson, published in Philadelphia in 1774, that declared, "All men are, by nature equal and free: no one has a right to any authority over another without his consent: all lawful government is founded on the consent of those who are subject to it."
But then Mason, Wilson, and John Adams, no less than Jefferson, were, as they all appreciated, drawing on long familiarity with the seminal works of the English and Scottish writers John Locke, David Hume, Francis Hutcheson, and Henry St. John Bolinbroke, or such English poets as Defoe ("When kings the sword of justice first lay down,/They are no kings, though they possess the crown. / Titles are shadows, crowns are empty things, / The good of subjects is the end of kings"). Or, for that matter, Cicero ("The people's good is the highest law.")

Adams, in his earlier notes for an oration at Braintree, had written, "Nature throws us all into the world equal and alike - The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man to endanger public liberty."

What made Jefferson's work surpassing was the grace and eloquence of expression. Jefferson had done superbly and in minimum time.

"I was delighted with its high tone and flights of oratory with which it abounded [Adams would recall], especially that concerning Negro slavery, which, though I knew his southern brethren would never suffer to pass in Congress, I certainly would never oppose. There were other expressions which I would not have inserted, if I had drawn it up, particularly that which called the King tyrant - I thought the expression too passionate; and too much like scolding, for so grave and solemn a document; but as Franklin and Sherman were to inspect it afterwards, I thought it would not become me to strike it out. I consented to report it, and do not now remember that I made or suggested a single alteration."

A number of alterations were made, however, when Jefferson reviewed it with the committee, and several were by Adams. Possibly it was Franklin, or Jefferson himself, who made the small but inspired change in the second paragraph. Where, in the initial draft, certain "truths" were described as "sacred and undeniable", a simpler stronger "self-evident" was substituted.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.

It was to be the eloquent lines of the second paragraph of the Declaration that would stand down the years, affecting the human spirit as neither Jefferson nor anyone could have foreseen. And however much was owed to the writing of others, as Jefferson acknowledged, or to such editorial refinements as those contributed by Franklin or Adams, they were, when all was said and done, his lines. It was Jefferson who had written them for all time:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

John Page to Thomas Jefferson, July 20, 1776, on the signing of the Declaration of Independence:

God preserve the United States. We know the Race is not to the Swift nor the Battle to the Strong. Do you not think an Angel rides in the Whirlwind and directs this Storm?

Abraham Lincoln, on the Declaration of Independence:

All honor to Jefferson, to the man who had the coolness, forecast, and capacity to introduce into a merely revolutionary document an abstract truth, and so to embalm it there, that today, and in all coming days, it shall be a rebuke and a stumbling-block to the very harbingers of reappearing tyranny and oppression.

From Christopher Hitchens's Thomas Jefferson: Author of America (Eminent Lives):

It was partly as a result of a compromise that Jefferson was appointed to the committee charged with drawing up the Declaration. The author of the resolutions calling upon the thirteen colonies to announce independence, to form "a confederation and perpetual union," and to seek overseas recognition and military alliances was Richard Henry Lee, himself a Virginian. But he was needed at home, and Congress needed a Virginian just as it needed some New Englanders and some delegates from the middle colonies. John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman of Connecticut, and Robert Livingston of New York comprised the rest of the drafting group.

There is no other example in history, apart from the composition of the King James version of the Bible, in which great words and concepts have been fused into poetic prose by the banal processes of a committee. And, as with the extraordinary convocation of religious scholars that met at Hampton Court under the direction of Lancelot Andrewes in 1604, and with the later gathering of polymaths and revolutionaries at Philadelphia in 1776, the explanation lies partly in the simultaneous emergence, under the pressure of a commonly understood moment of crisis and transition, of like-minded philosophers and men of action. Modesty deserves its tribute here, too: a determination to do the best that could be commonly wrought was a great corrective to vanity. Thomas Jefferson's modesty was sometimes of the false kind. We have too many instances of him protesting, throughout his political ascent, that the honor is too great, the burden too heavy, the eminence too high. (Rather as the Speaker of the House of Commons is still ceremonially dragged to his chair on his inauguration, as if being compelled to assume his commanding role.) However, someone had to pull together a first draft, and we have it on the word of his longtime rival John Adams that Jefferson's reticence in the matter was on this occasion fairly swiftly overcome. He was generally thought to be the better writer and the finer advocate: one might wish to have seen a Franklin version -- which might at least have contained one joke -- but it was not to be.

Several years were to elapse before Jefferson was acknowledged as the author of the Declaration, or until the words themselves had so to speak "sunk in" and begun to resonate as they still do. So it is further evidence of his amour propre, as well as of his sense of history and rhetoric, that he always resented the changes that the Congress made to his original. These are reproduced, as parallel text, in his own Autobiography, and have been as exhaustively scrutinized as the intellectual sources on which Jefferson called when he repaired to a modest boarding house for seventeen days, with only a slave valet named Jupiter, brought from Monticello, at his disposal.

The most potent works, observes the oppressed and haunted Winston Smith in George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, where he's read the supposedly "secret" book of the forbidden opposition, are the ones that tell you what you already know. (And, in the "Dictionary of Newspeak" that closes that novel, a certain paragraph of prose is given as an example of something that could not be translated into "Newspeak" terms. The paragraph begins, "We hold these truths to be self-evident ...") Jefferson and Paine had this in common in that year of revolution; they had the gift of pithily summarizing what was already understood, and then of moving an already mobilized audience to follow an inexorable logic. But they also had to overcome an insecurity and indecision that is difficult for us, employing retrospect, to comprehend. Let not, in such circumstances, the trumpet give off an uncertain sound. So, after a deceptively modest and courteous paragraph that assumes the duty of making a full explanation and of manifesting "decent respect," the very first sentence of the actual declaration roundly states that certain truths are -- crucial words -- self-evident.

This style -- terse and pungent, yet fringed with elegance -- allied the plain language of Thomas Paine to the loftier expositions of John Locke, from whose 1690 Second Treatise on Civil Government some of the argument derived. (It is of interest that Locke, who wrote of slavery that it was "so vile and miserable an Estate of Man ... that 'tis hardly to be conceived that an Englishman, much less a Gentleman, should plead for it," was also the draftsman for an absolutist slaveholding "Fundamental Constitution" of the Carolinas in 1669.) Jefferson radicalized Locke by grounding human equality on the observable facts of nature and the common human condition. Having originally written that rights are derived 'from that equal creation," he amended the thought to say that men were "endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights," thus perhaps attempting to forestall any conflict between Deists and Christians. And, where Locke had spoken of "life, liberty, and property" as being natural rights, Jefferson famously wrote "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." We differ still on whether this means seeking happiness of rather happiness itself as a pursuit, but given the advantageous social position occupied by most of the delegates at Philadelphia, it is very striking indeed that either notion should have taken precedence over property. The clear need of the hour was for inspiration (and property rights were to be restored to their customary throne when the Constitution came to be written), but "the pursuit of happiness" belongs to that limited group of lapidary phrases that has changed history, and it seems that the delegates realized this as soon as they heard it.

Thomas Jefferson, indeed, is one of the small handful of people to have his very name associated with a form of democracy. The word was not in common use at the time, and was not always employed positively in any case. (John Adams tended to say "democratical" when he meant unsound or subversive.) But the idea that government arose from the people and was not a gift to them or an imposition upon them, was perhaps the most radical element in the Declaration. Jefferson was later to compare government with clothing as "the badge of lost innocence," drawing from the myth of original nakedness and guilt in the Garden of Eden. Paine in his Common Sense had said, "Society is produced by our wants and government by our wickedness." As a compromise between government as a necessary evil - or an inevitable one - and in the course of a bill of complaint against a hereditary monarch, the Declaration proposed the idea of "the consent of the governed" and thus launched the experiment we call American, or sometimes Jeffersonian, democracy.

Thomas Jefferson on George Washington:

The moderation and virtue of a single character probably prevented this Revolution from being closed, as most others have been, by a subversion of that liberty it was intended to establish.

Thomas Jefferson, letter to Abigail Adams, 1787:

The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it to be always kept alive. I like a little rebellion now and then. It is like a storm in the atmosphere.

From David McCullough's John Adams:

On Inauguration Day, Wednesday, March 4, 1801, John Adams made his exit from the President's House and the capital at four in the morning, traveling by public stage under clear skies lit by a quarter moon. He departed eight hours before Thomas Jefferson took the oath of office at the Capitol, and even more inconspicuously than he had arrived, rolling through empty streets past darkened houses.

To his political rivals and enemies Adams' predawn departure was another ill-advised act of a petulant old man. But admirers, too, expressed disappointment. A correspondent for the Massachusetts Spy observed in a letter from Washington that numbers of Adams' friends wished he had not departed so abruptly. "Sensible, moderate men of both parties would have been pleased had he tarried until after the installation of his successor. It certainly would have had good effect."

By his presence at the ceremony Adams could have set an example of grace in defeat, while at the same time paying homage to a system whereby power, according to a written constitution, is transferred peacefully. After so vicious a contest for the highest office, with party hatreds so near to igniting in violence, a peaceful transfer of power seemed little short of a miracle. If ever a system was proven to work under extremely adverse circumstances, it was at this inauguration of 1801, and it is regrettable that Adams was not present.

"We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists," Jefferson said famously in his inaugural address before a full Senate Chamber, his voice so soft many had difficulty hearing him. A passing tribute to Washington was made before he finished, but of Adams he said nothing.

THOMAS JEFFERSON, in a letter to the mayor of Washington, June 24, 1826, declining an invitation to the 4th of July celebration in Washington - (Jefferson died 10 days later):

May it be to the world, what I believe it will be (to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all) the signal of arousing men to burst the chains under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings and security of self-government - All eyes are opened or opening to the rights of man. The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few, booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately by the grace of God. These are the grounds of hope for others; for ourselves, let the annual return to this day forever refresh our recollections of these rights, and an undiminished devotion to them.

From Joseph Ellis's American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson:

Before editorial changes were made by the Continental Congress, Jefferson's early draft made it even clearer that his intention was to express a spiritual vision: ' We hold these truths to be sacred & undeniable; that all men are created equal & independent, that from that equal creation they derive rights inherent & unalienable, among which are the preservation of life, & liberty, & the pursuit of happiness." These are the core articles of faith in the American Creed. Jefferson's authorship of these words is the core of his seductive appeal across the ages, his central claim, on posterity's affection. What, then, do they mean? How do they make magic? Merely to ask the question is to risk being accused of some combination of treason and sacrilege, since self-evident truths are not meant to be analyzed; that is what being self-evident is all about. But when these words are stripped of the patriotic haze, read straightaway and literally, two monumental claims are being made here. The explicit claim is that the individual is the sovereign unit in society; his natural state is freedom from and equality with all other individuals; this is the natural order of things. The implicit claim is that all restrictions on this natural order are immoral transgressions, violations of what God intended; individuals liberated from such restrictions will interact with their fellows in a harmonious scheme requiring no external discipline and producing maximum human happiness.

This is a wildly idealistic message, the kind of good news simply too good to be true. It is, truth be told, a recipe for anarchy. Any national government that seriously attempted to operate in accord with these principles would be committing suicide. But, of course, the words were not intended to serve as an operational political blueprint. Jefferson was not a profound political thinker. He was, however, an utterly brilliant political rhetorician and visionary. The genius of his vision is to propose that our deepest yearnings for personal freedom are in fact attainable. The genius of his rhetoric is to articulate irreconcilable human urges at a sufficiently abstract level to mask their mutual exclusiveness. Jefferson guards the American Creed at this inspirational level, which is inherently immune to scholarly skepticism and a place where ordinary Americans can congregate to speak the magic words together. The Jeffersonian magic works because we permit it to function at a rarefied region where real-life choices do not have to be made.

Thomas Jefferson to his grandson:

When I hear another express an opinion which is not mine, I say to myself, he has a right to his opinion, as I to mine. Why should I question it. His error does me no injury, and shall I become a Don Quixote, to bring all men by force of argument to one opinion? Be a listener only, keep within yourself, and endeavor to establish with yourself the habit of silence, especially in politics.

Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, July 17, 1791:

That you and I differ in our ideas of the best form of government is well known to us both: but we have differed as friends should do, respecting the purity of each other's motives, and confining our difference of opinion to private conversation. And I can declare with truth in the presence of the almighty that nothing was further from my intention or expectation than to have had either my own or your name brought before the public on this occasion. The friendship and confidence which has so long existed between us required this explanation from me, and I know you too well to fear any misconstruction of the motives of it. Some people here who would wish me to be, or to be thought, fuilty of impropieties have suggested that I was Agricola, that I was Brutus etc etc. [Anonymous op-ed columns, attacking John Adams, signed under these names] I never did in my life, either by myself or by any other, have a sentence of mine inserted in a newspaper without putting my name to it; and I believe I never shall.

Excerpt from Paul Johnson's History of the American People:

Jefferson produced a superb draft, for which his 1774 pamphlet was a useful preparation. All kinds of philosophical and political influences went into it. They were all well-read men and Jefferson, despite his comparative youth, was the best read of all, and he made full use of the countless hours he had spent pouring over books of history, political theory, and government.

The Declaration is a powerful and wonderfully concise summary of the best Whig thought over several generations. Most of all, it has an electrifying beginning. It is hard to think of any way in which the first two paragraphs can be improved:

WHEN in the Course of human Events, it becomes necessary for one People to dissolve the Political Bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers of the Earth, the separate and equal Station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the Separation.

WE hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness -- That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

The first [paragraph], with its elegiac note of sadness at dissolving the union with Britain and its wish to show "a decent respect to the opinions of mankind" by giving its reasons; the second, with its riveting first sentence, the kernel of the whole: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." After that sentence, the reader, any reader - even George III - is compelled to read on.

The Committee found it necessary to make few changes in Jefferson's draft. Franklin, the practical man, toned down Jefferson's grandiloquence - thus truths, from being "sacred and undeniable" became "self-evident", a masterly improvement. But in general the four others were delighted with Jefferson's work, as well they might be.

Congress was a different matter because at the heart of America's claim to liberty there was a black hole. What of the slaves? How could Congress say that "all men are created equal" when there were 600,000 blacks scattered through the colonies, and concentrated in some of them in huge numbers, who were by law treated as chattels and enjoyed no rights at all? Jefferson and the other members of the Committee tried to up-end this argument - rather dishonestly, one is bound to say - by blaming American slavery on the British and King George.

The original draft charged that the King had "waged a cruel war against human nature" by attacking a "distant people" and "captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere". But when the draft went before the full Congress, on June 28, the Southern delegates were not having this. Those from South Carolina, in particular, were not prepared to accept any admission that slavery was wrong and especially the acknowledgment that it violated the "most sacred rights of life and liberty". If the Declaration said that, then the logical consequence was to free all the slaves forthwith. So the slavery passage was removed, the first of many compromises over the issue during the next eighty years, until it was finally resolved inn an ocean of tears and blood. However, the word "equality" remained in the text, and the fact that it did so was, as it were, a constitutional guarantee that, eventually, the glaring anomaly behind the Declaration would be rectified.

The Congress debated the draft for three days. Paradoxically, delegates spent little time going over the fundamental principles it enshrined, because the bulk of the Declaration presented the specific and detailed case against Britain, and more particularly against the King. The Revolutionaries were determined to scrap the pretense that they distinguished between evil ministers and a king who "could do no wrong", and renounce their allegiance to the crown once and for all. So they fussed over the indictment of the King, to them the core of the document, and left its constitutional and ideological framework, apart from the slavery point, largely intact.

This was just as well. If Congress had chosen to argue over Jefferson's sweeping assumptions and propositions, and resolve their differences with verbal compromises, the magic wrought by his pen would surely have been exorcized, and the world would have been poorer in consequence.

As it was the text was approved on July 2, and on July 4 all the colonies formally adopted what was called, to give it its correct title, "The Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America". At the time, and often since, Tom Paine was credited with its authorship, which did not help to endear it to the British, where he was (and still is) regarded with abhorrence. In fact he had nothing to do with it directly, but the term "United States" is certainly his.

On July 8 it was read publicly in the State House Yard and the Liberty Bell rung. The royal coat of arms was torn down and burned. On August 2 it was engrossed on parchment and signed by all the delegates. Whereupon (according to John Hancock) Franklin remarked: "Well, Gentlemen, we must now hang together, or we shall most assuredly hang separately."

Thomas Jefferson to Robert Skipwith, who had asked for a List of Books that would make up a "gentleman's library", Aug. 3, 1771

I sat down with a design of executing your request to form a catalogue of books to the amount of about 50 lib. sterl. But could by no means satisfy myself with any partial choice I could make. Thinking therefore it might be as agreeable to you I have framed such a general collection as I think you would wish and might in time find convenient to procure. Out of this you will chuse for yourself to the amount you mentioned for the present year and may hereafter as shall be convenient proceed in completing the whole. A view of the second column in this catalogue would I suppose extort a smile from the face of gravity. Peace to its wisdom! Let me not awaken it. A little attention however to the nature of the human mind evinces that the entertainments of fiction are useful as well as pleasant. That they are pleasant when well written every person feels who reads. But wherein is its utility asks the reverend sage, big with the notion that nothing can be useful but the learned lumber of Greek and Roman reading with which his head is stored?

I answer, everything is useful which contributes to fix in the principles and practices of virtue. When any original act of charity or of gratitude, for instance, is presented either to our sight or imagination, we are deeply impressed with its beauty and feel a strong desire in ourselves of doing charitable and grateful acts also. On the contrary when we see or read of any atrocious deed, we are disgusted with it's deformity, and conceive an abhorence of vice. Now every emotion of this kind is an exercise of our virtuous dispositions, and dispositions of the mind, like limbs of the body acquire strength by exercise. But exercise produces habit, and in the instance of which we speak the exercise being of the moral feelings produces a habit of thinking and acting virtuously. We never reflect whether the story we read be truth or fiction. If the painting be lively, and a tolerable picture of nature, we are thrown into a reverie, from which if we awaken it is the fault of the writer. I appeal to every reader of feeling and sentiment whether the fictitious murther of Duncan by Macbeth in Shakespeare does not excite in him as great a horror of villany, as the real one of Henry IV. by Ravaillac as related by Davila? And whether the fidelity of Nelson and generosity of Blandford in Marmontel do not dilate his breast and elevate his sentiments as much as any similar incident which real history can furnish? Does he not in fact feel himself a better man while reading them, and privately covenant to copy the fair example? We neither know nor care whether Lawrence Sterne really went to France, whether he was there accosted by the Franciscan, at first rebuked him unkindly, and then gave him a peace offering: or whether the whole be not fiction. In either case we equally are sorrowful at the rebuke, and secretly resolve we will never do so: we are pleased with the subsequent atonement, and view with emulation a soul candidly acknowleging it's fault and making a just reparation. Considering history as a moral exercise, her lessons would be too infrequent if confined to real life. Of those recorded by historians few incidents have been attended with such circumstances as to excite in any high degree this sympathetic emotion of virtue. We are therefore wisely framed to be as warmly interested for a fictitious as for a real personage. The field of imagination is thus laid open to our use and lessons may be formed to illustrate and carry home to the heart every moral rule of life. Thus a lively and lasting sense of filial duty is more effectually impressed on the mind of a son or daughter by reading King Lear, than by all the dry volumes of ethics, and divinity that ever were written. This is my idea of well written Romance, of Tragedy, Comedy and Epic poetry. -- If you are fond of speculation the books under the head of Criticism will afford you much pleasure. Of Politics and Trade I have given you a few only of the best books, as you would probably chuse to be not unacquainted with those commercial principles which bring wealth into our country, and the constitutional security we have for the enjoiment ofthat wealth. In Law I mention a few systematical books, as a knowledge of the minutiae of that science is not neces-sary for a private gentleman. In Religion, History, Natural philosophy, I have followed the same plan in general, -- But whence the necessity of this collection? Come to the new Rowanty, from which you may reach your hand to a library formed on a more extensive plan. Separated from each other but a few paces the possessions of each would be open to the other. A spring centrically situated might be the scene of every evening's joy. There we should talk over the lessons of the day, or lose them in music, chess or the merriments of our family companions. The heart thus lightened our pillows would be soft, and health and long life would attend the happy scene. Come then and bring our dear Tibby with you, the first in your affections, and second in mine. Offer prayers for me too at that shrine to which tho' absent I pray continual devotions. In every scheme of happiness she is placed in the foreground of the picture, as the princi-pal figure. Take that away, and it is no picture for me. Bear my affections to Wintipock clothed in the warmest expressions of sincerity; and to yourself be every human felicity.

Adieu.

FINE ARTS.

Observations on gardening. Payne. 5/
Webb's essay on painting. 12mo 3/
Pope's Iliad. 18/
------- Odyssey. 15/
Dryden's Virgil. 12mo. 12/
Milton's works. 2 v. 8vo. Donaldson. Edinburgh 1762. 10/
Hoole's Tasso. 12mo. 5/
Ossian with Blair's criticisms. 2 v. 8vo. 10/
Telemachus by Dodsley. 6/
Capell's Shakespear. 12mo. 30/
Dryden's plays. 6v. 12mo. 18/
Addison's plays. 12mo. 3/
Otway's plays. 3 v. 12mo. 9/
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Mason's poetical works. 5/
Terence. Eng. 3/
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Steele's plays. 3/
Congreve's works. 3 v. 12mo. 9/
Garric's dramatic works. 2 v. 8vo. 10/
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Rousseau's Eloisa. Eng. 4 v. 12mo. 12/
----- Emilius and Sophia. Eng. 4 v. 12mo. 12/
Marmontel's moral tales. Eng. 2 v. 12mo. 12/
Gil Blas. by Smollett. 6/
Don Quixot. by Smollett 4 v. 12mo. 12/
David Simple. 2 v. 12mo. 6/
Roderic Random. 2 v. 12mo. 6/ these are written by Smollett
Peregrine Pickle. 4 v. 12mo. 12/
Launcelot Graves. 6/
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Clarissa. 8 v. 12mo. 24/
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Constantia. 2 v. 12mo. 6/ by Langhorne.
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Ld. Kaim's elements of criticism. 2 v. 8vo. 10/
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POLITICKS, TRADE.

Montesquieu's spirit of the laws. 2 v. 12mo. 6/
Locke on government. 8vo. 5/
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Locke's conduct of the mind in search of truth. 12mo. 3/
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Epictetus. by Mrs. Carter. 2 v. 12mo. 6/
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Hume's essays. 4 v. 12mo. 12/
Ld. Kaim's Natural religion. 8vo. 6/
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Sterne's sermons. 7 v. 12mo. pound 1.1
Sherlock on death. 8vo. 5/
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LAW.

Ld. Kaim's Principles of equity. fol. pound 1.1
Blackstone's Commentaries. 4 v. 4to. pound 4.4
Cuningham's Law dictionary. 2 v. fol. pound 3

HISTORY. ANTIENT.

Bible. 6/
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Stanyan's Graecian history. 2 v. 8vo. 10/
Livy. (the late translation). 12/
Sallust by Gordon. 12mo. 12/
Tacitus by Gordon. 12mo. 15/
Caesar by Bladen. 8vo. 5/
Josephus. Eng. 1.0
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Plutarch's lives. by Langhorne. 6 v. 8vo. pound 1.10
Bayle's Dictionary. 5 v. fol. pound 7.10.
Jeffery's Historical & Chronological chart. 15/

HISTORY. MODERN.

Robertson's History of Charles the Vth. 3 v. 4to. pound 3.3
Bossuet's history of France. 4 v. 12mo. 12/
Davila. by Farneworth. 2 v. 4to. pound 1.10.
Hume's history of England. 8 v. 8vo. pound 2.8.
Clarendon's history of the rebellion. 6 v. 8vo. pound 1.10.
Robertson's history of Scotland. 2 v. 8vo. 12/
Keith's history of Virginia. 4to. 12/
Stith's history of Virginia. 6/

NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. NATURAL HISTORY &c.

Nature displayed. Eng. 7 v. 12mo.
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MISCELLANEOUS.

Ld. Lyttleton's dialogues of the dead. 8vo. 5/
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Voltaire's works. Eng. pound 4.
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Owen's Dict. of arts & sciences 4 v. 8vo. pound 2.

I am not sure if mere words can express how much I love that list.

Thomas Jefferson to John Adams:

"I have given up newspapers in exchange for Tacitus and Thucydides, for Newton and Euclid; and I find myself much the happier."

One of the funniest things about this man, funny meaning fascinating, is that his epitaph (written by him) reads:

"Here was buried Thomas Jefferson, Author of the Declaration of American Independence, of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, and Father of the University of Virginia."

Not a word about being President.

He died on July 4, 1826. On the same day that John Adams died. These old colleagues and rivals died within hours of one another. On July 4th no less. Separated by distance, John Adams's last words were something about Jefferson - either "Jefferson still lives" or " Jefferson survives" - he was unaware, of course, that Jefferson had died a couple hours earlier. Incredible. That that would be what Adams went out with. A mystery wrapped in an enigma.

According to Robley Dunglison, the attending physician, Jefferson dozed through the day on July 3rd, and woke up in the early evening, saying as he awoke, "Is it the Fourth?" This gives me a lump in my throat.) Dunglison said to him that it soon would be. Nicholas Trist, married to Jefferson's granddaughter, remembers it this way: Jefferson woke and said, "This is the Fourth?" Trist remembers pretending not to hear the question, because he didn't want to tell Jefferson that it was still only the 3rd of July. But Jefferson asked again, "This is the Fourth?" Trist caved, and nodded - and he felt very bad about his lie. Virginia Randolph, his granddaughter, remembers it differently. She remembers him waking and saying, clearly, "This is the Fourth." No question. A statement. Jefferson faded out after that, and the next day, the Fourth, he called out for help at one point - and someone remembers him saying, at one point, "No, doctor. Nothing more." But it is his question/statement about what the date was that has passed down through the years as Jefferson's final words. In the end, it doesn't really matter, of course, although the story itself is one I treasure, in all its different details.

Did he wait? When he found out it was still just the Third, did he wait? To die on the Fourth? I wouldn't put it past him, he always loved symmetry.

The monumental project

My sister Jean teaches English and writing in middle school. Every year, the class goes on a trip to Washington D.C., which is a huge ordeal, involving chaperones, and crowd-control, and dealing with little kids who basically have never been out of Rhode Island and don't know how to cross a street at a crosswalk. Jean has been doing this trip for years, so she pretty much has it down to a science now. Prepping the kids, all that stuff.

One of her assignments that she gives them is to write their first real research paper. They can use one online source, but other than that, they have to find stuff in books. They have to do proper footnotes and attribution. She walks them through it, giving suggestions ("If you find an appropriate quote, you could lead off the paper with it ..."). The research paper has to be on one of the national monuments, and she assigns them out to the kids. She has learned, through experience, that Arlington is a very difficult topic - its history being what it is - so she always gives that to a kid who she thinks is up to the challenge. Or, she'll have them do it in pairs.

She was telling me all about this project the last time I was home, and the best thing about the project is this:

These kids spend a couple of weeks researching their monument. They get to know it. In a way, through this process, they get to feel like they "own" it - as indeed they do. So then, when they all go to D.C., the kids have this incredibly excited and personal response to their specific monument. They get to see in person what they had described in writing.

The papers had all just come in that week when I was home, so she was telling me about some of the best ones, and telling me about the kids who really "got" the project. Some don't - there are lots of levels of ability in her class.

She told me about how she coached the kids. This is, after all, their first research paper. Up until now, they have only had to write one or two paragraphs on something they have read, giving their opinion. This is different. I remember when things started getting serious in middle school (we called it junior high), when you could feel high school looming ahead of you, and you really had to get your study preparation techniques together.

She broke the paper down for them, to give them an idea of structure for the research paper. Start with a quote that sums up the whole thing. Give an overview of the monument, what it is, where it is.

Next paragraph: Talk about the man (or event) that the monument stands for. Who was George Washington? What is the Library of Congress? What is the history of the Supreme Court?

Next paragraph: Talk about the creation of the monument. When was it decided upon? How long did it take to build?

Last paragraph: Jean calls this the "national significance" paragraph. What does it stand for, what does it mean, why is it (the monument and the man) important? Now these are pre-teens. They perhaps are only used to gushing about the boy they have a crush on, or gushing about Miley Cyrus. Jean says to them, "Make this last paragraph a Hallmark Card to America. Go really really gushy - I want to feel like singing the National Anthem when I finish reading the last paragraph."

With kids of this age, if you tell them to go "too far", most of the time they will then approximate the tone you want. They aren't used to going over-the-top. You want to cover your ass. You can't wear your heart on your sleeve. Middle school is brutal! So Jean gives them permission to go "really really gushy".

When I was last home, some of the papers had already come in, and Jean was raving about them, how well the kids had done, how great they had worked. I wanted to hear everything. Who were the kids who knocked it out of the park? What were they like? She gave me two of them to read: the kid who had been assigned Arlington National Cemetery and the kid who had been assigned the Library of Congress. Like I mentioned, the Arlington kid is one of the smartest kids in her class, so she knew he could handle the complicated beginnings of Arlington, and the girl who had been assigned Library of Congress is a huge reader, and a real smarty-pants.

I know this sounds so goofy but I read their papers (all typewritten, of course), and found myself literally choking back tears. Their little footnotes: they all went to Wikipedia first, but then you could see their credit to encyclopedias and other books in the library. They ALL started with a quote - great tip, Jean - I still think it's powerful and interesting to start a paper with a quote, a good launching-point. And the kids had somehow figured out the perfect quote to choose. The quotes were relevant. Good job.

I seriously was so moved reading these papers. The girl who wrote the Library of Congress paper went all out. Her description of the creation of the Library of Congress is well-known to me, and she got all the particulars right. She also went hog-wild with numerical descriptions. "There are 2,567,901 volumes in the Library of Congress and every 5 minutes 287 more titles are added." (I made those numbers up, but that gives you an idea). I also loved (as in: I was a weepy mess) her explanation about the Gutenberg Bibles included in the Library of Congress (a tween who even knows what that is? Bestill my heart) - and she helpfully explains: "They are made of vellum (calf-skin)." The parenthetical kills me. I don't mean to sound condescending. I am saying that it truly kills me.

Her "Hallmark Card" paragraph was a masterpiece, an emotional prose-poem to the beauty of reading, and having all books available to all, for the present generations, and forever more.

Kudos.

The Arlington kid didn't get quite as gushy (he's a boy, so he kept a lid on it - as Jean knew he would) - but he handled all of the steps of the creation of that land perfectly, and his Hallmark Card paragraph spoke movingly about "remembering the men and women who have fought for our country...."

I have tears in my eyes. This is the best project I have ever heard of.

Just imagine this young girl and this young boy - now getting to SEE the Library of Congress and the Cemetery - and how amazing that will be for them.

Jean told me over the phone that another paper had come in, this one about the Jefferson Memorial. As Alexander Hamilton is my "dead boyfriend", Jefferson is Jean's "dead boyfriend" - which she informed the class - she calls him her "Revolutionary boyfriend", and they all just thought it was the funniest thing they had ever heard. "Mrs. W has a Revolutionary boyfriend - tee hee!" So she tried to impress on the girl assigned Thomas Jefferson: "He's a tough one. A tough one to write about and to nail down." She assured her that she could handle it.

Jean sent me the paper a couple of days ago and said to me, "Check out the final paragraph!"

The "Hallmark Card" paragraph.

Obviously I cannot post it here on the Internet, since this is a child's school assignment, but Jean and I were both just CRYING reading it - with laughter and also emotion. This kid WENT for it. "Okay, you want a Hallmark Card to Thomas Jefferson? Fine. Here it is." The final paragraph just reiterated over and over what a great man Jefferson was - but here's the best part: the girl explained why she thought that way. She wasn't being blindly obedient to her teacher - she knew: Okay. So let me think about this a bit, and try to figure out WHY there is a monument for him.

She just poured on the syrup, and gushed about him - he was seriously, according to this sweet young tween, the greatest man who had ever lived because of this, this and this. This girl took the coaching and ran with it.

A nice antidote to the whole Texas Textbook nonsense, I might add. Jean and I were just crying with laughter and emotion.

The language of the papers is naturally 12-year-old language, but they did really excellent jobs, all of them, and they are all now heading down to Washington D.C., as we speak, to spend a week there, seeing all of these monuments, and I'm just excited for all of them. I can't wait to get an update from Jean this weekend when I go home for Good Friday.

Today in history: March 23, 1775

Patrick Henry made his famous "give me liberty or give me death" speech at St. John's Church in Richmond, Virginia.

Benson Bobrick writes in his book Angel in the Whirlwind: The Triumph of the American Revolution about a speech Henry made a decade earlier. You get the sense in the following excerpt of Henry's power as a public speaker - the consciousness with where he chose to PAUSE ... and then how he concluded his thought, as the cries of "treason" rose around him - But without that carefully chosen pause, the impact would not have been what it was - genius:

On May 29, 1765, Patrick Henry rose in the Virginia House of Burgesses to introduce a series of momentous resolutions which he had hastily drafted on a blank leaf of an old law book ... Henry accompanied these resolutions with a fiery speech given the next day in which he concluded, "Caesar had his Brutus, Charles the First his Cromwell and George the Third" - amid cries of "Treason" that arose from all sides of the room - "and George the Third," he continued artfully, "may profit by their example. If this be treason, make the most of it!"

Thomas Jefferson, then a student at the College of William and Mary, was standing in the doorway and heard Henry speak. "I well remember the cry of treason," Jefferson wrote afterward, "the pause of Mr. Henry at the name of George III, and the presence of mind with which he closed his sentence, and baffled the charge vociferated." To Jefferson it seemed as if Henry "spoke as Homer wrote".

Paul Johnson, in his wonderful book, A History of the American People, writes of the "Give me liberty or give me death" speech:

A common American political consciousness was taking shape, and delegates began to speak with a distinctive national voice. At the end of it, Patrick Henry marked this change in his customary dramatic manner: 'The distinctions between Virginians and New Englanders are no more. I am not a Virginian but an American.' Not everyone agreed with him, as yet, and the Continental Congress, as it called itself, voted by colonies rather than as individual Americans. But this body, essentially based on Franklin's earlier proposals, perpetuated its existence by agreeing to meet again in May 1775. Before that could happen, on February 5, 1775, parliament in London declared Massachusetts, identified as the most unruly and contumacious of the colonies, to be in a state of rebellion, thus authorizing the lawful authorities to use what force they thought fit. The fighting had begun. Hence when the Virginia burgesses met in convention to instruct their delegates to the Second Continental Congress, Henry saw his chance to bring home to all the revolutionary drama of the moment.

Henry was a born ham actor, in a great age of acting - the Age of Garrick. The British parliament was full of actors, notably [William] Pitt himself ('He acted even when he was dying') and the young [Edmund] Burke, who was not above drawing a dagger, and hurling it on the ground to make a point. But Henry excelled them all. He proposed to the burgesses that Virginia should raise a militia and be ready to do battle. What was Virginia waiting for? Massachusetts was fighting. 'Our brethren are already in the field. Why stand we her idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have?'

Then Henry got to his knees, in the posture of a manacled slave, intoning in a low but rising voice: 'Is life so dear, our peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God!' He then bent to the earth with his hands still crossed, for a few seconds, and suddenly sprang to his feet, shouting, 'Give me liberty!' and flung wide his arms, paused, lowered his arms, clenched his right hand as if holding a dagger at his breast, and said in sepulchral tones: 'Or give me death!' He then beat his breast, with his hand holding the imaginary dagger.

There was silence, broken by a man listening at the open window, who shouted: "Let me be buried on this spot!'

Henry had made his point.

It's interesting - there's a great description of acting: "Acting is like a sculpture carved in snow." Obviously, that phrase came from the time of stage acting. Movies now can capture the "sculpture" before it melts. Or at least one version of it. But that quote always makes me think of Patrick Henry. Nobody alive today can ever experience his oratorical skills. There are no video tapes, tape recordings. We just have to take the word of those who were THERE. So while no "record" exists, and his speeches were, indeed, "carved in snow" ... a whiff of the power of them comes down to us regardless.

The impact of the "Give my liberty or give me death" speech was not quite the tinder-box effect of Thomas Paine's Common Sense ... but it was close. It was a rallying cry of revolution, spoken in melodramatic and evocative terms, that those who were there that day (future revolutionaries and Presidents) never forgot.

Here, in full, is Patrick Henry's speech that he made on this day in 1775:

Patrick Henry's Speech, St. John's Church, Richmond, Virginia, March 23, 1775

No man, Mr. President, thinks more highly than I do of the patriotism, as well as abilities, of the very worthy gentlemen who have just addressed the House. But different men often see the same subject in different lights; and, therefore, I hope it will not be thought disrespectful to those gentlemen if, entertaining as I do opinions of a character very opposite to theirs, I shall speak forth my sentiments freely and without reserve. This is no time for ceremony. The question before the House is one of awful moment to this country. For my own part, I consider it as nothing less than a question of freedom or slavery; and in proportion to the magnitude of the subject ought to be the freedom of the debate. It is only in this way that we can hope to arrive at truth, and fulfill the great responsibility which we hold to God and our country. Should I keep back my opinions at such a time, through fear of giving offense, I should consider myself as guilty of treason towards my country, and of an act of disloyalty toward the Majesty of Heaven, which I revere above all earthly kings.

Mr. President, it is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren till she transforms us into beasts. Is this the part of wise men, engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty? Are we disposed to be of the number of those who, having eyes, see not, and, having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly concern their temporal salvation? For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst, and to provide for it.

I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of experience. I know of no way of judging of the future but by the past. And judging by the past, I wish to know what there has been in the conduct of the British ministry for the last ten years to justify those hopes with which gentlemen have been pleased to solace themselves and the House. Is it that insidious smile with which our petition has been lately received? Trust it not, sir; it will prove a snare to your feet. Suffer not yourselves to be betrayed with a kiss. Ask yourselves how this gracious reception of our petition comports with those warlike preparations which cover our waters and darken our land. Are fleets and armies necessary to a work of love and reconciliation? Have we shown ourselves so unwilling to be reconciled that force must be called in to win back our love? Let us not deceive ourselves, sir. These are the implements of war and subjugation; the last arguments to which kings resort. I ask gentlemen, sir, what means this martial array, if its purpose be not to force us to submission? Can gentlemen assign any other possible motive for it? Has Great Britain any enemy, in this quarter of the world, to call for all this accumulation of navies and armies? No, sir, she has none. They are meant for us: they can be meant for no other. They are sent over to bind and rivet upon us those chains which the British ministry have been so long forging. And what have we to oppose to them? Shall we try argument? Sir, we have been trying that for the last ten years. Have we anything new to offer upon the subject? Nothing. We have held the subject up in every light of which it is capable; but it has been all in vain. Shall we resort to entreaty and humble supplication? What terms shall we find which have not been already exhausted? Let us not, I beseech you, sir, deceive ourselves. Sir, we have done everything that could be done to avert the storm which is now coming on. We have petitioned; we have remonstrated; we have supplicated; we have prostrated ourselves before the throne, and have implored its interposition to arrest the tyrannical hands of the ministry and Parliament. Our petitions have been slighted; our remonstrances have produced additional violence and insult; our supplications have been disregarded; and we have been spurned, with contempt, from the foot of the throne! In vain, after these things, may we indulge the fond hope of peace and reconciliation. There is no longer any room for hope. If we wish to be free-- if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending--if we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained--we must fight! I repeat it, sir, we must fight! An appeal to arms and to the God of hosts is all that is left us!

They tell us, sir, that we are weak; unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week, or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot? Sir, we are not weak if we make a proper use of those means which the God of nature hath placed in our power. The millions of people, armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us. Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations, and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us. The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave. Besides, sir, we have no election. If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest. There is no retreat but in submission and slavery! Our chains are forged! Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston! The war is inevitable--and let it come! I repeat it, sir, let it come.

It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace-- but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!

Today in history: March 16, 1751

James Madison, fourth President of the United States, was born on this day in Virginia.

"The principles and modes of government are too important to be disregarded by an inquisitive mind, and I think are well worthy of a critical examination by all students that have health and leisure." -- James Madison, age 22, to his friend who was just beginning to study the law

Elected to the presidency in 1808 - and then again for a second term in 1812 - he didn't really have a good time of it in office, what with, you know, the war of 1812 and all, and the Brits burning down our damn capital. Not a very successful President - but the story of his administration is a fascinating one - its failures, its successes, war again.

Henry Clay said about Madison, as President:

"Nature has cast him in too benevolent a mould. Admirably adapted to the tranquil scenes of peace, blending all the mild and amiable virtues, he is not fit for the rough and rude blasts which the conflicts of nations generate."

Madison's greatest accomplishment was his crafting of the US Constitution and also his commitment (second only to Alexander Hamilton's) to getting it ratified. Madison wrote Federalist #10 - probably the most famous of all of the Federalist Papers (I babble about it here) - although, if you haven't read them all in their entirety, all I can say is: do yourself a favor! (Excerpt here from # 15) It's the best civics class you'll ever get. Madison's mind was sharp, probing, deep - and all of the great political figures (especially the Virginians at the time) looked to him for guidance. Federalist #10 warns about the dangers of factions. But Madison, in his cunning behind-the-scenes manner, was hardly a neutral party himself in the battles of the day - and he had famous fights and breaks with his compatriots over matters of policy.

In May of 1787, the delegates arrived in Philadelphia for the Constitutional Convention.

The articles of Confederation, which loosely held the states together, were proving far too inefficient as time went on, and people like Madison, Hamilton, John Jay, and certainly Washington - who had been raging about the slowness of Congress since the war began - thought that the articles needed to be revised. As Washington wrote,

"Thirteen sovereignties pulling against each other, and all tugging at the foederal head, will soon bring ruin on the whole."

However, these were conservative men, despite their revolutionary fervor. They were land-owners, farmers, lawyers, not interested in tearing things down - but building upon foundations already there, so the delegates, for the most part, were not looking for a whole new form of government to be raised at their Convention. They were looking for a revision to the Articles, that was it. However, James Madison - and Alexander Hamilton - went in there with preconceived notions, definitely. They knew what they were going to try to push through.

The Articles could not stand. Earlier that year, the Shays Rebellion had taken place - which had freaked everyone out. What had happened to solidarity? Should military force be used to put down the rebellion? There couldn't have been a better time for the Constitutional Convention.

Catherine Drinker-Bowen, in her WONDERFUL book Miracle At Philadelphia: The Story of the Constitutional Convention May - September 1787, describes the beginning of the Convention - with a wonderful mini-portrait of James Madison:

On the twenty-fifth of May, when a quorum was obtained, Washington was unanimously elected president of the Convention and escorted to the chair. From his desk on the raised dais he made a little speech of acceptance, depreciating his ability to give satisfaction in a scene so novel. "When seated," wrote a member, "he declared that as he never had been in such a situation he felt himself embarrassed, that he hoped his errors, as they would be unintended, would be excused. He lamented his want of qualifications."...

In the front row near the desk, James Madison sat bowed over his tablet, writing steadily. His eyes were blue, his face ruddy; he did not have the scholar's pallor. His figure was well-knit and muscular and he carried his clothes with style. Though he usually wore black, he has also been described as handsomely dressed in blue and buff, with ruffles at breast and wrist. Already he was growing bald and brushed his hair down to hide it; he wore a queue and powder. He walked with the quick bouncing step that sometimes characterizes men of remarkable energy.

As a reporter Madison was indefatigable, his notes comprehensive, set down without comment or aside. One marvels that he was able at the same time to take so large a part in the debates. It is true that in old age Madison made some emendations in the record to accord with various disparate notes which later came to light; he has been severely criticized for it. Other members took notes at the Convention: Hamilton, Yates and Lansing of New York, McHenry of Maryland, Paterson of New Jersey, Rufus King of Massachusetts, William Pierce of Georgia, George Mason of Virginia. But most of these memoranda were brief, incomplete; had it not been for Madison we should possess very scanty records of the Convention. His labors, he said later, nearly killed him. "I chose a seat," he afterward wrote, "in front of the presiding member, with the other members on my right and left hand. In this favorable position for hearing all that passed, I noted in terms legible and in abbreviations and marks intelligble to myself what was read from the Chair or spoken by the members; and losing not a moment unnecessarily between the adjournment and reassembling of the Convention I was enabled to write out my daily notes during the session or within a few finishing days after its close in the extent and form preserved in my own hand on my files ... I was not absent a single day, nor more than a casual fraction of an hour in any day, so that I could not have lost a single speech, unless a very short one."

It was, actually, a tour de force, not to be published -- and scarcely seen -- until thirty years after the Convention. "Do you know," wrote Jefferson to John Adams from Monticello in 1815, "that there exists in manuscript the ablest work of this kind ever yet executed, of the debates of the constitutional convention of Philadelphia ...? The whole of everything said and done there was taken down by Mr. Madison, with a labor and exactness beyond comprehension." ...

As I mentioned before, these were all practical men - and many of them had gathered with practical concerns, about raising money, and internal improvements - and how the Articles would be able to handle such large projects. Madison and Hamilton kept their cards close to their chests, at first (this, of course, was long before their famous break. Hamilton broke with pretty much everyone). Hamilton was a practical man as well. He had a lot of problems with the Constitution as it was laid out in embryonic form by Madison. But he recognized the genius within, recognized the need for such a thing - and nobody - but NOBODY - worked harder for ratification than my dead boyfriend. It is amazing the amount of print he was able to devote to the Federalist Papers - it STILL boggles the mind.

But back to Madison. Poor man ... his more glittery compatriots always have a way of stealing the spotlight, don't they??

Catherine Drinker-Bowen goes on:

Time would pass before members realized how far the plans of such men as Madison and Hamilton reached, and what the Constitution promised to be. It would be misleading to name thus early the Constitution's "enemies", or to set down this name or that as "against" the Constitution. Five delegates in the end would refuse to sign -- Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts, Yates and Lansing of New York, George Mason and Edmund Randolph of Virginia -- all men of decided views and each with a different reason for his action. More vociferous than any of these would be Luther Martin of Maryland, who, though out of town on private business at the moment of signing, later declared that had he been present he would have given the document his "solemn negative," even had he "stood single and alone".

It would be four months before the Constitution was finally ratified and signed.

Garry Wills has some very interesting thoughts on the famous Federalist 10 in his book on James Madison; it's long, but worth quoting in full:

Madison's debut contribution [to "The Federalist Papers"], would in time (a long time) become the most famous of them all. It crammed into a narrow space all the arguments Madison had been sifting and refining in his opposition to the Continental Congress's weakness, in his preparation for the convention, in his crafting of the Virginia Plan, and in his debates at the convention. Madison goes behind specific weaknesses in the Articles to expose the fundamental error on which the Articles were based, the idea that the only worthy democracy is direct democracy.

Madison's attack on that concept is so radical for its time that it is often downplayed, or even altogether missed. The most important passage in the Number is its claim that no man can be a judge in his own case. Not much is made of that in some treatments of the Number. We hear about the tyranny of majorities (though Madison treats that as just a symptom of direct democracy). We hear about the difference between a small republic and an extended republic (whereas Madison is talking about the difference between a direct democracy and a republic). We hear that Madison wanted to multiply factions (though he thought all factions bad things). We hear that Madison wanted to create a national elite, above the states, because he distrusted the people (though his system calls precisely for trust - direct democracy is built on distrust). We hear that he was trying to set up a mechanical system for producing correct decisions (though he said that no governmental machinery can produce good results without virtue in its operators).

It has puzzled people that Number 10 did not get much attention until the twentieth century. It was not a matter of great dispute in the ratification debates, though it would have clarified and focused those debates - they spent endless hours on the number of representatives, rather than on the nature of representation. The reason for this is that a dismissal of direct democracy was almost literally unthinkable to the men who debated the Constitution. Every constitution in America was based on that ideal, as a thing to be approximated even when it could not be literally enacted. If people could not directly make the government's decisions, as in a New England town meeting or the Athenian Assembly, then they should tie down those making the decisions, making them (so far as possible) passive tools in their own hands. That is why short terms, rotation, instruction open proceedings (to see that instruction is followed), recall (to punish departures from instruction), and weak executives were adopted. These were the necessary melioratives for the necessary evil of any departure from direct democracy.

The rightness of all these measures was so self-evident to those who accepted them that the could not even imagine someone making the attack on them that Madison did. He did not say, as many did, that direct democracy would be wonderful if it were possible but, since it is not possible in large communities, some approximation to it must be cobbled up. He did not think direct democracy wonderful. He thought it fundamentally unjust.

No man is allowed to be a judge in his own cause, because his interests would certainly bias his judgment, and, not improbably, corrupt his integrity. With equal, nay with greater reason, a body of men are unfit to be both judges and parties at the same time; yet what are many of the most important acts of legislation but so many judicial determinations, not indeed concerning the right of single persons but concerning the right of large bodies of citizens; and what are the different classes of legislators but advocates and parties to the causes which they determine?

By calling legislation quasi-judicial, he instantly disqualifies all those who come to the task of legislating with nothing but their own interest in mind. They have come to be judges in their own case - and that is what proponents of direct democracy would justify. In doing so, they defend a system of majority tyranny. If naked interest is all that can be expressed, then only one thing will determine the outcome. The only question to be decided is: which interest has the greater number backing it.

I find Madison a very interesting fellow, although not as easy to get to know as John Adams, who was a passionate warm-blooded flawed and sensitive man ... Madison is a bit more "close", perhaps. (You won't see an HBO miniseries about Madison any day soon!!) A wife of one of Madison's friends referred to Madison as a "gloomy stiff creature" - and that is obviously not one of the qualities that leads to an endearing and well-liked president (although the office was still, obviously, in its infancy when Madison held it). He did marry Dolley Madison - who remains, to this day, at the top of the list of "favorite first ladies" - not that anyone remembers her personally now, of course - but by all accounts she was a vivacious social happy woman, and everyone liked her.

The two did not have children, but it appears the marriage was a happy one (she referred to him as her "great little Madison"). Unlike many other first ladies since, Dolley Madison didn't have a problem with the social rigors of her position - she loved it. Men and women alike found her charming, easy-going.

Wills describes the burning of the capital and its aftermath:

During the night of the fires in Washington, Madison and Dolley were unable to find each other - she stayed at one friend's home in Virginia, he in another. He met her the next day; then, assured of her safety, he went to consult with Winder, whose troops were on the road toward Baltimore ... Madison wrote to Dolley suggesting she not return to Washington until he was sure the city was safe. But she was already on her way back to him.

It was suggested that Madison would summon Congress to a different, safer spot - Congress had, after all, been shifted about during the Revolution. But Madison knew the government must be seen to function, and he called Congress back for an early session. He had chambers prepared for the House and Senate in the Post Office and Patent Building, which had escaped the fires. He and Dolley moved into the house they had lived in when he was secretary of state - though the French minister, Louis Serurier, soon vacated his own residence, the current Octagon House, for their use. Dolley found these quarters too cramped, and she would end up in the former offices of the Treasury, where she could entertain on the scale she was used to. She, too, realized that it was important to return the city to its normal patterns. But the Madisons never returned to the blackened White House.

I think someone's choice of a wife can be pretty illuminating. Madison was often seen as a dour brainiac, humorless and obsessive - but he chose as a counterpart Dolley, who was pretty, friendly, funny and resourceful: Perhaps her most famous moment is this: during the burning of the capital, Dolly was forced to flee by carriage - but she had the presence of mind to roll up Gilbert Stuart's portrait of George Washington - (she had to break the frame in order to get the painting out) - and give it to some soldiers to keep safe. And of course, it was preserved, for all time, thanks to her foresight.

I mean, you gotta love a person like that. Imagine: you are under siege. Your house is burning down around your ears. And you have the presence of mind to take a moment and think: "You know what? Gotta save this portrait." The image of her breaking the frame to get at the painting in the middle of that chaos ... It's one of my favorite White House anecdotes in Presidential history.

And so happy birthday, "great little Madison". We are forever in your debt!

Today in history, February 22, 1732

George Washington, first President of the United States, was born.

(All quotes from George Washington's letters below I got from my copy of the Library of America's compilation of his writings)

Thomas Jefferson on George Washington:

The moderation and virtue of a single character probably prevented this Revolution from being closed, as most others have been, by a subversion of that liberty it was intended to establish.

In May, 1754, Washington wrote a letter home to his brother, after his first experience of battle in the French and Indian War:

I heard Bullets whistle and believe me there was something charming in the Sound.

In November, 1754, George Washington wrote:

My inclinations are strongly bent to arms.

GEORGE WASHINGTON, in a letter written to a friend in 1774

Does it not appear as clear as the sun in its meridian brightness that there is a regular, systematic plan to fix the right and practice of taxation upon us? Ought we not, then, to put our virtue and fortitude to the severest tests?

One of the things I love about Washington is that his progression to Revolutionary was gradual, and began with practical matters, like being taxed, and having his autonomy as a farmer taken away from him (the British regulated where he could buy parts, taxing him to death, etc.) His was not a high-flung "all men are created equal" mindset, like Thomas Jefferson's ... He began with the unfairness and humiliation of his status as someone who is being occupied and bossed around. It took all kinds to make that revolution. If we had just had Thomas Jefferson, we would have been in trouble. But we needed Thomas Jefferson to put the ideals into words, for the ages. But it was the mixture of personalities and mindsets that made it a success. Very important. John Adams countered Jefferson. Hamilton countered Washington and Jefferson. Ben Franklin gave it a glitter and notoriety. Madison was the brainiac lawyer. John Jay, Samuel Adams ... all with their area of expertise, their interests and passions. Thank God we had a good mix.

But Washington was the giant. A man who walked away from power even when it was offered to him? Had such a man ever lived before? George III didn't think so.

In 1755, Washington wrote a complaining letter to his friend Robert Dinwiddie:

We cannot conceive that because we are Americans, we shou'd therefore be deprived of the Benefits Common to British Subjects.

In 1758, Washington wrote a couple of letters to Sally Fairfax, a woman he was in love with - his first love - someone he never really recovered from (letters to her at the end of his life suggest that):

'Tis true, I profess myself a Votary to Love - I acknowledge that a Lady is in the Case - and further I confess that this Lady is known to you. - Yes Madam, as well as she is to one, who is too sensible of her Charms to deny the Power, whose Influence he feels and must ever Submit to. I feel the force of her amiable beauties in the recollection of a thousand tender passages that I coud wish to obliterate, till I am bid to revive them. - but experience alas! Sadly reminds me how Impossible this is. - and evinces an opinion which I have long entertained, that there is a Destiny, which has the Sovereign Controul of our Actions - not to be resisted by the Strongest efforts of Human Nature.

The World has no business to know the object of my Love, declard in this manner to you - you when I want to conceal it - One thing, above all things in this World I wish to know, and only one person of your Acquaintance can solve me that, or guess my meaning. - but adieu to this, till happier times, if I shall ever see them ...

Excerpt from Joseph Ellis's His Excellency: George Washington:

All of which is to suggest that Washington did not need to read books by radical Whig writers or receive an education in political theory from George Mason in order to regard the British military occupation of Massachusetts in 1774 as the latest installment in a long-standing pattern. His own ideological origins did not derive primarily from books but from his own experience with what he had come to regard as the imperiousness of the British Empire. Mason probably helped him to develop a more expansive vocabulary to express his thoughts and feelings, but the thoughts, and even more so the feelings, had been brewing inside him for more than twenty years. At the psychological nub of it all lay an utter loathing for any form of dependency, a sense of his own significance, and a deep distrust of any authority beyond his direct control.

Martha Washington wrote a letter to a relative on the eve of her husband's departure to the Convention in 1774:

I foresee consequences; dark days and darker nights; domestic happiness suspended; social enjoyments abandoned; property of every kind put in jeopardy by war, perhaps; neighbors and friends at variance, and eternal separations on earth possible. But what are all these evils when compared with the fate of which the Port Bill may be only a threat? My mind is made up; my heart is in the cause. George is right; he is always right. God has promised to protect the righteous, and I will trust him.

PATRICK HENRY, on his return home from the first Continental Congress in 1774 was asked whom he thought was the foremost man in the group:

"Colonel Washington is unquestionably the greatest man on that floor."

Abigail Adams first met Washington in 1774, and wrote to her husband:

You had prepared me to entertain a favorable opinion of him, but I thought the half was not told me. Dignity with ease and complacency, the gentleman and the soldier look agreeably blended in him. Modesty marks every line and feature of his face.

When George Washington was elected (unanimously) by the First Continental Congress to be Commander in Chief (this was in June, 1775) - here was the brief acceptance he made:

"Lest some unlucky event should happen unfavorable to my reputation, I beg it may be remembered by every gentleman in the room, that I this day declare, with the utmost sincerity, I do not think myself equal to the command."

In a 1775 letter to his brother-in-law, Burwell Bassett:

I am now Imbarked on a tempestuous Ocean from whence, perhaps, no friendly harbour is to be found ... It is an honour I wished to avoid ... I can answer but for three things, a firm belief of the justice of our Cause - close attention to the prosecution of it - and the strictest Integrity - If these cannot supply the places of Ability & Experience, the cause will suffer & more than probably my character along with it, as reputation derives its principal support from success.

GEORGE WASHINGTON, writing to Martha on June 18, 1775, following his nomination as commander in chief

My Dearest: I now sit down to write to you on a subject which fills me with inexpressible concern, and this concern is greatly aggravated and increased when I reflect upon the uneasiness I know it will give you. It has been determined in Congress that the whole army raised for the defence of the American cause shall be put under my care, and that it is necessary for me to proceed immediately to Boston to take upon me the command of it.

You may believe me, my dear Patsy, when I assure you, in the most solemn manner, that, so far from seeking this appointment, I have used every endeavour in my power to avoid it, not only from my unwillingness to part with you and the family, but from a consciousness of its being a trust too great for my capacity, and that I should enjoy more real happiness in one month with you at home than I have the most distant prospect of finding abroad, if my stay were to be seven times seven years.

But as it has been a kind of destiny that has thrown me upon this service, I shall hope that my undertaking is designed to answer some good purpose.

George Washington describes here what a general expects in his aides:

The variegated and important duties of the aids of a commander in chief or the commander of a separate army require experienced officers, men of judgment and men of business, ready pens to execute them properly and with dispatch. A great deal more is required of them than attending him at a parade or delivering verbal orders here and there, or copying a written one. They ought, if I may be allowed to use the expression, to possess the Soul of the General, and from a single idea given to them, to convey his meaning in the clearest and fullest manner.

GEORGE WASHINGTON, letter to Joseph Reed, early December, 1775, after a disappointing recruiting drive

I have oftentimes thought how much happier I should have been if, instead of accepting the command under such circumstances, I had taken my musket on my shoulder and entered the ranks; or, if I could have justified the measure to posterity and my own conscience, had retired to the back country and lived in a wigwam. If I shall be able to rise superior to these and many other difficulties which might be enumerated, I shall most religiously believe that the finger of Providence is in it to blind the eyes of our enemies, for surely if we get well through this month it must be for want of their knowing the disadvantages which we labor under.

On August 1, 1777, Washington invited the newly arrived Marquis de Lafayette to witness a review of the troops. The American troops marched by, ragged, disheveled, shabby. Here is what the two men were reported to say to one another:

Washington: We are rather embarrassed to show ourselves to an officer who has just left the army of France.

Lafayette: I am here, sir, to learn and not to teach.

GEORGE WASHINGTON, on the self-sacrifice of his soldiers during the hard winter of 1777:

To see men without clothes to cover their nakedness, without blankets to lay on, without shoes, by which their marches might be traced by the blood from their feet, and almost as often without provisions as with; marching through frost and snow, and at Christmas taking up their winter quarters within a day's march of the enemy, without a house or hut to cover them till they could be built, and submitting to it without a murmur, is a mark of patience and obedience which in my opinion can scarce be paralleled.

In 1779, George Washington wrote:

Men are very apt to run into extremes; hatred to England may carry some into excessive Confidence in France ...; I am heartily disposed to entertain the most favourable sentiments of our new ally and to cherish them in others to a reasonable degree; but it is a maxim founded on the universal experience of mankind, that no nation is to be trusted farther than it is bound by its interest; and no prudent statesman or politician will venture to depart from it.

GEORGE WASHINGTON, letter of May 31, 1780, describing one of the things he was learning through the war - his frustration with Congress was constant, sometimes titanic rage (when he gets mad, boy, look out), other times just a nagging persistent annoyance.

Certain I am unless Congress speak in a more decisive tone, unless they are invested with powers by the several States competent to the great purposes of the war, or assume them as a matter of right, and they and the States respectively act with more energy than they hitherto have done, that our cause is lost. One State will comply with a requisition of Congress, another neglects to do it; a third executes it by halves; and all differ either in the manner, the matter, or so much in point of time, that we are always working up hill; and, while such a system as the present one or rather want of one prevails, we shall ever be unable to apply our strength or resources to any advantage.

Excerpt from Joseph Ellis's His Excellency: George Washington:

One incident near the end of the war provides a clue to the transformation in his character wrought by the intense experience of serving so long as the singular embodiment of commitment to the cause. In 1781, Lund Washington reported that a British warship had anchored in the Potomac near Mount Vernon, presumably with orders to ravage Washington's estate. When the British captain offered assurances that he harbored no hostile intentions, Lund sent out a boatload of provisions to express his gratitude for the captain's admirable restraint. When Washington learned of this incident he berated Lund: "It would have been a less painful circumstance to me, to have heard, that in consequence of your non-compliance with their request, they had burnt my House, and laid the Plantation to ruins."

And here is a story - (perhaps it's a rumor - but I love it nonetheless) of Benjamin Franklin's response to the news of the surrender at Yorktown on October 19, 1781. He was, of course, in Paris at the time, setting the world on fire with his homespun wisdom, bacchanalian propensities, chess-playing abilities - and the vision he presented to the world of what liberty, American-style, looked like. An international celebrity.

Word came to France of the decisive American victory, and the complete surrender to George Washington in Yorktown. Franklin attended a diplomatic dinner shortly thereafter - and, of course, everyone was discussing the British defeat.

The French foreign minister stood, and toasted Louis XVI: "To his Majesty, Louis the Sixteenth, who, like the moon, fills the earth with a soft, benevolent glow."

The British ambassador rose and said, "To George the Third, who, like the sun at noonday, spreads his light and illumines the world."

Franklin rose and countered, "I cannot give you the sun or the moon, but I give you George Washington, General of the armies of the United States, who, like Joshua of old, commanded both the sun and the moon to stand still, and both obeyed."

Excerpt from Joseph Ellis's His Excellency: George Washington:

After Yorktown, moreover, new life was breathed into these old fears, since Washington's insistence on maintaining the Continental army at full strength during a time when the majority of the citizenry believed, correctly it turned out, that the war was over only intensified fears that he intended to become the American Cromwell ... Such loose talk triggered the fear that the infant American republic was about to be murdered in its infancy by the same kind of military dictatorship that had destroyed the Roman and English republics in their formative phases. And since these were the only two significant efforts to establish republican governments in recorded history, the pattern did not bode well.

Washington was fully aware of this pattern, and therefore recognized the need to make explicit statements of his intention to defy it. In May 1782 a young officer at the Newburgh encampment, Lewis Nicola, put in writing what many officers were whispering behind the scenes: that the Continental Congress's erratic conduct of the war had exposed the weakness of all republics and the certain disaster that would befall postwar America unless Washington declared himself king ... Washington responded with a stern lecture to "banish these thoughts from your Mind," and denounced the scheme as "big with the greatest mischiefs that can befall my Country." When word of Washington's response leaked out to the world, no less an expert on the subject than George III was heard to say that, if Washington resisted the monarchical mantle and retired, as he always said he would, he would be "the greatest man in the world".

While George III's judgment as a student of history has never met the highest standards, his opinion on this matter merits our attention, for it underlines the truly exceptional character of Washington's refusal to regard himself as the indispensable steward of the American Revolution. Oliver Cromwell had not surrendered power after the English Revolution. Napoleon, Lenin, Mao, and Castro did not step aside to leave their respective revolutionary settlements to others in subsequent centuries. We need to linger over this moment to ask what was different about Washington, or what was different about the political conditions created by the American Revolution, that allowed him to resist temptations that other revolutionary leaders before and since found irresistible.

GEORGE WASHINGTON, letter of (unwelcome) advice sent to governors of the 13 states, 1783, as the army began to disband.

Americans are now sole lords and proprietors of a vast tract of continent comprehending all the various soils and climates of the world and abounding with all the necessaries and conveniences of life - Heaven has crowned all other blessings, by giving a fairer opportunity for political happiness, than any other nation has been favored with - This is the time of their political probation; this is the moment when the eyes of the whole world are turned upon them; this is the moment to establish or ruin their national character forever; this is the favorable moment to give such a tone to our federal government as will enable it to answer the ends of its institution; or this may be the ill-fated moment for relaxing the powers of the Union, annihilating the cement of the Confederation and exposing us to become the sport of European politics, which may play one state against another, to prevent their growing importance and to serve their own interested purposes. For, according to the system of policy the states shall adopt at this moment, they will stand or fall; and by their confirmation or lapse it is yet to be decided whether the Revolution must ultimately be considered a blessing or a curse - a blessing or a curse, not to the present age alone, for with our fate will the destiny of unborn millions be involved.

[He states that there are 4 requirements for the new America]

First. An indissoluble union of the states under one federal head. Secondly. A sacred regard to public justice (that is, the payment of debts). Thirdly. The adoption of a proper peace establishment (that is, an army and a navy). Fourthly. The prevalence of that pacific and friendly disposition among the people of the Union, which will influence them to forget their local prejudices and policies; to make those mutual concessions, which are requisite to the general prosperity; and, in some instances, to sacrifice their individual advantages to the interest of the community. These are the pillars on which the glorious future of our independency and national character must be supported.

Then there was the Newburgh Conspiracy, in March 1783, when a group of congressmen aligned with officers in the army threatened a military coup for various reasons. The new federal government was barely formed, there was no constitution yet - and the states were vying for powerful positions. It's important to remember just how tenuous all of this was at the time. It wasn't a smooth clear path full of Revolutionary-Era virtue and certainty, although there are bozos who claim that it was like that. They need to read their history books. Washington heard of the plot, and decided to address it headon. Now. One of the things I love about this story is that Washington - while he obviously said time and time again that he was uncomfortable with being a "symbol" (and I believe him) - he also realized that it was pointless to fight against it, and when he needed to USE that symbolic stature to get something done that he wanted, he had no problem with playing that card. This is a highly theatrical moment, described vividly by every person who was there, who left an account, and they all say the same thing. There wasn't a dry eye in the house. Perhaps it's my theatrical background, but I cannot believe that Washington was unaware of the effect he wanted to have, and that he did not USE that gesture described so vividly in a conscious manner. There is a way, you know, to be FALSE and TRUE at the same time. Any actor can tell you that. You are playing make-believe, you are pretending to be someone else - so that's the FALSE part - but your reactions and gestures all come from a very TRUE place, and many an actor will tell you that they feel MORE true when they are acting than when they are just out and about as a regular civilian. So that's my interpretation of Washington's big gesture here. It was certainly planned, and so that is FALSE ... but it was also organic and came from a true place. It was chosen for the EFFECT it would have. Washington was a celebrity. He knew that. He hated it. But he used it when convenient. Anyway, I'm going on and on but this is just one of my favorite moments of his life - I love its theatricality - and I also just wish I had been there. But so many people described the moment that I do feel like I can live it vicariously. Like Patrick Henry's "give me liberty or give me death" speech, where people record his gestures, his pantomime, the tenor of his voice. I have imagined myself there.

So Washington gets wind of this dangerous conspiracy, to basically take over, and undermine Washington's authority - not to mention the authority of the baby federal government.

Excerpt from Joseph Ellis's His Excellency: George Washington:

For obvious reasons, the secret conversations within the officers' corps never found their way into the historical record, making all efforts to recover the shifting factions in the plot educated guesses at best. We can be sure that the crisis came to a head on March 11, when the dissident officers scheduled a meeting to coordinate their strategy. Washington countermanded the order for a meeting, saying only he could issue such an order, then scheduled a session for all officers on March 16.

He spent the preceding day drafting, in his own hand, the most impressive speech he ever wrote. Beyond the verbal felicities and classic cadences, the speech established a direct link between his own honor and reputation and the abiding goals of the American Revolution. His central message was that any attempted coup by the army was simultaneously a repudiation of the principles for which they had all been fighting and an assault on his own integrity. Whereas Cromwell and later Napoleon made themselves synonymous with the revolution in order to justify the assumption of dictatorial power, Washington made himself synonymous with the American Revolution in order to declare that it was incompatible with dictatorial power.

On March 16, 1783, George Washington made the following speech to his group of officers:

Gentlemen: By an anonymous summons, an attempt has been made to convene you together; how inconsistent with the rules of propriety, how unmilitary, and how subversive of all order and discipline, let the good sense of the army decide...

Thus much, gentlemen, I have thought it incumbent on me to observe to you, to show upon what principles I opposed the irregular and hasty meeting which was proposed to have been held on Tuesday last - and not because I wanted a disposition to give you every opportunity consistent with your own honor, and the dignity of the army, to make known your grievances. If my conduct heretofore has not evinced to you that I have been a faithful friend to the army, my declaration of it at this time would be equally unavailing and improper. But as I was among the first who embarked in the cause of our common country. As I have never left your side one moment, but when called from you on public duty. As I have been the constant companion and witness of your distresses, and not among the last to feel and acknowledge your merits. As I have ever considered my own military reputation as inseparably connected with that of the army. As my heart has ever expanded with joy, when I have heard its praises, and my indignation has arisen, when the mouth of detraction has been opened against it, it can scarcely be supposed, at this late stage of the war, that I am indifferent to its interests.

But how are they to be promoted? The way is plain, says the anonymous addresser. If war continues, remove into the unsettled country, there establish yourselves, and leave an ungrateful country to defend itself. But who are they to defend? Our wives, our children, our farms, and other property which we leave behind us. Or, in this state of hostile separation, are we to take the two first (the latter cannot be removed) to perish in a wilderness, with hunger, cold, and nakedness? If peace takes place, never sheathe your swords, says he, until you have obtained full and ample justice; this dreadful alternative, of either deserting our country in the extremest hour of her distress or turning our arms against it (which is the apparent object, unless Congress can be compelled into instant compliance), has something so shocking in it that humanity revolts at the idea. My God! What can this writer have in view, by recommending such measures? Can he be a friend to the army? Can he be a friend to this country? Rather, is he not an insidious foe? Some emissary, perhaps, from New York, plotting the ruin of both, by sowing the seeds of discord and separation between the civil and military powers of the continent? And what a compliment does he pay to our understandings when he recommends measures in either alternative, impracticable in their nature?

I cannot, in justice to my own belief, and what I have great reason to conceive is the intention of Congress, conclude this address, without giving it as my decided opinion, that that honorable body entertain exalted sentiments of the services of the army; and, from a full conviction of its merits and sufferings, will do it complete justice. That their endeavors to discover and establish funds for this purpose have been unwearied, and will not cease till they have succeeded, I have not a doubt. But, like all other large bodies, where there is a variety of different interests to reconcile, their deliberations are slow. Why, then, should we distrust them? And, in consequence of that distrust, adopt measures which may cast a shade over that glory which has been so justly acquired; and tarnish the reputation of an army which is celebrated through all Europe, for its fortitude and patriotism? And for what is this done? To bring the object we seek nearer? No! most certainly, in my opinion, it will cast it at a greater distance.

For myself (and I take no merit in giving the assurance, being induced to it from principles of gratitude, veracity, and justice), a grateful sense of the confidence you have ever placed in me, a recollection of the cheerful assistance and prompt obedience I have experienced from you, under every vicissitude of fortune, and the sincere affection I feel for an army I have so long had the honor to command will oblige me to declare, in this public and solemn manner, that, in the attainment of complete justice for all your toils and dangers, and in the gratification of every wish, so far as may be done consistently with the great duty I owe my country and those powers we are bound to respect, you may freely command my services to the utmost of my abilities.

While I give you these assurances, and pledge myself in the most unequivocal manner to exert whatever ability I am possessed of in your favor, let me entreat you, gentlemen, on your part, not to take any measures which, viewed in the calm light of reason, will lessen the dignity and sully the glory you have hitherto maintained; let me request you to rely on the plighted faith of your country, and place a full confidence in the purity of the intentions of Congress; that, previous to your dissolution as an army, they will cause all your accounts to be fairly liquidated, as directed in their resolutions, which were published to you two days ago, and that they will adopt the most effectual measures in their power to render ample justice to you, for your faithful and meritorious services. And let me conjure you, in the name of our common country, as you value your own sacred honor, as you respect the rights of humanity, and as you regard the military and national character of America, to express your utmost horror and detestation of the man who wishes, under any specious pretenses, to overturn the liberties of our country, and who wickedly attempts to open the floodgates of civil discord and deluge our rising empire in blood.

By thus determining and thus acting, you will pursue the plain and direct road to the attainment of your wishes. You will defeat the insidious designs of our enemies, who are compelled to resort from open force to secret artifice. You will give one more distinguished proof of unexampled patriotism and patient virtue, rising superior to the pressure of the most complicated sufferings. And you will, by the dignity of your conduct, afford occasion for posterity to say, when speaking of the glorious example you have exhibited to mankind, "Had this day been wanting, the world had never seen the last stage of perfection to which human nature is capable of attaining."

I hope you made it through that whole thing. It is rather extraordinary. BUT the most extraordinary thing is the "improvised" moment that came directly BEFORE he made that speech. It was the GESTURE that ended the coup, not his words. Or perhaps a mixture of both. But never ever underestimate the power of gesture.

Here is Joseph Ellis again on the moment in question:

Washington has just entered the New Building at Newburgh, a large auditorium recently built by the troops and also called The Temple. About 500 officers are present in the audience. Horatio Gates is chairing the meeting, a rich irony since Gates is most probably complicitous in the plot to stage a military coup that Washington has come to quash. Everything has been scripted and orchestrated beforehand. Washington's aides fan out into the audience to prompt applause for the general's most crucial lines. Washington walks slowly to the podium and reaches inside his jacket to pull out his prepared remarks. Then he pauses - the gesture is almost certainly planned - and pulls from his waistcoat a pair of spectacles recently sent to him by David Rittenhouse, the Philadelphia scientist. No one has ever seen Washington wear spectacles before on public occasions. He looks out to his assembled officers while adjusting the new glasses and says: "Gentlemen, you will permit me to put on my spectacles, for I have not only grown gray, but almost blind in the service of my country." Several officers began to sob. The speech itself is anti-climactic. All thoughts of a military coup die at that moment.

On November 25, 1783: George Washington "took back" New York.

The peace treaty had been signed a year before, France had pledged support and recognition of the new United States, but the redcoats remained in New York, waiting for their written orders from London. George Washington vowed that he would not go home, he would not break up his army, until every last redcoat had left.

Nov. 25 was that momentous day - the day the American troops marched back into town, after the departure of the British.

The exhausted army marched the long way downtown, through what was now a war-ravaged New York City. People lined the streets, throwing laurels in front of Washington's horse, screaming, crying ... a huge display of emotion and reverence that made the typically humble Washington feel uncomfortable.

A woman in the crowd that day wrote the following in her diary:

We had been accustomed for a long time to military display in all the finish and finery of [British] garrison life. The troops just leaving us were as if equipped for a show and with their scarlet uniforms and burnished arms made a brilliant display. The troops that marched in, on the contrary, were ill-clad and weather-beaten and made a forlorn appearance. But then, they were our troops and as I looked at them and thought upon all they had done and suffered for us, my heart and my eyes were full.

GEORGE WASHINGTON'S MOTHER to Lafayette, 1784:

"I am not surprised at what George has done, for he was always a good boy."

George Washington wrote the following on the eve of his inauguration in 1789:

It is said that every man has his portion of ambition. I may have mine, I suppose, as well as the rest, but if I know my own heart, my ambition would not lead me into public life; my only ambition is to do my duty in this world as well as I am capable of performing it, and to merit the good opinion of all good men.

Washington's first inaugural address

David McCullough describes, in his book on John Adams, the first inauguration day:

On the day of his inauguration, Thursday, April 30 1789, Washington rode to Federal Hall in a canary-yellow carriage pulled by six white horses and followed by a long column of New York militia in full dress. The air was sharp, the sun shone brightly, and with all work stopped in the city, the crowds along his route were the largest ever seen. It was as if all New York had turned out and more besides. "Many persons in the crowd," reported the Gazette of the United States "were heard to say they should now die contented - nothing being wanted to complete their happiness - but the sight of the savior of his country."

In the Senate Chamber were gathered the members of both houses of Congress, the Vice President, and sundry officials and diplomatic agents, all of whom rose when Washington made his entrance, looking solemn and stately. His hair powdered, he wore a dress sword, white silk stockings, shoes with silver buckles, and a suit of the same brown Hartford broadcloth that Adams, too, was wearing for the occasion. They might have been dressed as twins, except that Washington's metal buttons had eagles on them.

It was Adams who formally welcomed the General and escorted him to the dais. For an awkward moment Adams appeared to be in some difficulty, as though he had forgotten what he was supposed to say. then, addressing Washington, he declared that the Senate and House of Representatives were ready to attend him for the oath of office as required by the Constitution. Washington said he was ready. Adams bowed and led the way to the outer balcony, in full view of the throng in the streets. People were cheering and waving from below, and from windows and rooftops as far as the eye could see. Washington bowed once, then a second time.

Fourteen years earlier, it had been Adams who called on the Continental Congress to make the tall Virginian commander-in-chief of the army. Now he stood at Washington's side as Washington, his right hand on the Bible, repeated the oath of office as read by Chancellor Robert R. Livingston of New York, who had also been a member of the Continental Congress.

In a low voice Washington solemnly swore to execute the office of the President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, to "preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States." Then, as not specified in the Constitution, he added, "So help me God", and kissed the Bible, thereby establishing his own first presidential tradition.

"It is done," Livingston said, and, turning to the crowd, cried out, "Long live George Washington, President of the United States."

George Washington said:

Men may speculate as they will, they may talk of patriotism; they may draw a few examples from current story - but whoever builds upon it as a sufficient basis for conducting a long and bloody war will find themselves deceived in the end - For a long time it may of itself push men to action, to bear much, to encounter difficulties, but it will not endure unassisted by Interest.

On August 17, 1790, George Washington visited Newport Rhode Island - and visited the Jewish congregation of the Touro Synagogue (which still stands - gorgeous building. We went on a field trip there in grade school). The congregation presented an address to George Washington, welcoming him to Newport, and to their synagogue. A couple of days later George Washington wrote an eloquent response. Both the address as well as Washington's response were printed in all of the "national" newspapers at the time.

August 21st, 1790
To the Hebrew Congregation in Newport Rhode Island.

Gentleman.

While I receive, with much satisfaction, your Address replete with expressions of affection and esteem; I rejoice in the opportunity of assuring you, that I shall always retain a grateful remembrance of the cordial welcome I experienced in my visit to Newport, from all classes of Citizens.

The reflection on the days of difficulty and danger which are past is rendered the more sweet, from a consciousness that they are succeeded by days of uncommon prosperity and security. If we have wisdom to make the best use of the advantages with which we are now favored, we cannot fail, under the just administration of a good Government, to become a great and happy people.

The Citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for having given to mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy: a policy worthy of imitation.

All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship. It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights. For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.

It would be inconsistent with the frankness of my character not to avow that I am pleased with your favorable opinion of my Administration, and fervent wishes for my felicity. May the children of the Stock of Abraham, who dwell in this land, continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other Inhabitants; while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and figtree, and there shall be none to make him afraid. May the father of all mercies scatter light and not darkness in our paths, and make us all in our several vocations useful here, and in his own due time and way everlastingly happy.

G. Washington

He expresses there my own issues with the concept of "tolerance", with his "It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights." Mitchell and I have bitched about that very thing before, only in not so beautiful language. Don't condescend to TOLERATE me. Don't "indulge" me, from your height of belonging, because that means that it is only by YOUR grace that I am tolerated. I don't care if you TOLERATE me or not, it makes no difference to me your opinion of my character and my lifestyle. I am protected by the laws of the land, and as long as I abide by those laws, then it doesn't matter in the slightest what you think of me. Good for you, George, for putting that into words. The Jewish people, as long as they were good citizens, had nothing to fear. It was not up to one group of people to decide to 'tolerate' them or not. They were citizens of the land, and therefore protected.

This is why John Adams said he wanted the new nation to be a nation "of laws, not men." Because men are fickle and subject to emotion and temptation. They may "tolerate" you one day and hate you the next. As long as we are a nation "of laws, not men" ... then that will not matter. Yes, there will be growth pains, as we saw in the suffragette movement, the civil rights movement, and as we continue to see in the gay / lesbian / transgender movement. Nothing is perfect. Thank God. Perfection means stasis, a perfect way to describe a totalitarian top-down state. We are not that. We are ruled by "laws, not men", so the Jewish synagogue in Newport was protected by the law, regardless of the anti-Semitism they may have faced around them.

Now I will wait for someone to pipe up "but Washington had slaves!"

Yes. He had slaves. You know why? Because he was a man of HIS time, not our own. It was a grave sin on the society at the time, and many - including Washington - were tormented by the contradiction. It was so interwoven with their own prosperity that many could not see a way out of it. But to discount everything he said because he happened to live THEN not NOW, and was therefore subject to the prejudices of his time, is ridiculous. It's also a shame. Because if you take that view - then you cut yourself off from the wisdom of the ages.

From Joseph Ellis' book Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation:

First, it is crucial to recognize that Washington's extraordinary reputation rested less on his prudent exercise of power than on his dramatic flair at surrendering it. He was, in fact, a veritable virtuoso of exits. Almost everyone regarded his retirement of 1796 as a repeat performance of his resignation as commander of the Continental Army in 1783. Back then, faced with a restive and unpaid remnant of the victorious army quartered in Newburgh, New York, he had suddenly appeared at a meeting of officers who were contemplating insurrection; the murky plot involved marching on the Congress and then seizing a tract of land for themselves in the West, all presumably with Washington as their leader.

He summarily rejected their offer to become the American Caesar and denounced the entire scheme as treason to the cause for which they had fought. Then, in a melodramatic gesture that immediately became famous, he pulled a pair of glasses out of his pocket: "Gentlemen, you will permit me to put on my spectacles," he declared rhetorically, "for I have not only grown gray but almost blind in service to my country." Upon learning that Washington intended to reject the mantle of emperor, no less an authority than George III allegedly observed, "If he does that, he will be the greatest man in the world." True to his word, on December 22, 1783, Washington surrendered his commission to the Congress, then meeting in Annapolis: "Having now finished the work assigned me," he announced, "I now retire from the great theatre of action." In so doing, he became the supreme example of the leader who could be trusted with power because he was so ready to give it up.

Excerpt from Joseph Ellis's His Excellency: George Washington, on the final days of Washington's presidency:

The last days were spent hosting dinners and dances in his honor. The ceremonials culminated with the [John] Adams inauguration, where, somewhat to Adams's irritation, more attention was paid to the outgoing than incoming president. Adams reported to Abigail that he thought he heard Washington murmuring under his breath at the end of the ceremony: "Ay! I am fairly out and you are fairly in! See which of us will be the happiest." But the story is probably apocryphal. Washington's diary entry for the day was typically flat and unrevealing: "Much such a day as yesterday in all respects. Mercury at 41." The public man was already receding into the proverbial mists. The private man could not wait to get those new dentures and place himself beneath those vines and fig trees.

Washington said, at one point, to the doctor, during his final illness in 1799:

"Doctor, I die hard, but I am not afraid to go."

Washington on his death bed

George Washington's last words:

"I feel myself going. I thank you for your attentions; but I pray you to take no more trouble about me. Let me go off quietly. I cannot last long."

Henry Lee said, in eulogy:

First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen.

Mark Twain wrote in 1871:

I have a higher and greater standard of principle [than George Washington]. Washington could not lie. I can lie but I won't.

Gouverneur Morris said, upon the death of George Washington:

It is a question, previous to the first meeting, what course shall be pursued. Men of decided temper, who, devoted to the public, overlooked prudential considerations, thought a form of government should be framed entirely new. But cautious men, with whom popularity was an object, deemed it fit to consult and comply with the wishes of the people. AMERICANS! -- let the opinion then delivered by the greatest and best of men, be ever present to your remembrance. He was collected within himself. His countenance had more than usual solemnity -- His eye was fixed, and seemed to look into futurity. 'It is (said he)too probable that no plan we propose will be adopted. Perhaps another dreadful conflict is to be sustained. If to please the people, we offer what we ourselves disapprove, how can we afterwards defend our work? Let us raise a standard to which the wise and the honest can repair. The event is in the hand of God.'--this was the patriot voice of WASHINGTON; and this the constant tenor of his conduct.

My father said, in regards to Washington being our first President:

"We were so lucky."

And below, a video in praise of "George Washington's awesome-ness": Did you know he weighed "a fucking ton"? Well, he did.

On that note, happy birthday, Mr. Washington!

Happy birthday, Poor Richard's Almanack

On this day in history, December 19, 1732, Benjamin Franklin's Poor Richard's Almanack was born - and the first issue published. Franklin included all the information that almanacs normally provide - sun rise, sun set, eclipses, weather predictions. But it was also one of those small things (or - not so small - but let's just say that Richard's Almanack couldn't have done it on its own) that made the colonies into a community. The colonies did things for themselves. They were under the crown, but that feeling of being separate from the crown started very early (this due to geography, naturally, but the feeling of separation intensified into something more character-based, something more germane, later on) - and the almanac - with its listing of court dates, and town meetings, and church meetings, etc. - was part of that. It helped foster that. It helped spread information. It helped bind the colonies together. A benign thing, right? At first, yes. But you can see how that very sense of connectedness is what propelled the colonies into rebellion, when Massachusetts was singled out for punishment. What does Massachusetts have to do with Virginia? Or South Carolina? Nothing, on the face of it. They were separate entities. But it was the decision of the colonies to stand WITH Massachusetts and fight for her that started the chain of events leading to open revolution. Connectedness. Union. None of those things could happen on their own. Poor Richard's Almanac was one of the ties that bind. It also shows that the colonies were self-sufficient, and rarely waited for the CROWN to do things for them. Franklin is, perhaps, the best example of this. He felt there should be public libraries. So he created one. He felt there should be a fire department, along the lines of what he had seen in London. So he helped create one. He was a community-builder of the highest order, God bless him. Things must be done. He did not look to others to do them. "Oh, someone should handle that..." was not in Benjamin Franklin's emotional makeup at all. I love the guy. Of all "those guys", he is the one I would have most liked to know. I'd like to sleep with Hamilton (I mean, obvi), but I'd like to hang out with Franklin.

Benjamin Franklin wrote in his autobiography:

In 1732 I first published my almanac, under the name of Richard Saunders; it was continued by me about twenty-five years and commonly called "Poor Richard's Almanac". I endeavored to make it both entertaining and useful, and it accordingly came to be in such demand that I reaped considerable profit from it, vending annually near ten thousand. And observing that it was generally read, scarce any neighborhood in the province being without it, I considered it as a proper vehicle for conveying instruction among the common people, who bought scarcely any other books. I therefore filled all the little spaces that occurred between the remarkable days in the calendar with proverbial sentences, chiefly such as inculcated industry and frugality as the means of procuring wealth, and thereby securing virtue; it being more difficult for a man in want to act always honestly, as, to use here one of those proverbs, it is hard for an empty sack to stand upright.

These proverbs, which contained the wisdom of many ages and nations, I assembled and formed into a connected discourse prefixed to the almanac of 1757 as the harangue of a wise old man to the people attending an auction. The bringing all these scattered counsels thus into a focus enabled them to make greater impression. The piece, being universally approved, was copied in all the newspapers of the American continent, reprinted in Britain on a large sheet of paper to be stuck up in houses; two translations were made of it in France, and great numbers bought by the clergy and gentry to distribute gratis among their poor parishioners and tenants. In Pennsylvania, as it discouraged useless expense in foreign superfluities, some thought it had its share of influence in producing that growing plenty of money which was observable for several years after its publication.

Brilliant. And therein lies his particular brand of genius. It wasn't "just" an almanac. It was written in a specific VOICE. From when he was a teenager, Benjamin Franklin loved to write under pseudonyms, but not just write - he loved to take on different characters. He would write op-ed columns, when he was just a teenager, and take on a whole different personality, writing as a long-suffering wife, for example, and these columns are so funny, so awesome - he truly INHABITS these different personalities. What a character. So he decided, "Okay, my almanack is successful. It provides the people with information they need - so let's fill it out a bit - let's put in some jokes, some quotes, some moral teachings ..." And Franklin, who couldn't be a moral bore if you PAID him, made it FUNNY. Yes, there are lessons for life, but none of them come off as preachy or didactic. You can go to church for that. He kept it funny, human, and yet ALSO educational.

Imagine if George Washington had published the almanack. Now he was an extraordinary character, but HUMOR was not one of his defining characteristics. Neither Hamilton. But Franklin, yes. He couldn't suppress his humor on the rainiest of days. It makes him stand out. Additionally, he learned, very early on, that perfection was not possible. It saves him from being holier-than-thou. For example, as a young man, he decided to try to eliminate all of his sins. He even wrote a little chart in his journal, where he could check off when he exhibited this or that moral failing. He actually made it through a perfect week, where he committed no sins, and he felt a flush of pride about this. But Franklin, a perceptive and human gentleman, realized, suddenly: But pride is a sin. Even being proud about being good qualifies as a sin. His conclusion? Moral perfection was impossible. A worthy goal perhaps, but don't kid yourself.

I love that anecdote - very very revealing, and something I think about often.

I remember my grandmother, Mummy Gina, had a huge illustrated Richard's Almanack at her house that we loved to page through as kids . I can still see some of the illustrations in my mind. I remember very well the illustration for the proverb about visitors being like fish (they start to stink after a couple of days).

I love this website. Ha!!! Especially in light of the whole key on the kite thing.

Some of the proverbs from the almanac (he freely admitted that he did not invent many of these - they were passed down, or he would put his own humorous spin on them):

Keep your eyes wide open before marriage, half shut afterwards.

After three days men grow weary, of a wench, a guest, and weather rainy.

Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead.

Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.

Plough deep while sluggards sleep and you shall have corn to sell and to keep.

Have you something to do tomorrow? Do it today

There are no gains without pains.

The noblest question in the world is: What good may I do in it?

H.W. Brands writes, in his kind of lame biography of Benjamin Franklin (The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin):

Gazette readers intrigued enough to buy the bound version (priced at three shillings sixpence per dozen, obviously intended for resale) or the broadsheet edition (two shillings sixpence the dozen) were introduced to Richard Saunders, Philomath - a standard honorific for almanac-makers - by Saunders himself. "Courteous Reader, I might in this place attempt to gain thy favour by declaring that I write almanacks with no other view than the public good; but in this I should not be sincere, and men are nowadays too wise to be deceived in pretenses how specious soever." Like the printer Franklin apologizing for the advertisement that gave offense to certain customers, Saunders confessed to monetary motives. "The plain truth of the matter is, I am excessive poor, and my wife, good woman, is, I tell her, excessive proud. She cannot bear, she says, to sit spinning in her shift of tow while I do nothing but gaze at the stars, and has threatened to burn all my books and rattling-traps (as she calls my instruments) if I do not make some profitable use of them for the good of my family. The printer has offered me some considerable share of the profits, and I have thus begun to comply with my Dame's desire."

Hahahahahahaha It's a CHARACTER. It's a VOICE. Franklin would have made a great playwright.

More from The First American:

As was apparent to the least attentive reader, Franklin thoroughly enjoyed adopting the guise of Richard Saunders. Where Franklin the businessman had to be circumspect careful not to offend, Saunders the almanacker could be outrageous - indeed, the more outrageous the better. Franklin as Franklin often had to hide his gifts to avoid inspiring envy; Franklin as Saunders could flaunt his wit, erudition, and general brilliance. In time - as his position in the community grew more secure - Franklin would no longer require Richard Saunders; till then the alter ego helped keep him sane.

Readers enjoyed Poor Richard as much as Franklin did. Copies were out the door by the single and the gross. In one year John Peter Zenger of New York (lately the defendant in a celebrated libel trial) took eighteen dozen in a batch, then another sixteen dozen. Louis Timothee (who now generally went by Lewis Timothy) in South Carolina ordered twenty-five dozen; Thomas Fleet in Boston also took twenty-five dozen. James Franklin's widow, Ann, in Newport bought one thousand. These numbers hardly made Poor Richard the bestselling almanac in America; where Poor Richard sold an average of about ten thousand per year, Nathaniel Ames's Astronomical Diary sold five to six times as many. But Poor Richard had a unique persona, and it developed a loyal readership.

While readers may have come for the quarrels Franklin provoked, they stayed for the advice he dispensed - and the way he dispensed it. Every almanac offered pearls of wisdom on personal conduct and related matters of daily life; that the pearls had been retrieved from other oysters bothered no one except perhaps the owners of those other oysters, who in any event had no recourse in the absencew of applicable copyright law. The trick for writers like Franklin was to polish the pearls and set them distinctively; in this he had no peer. What came to be called "the sayings of Poor Richard" first surfaced as filler on the calendar pages of the almanac the limitations of space, together with Franklin's inherent economy, taught him to distill each message to its morsel. "Great talkers, little doers" broke no philosophical ground, but for pith it trumped nearly every alternative. "Hunger never saw bad bread"; "Light purse, heavy heart"; "Industry need not wish"; and "Gifts burst rocks" fell into the same category.

Sometimes succinctness yielded - slightly - to sauciness. "Neither a fortress nor a maidenhead will hold out long after they begin to parley." "Marry your son when you will but your daughter when you can." "Tell a miser he's rich, and a woman she's old, you'll get no money of one nor kindness of t'other." "Prythee isn't Miss Cloe's a comical case?/She lends out her tail, and she borrows her face." "The greatest monarch on the proudest throne is obliged to sit upon his own arse." "Force shits upon reason's back."

You can see how these sayings could cumulate into something akin to subversive thought (if you think like a monarch does).

Poor Richard's Almanack is still in print today. Extraordinary.

Today in history: December 4, 1783

George Washington met with his officers in Fraunces Tavern here in New York City to resign his commission as Commander in Chief. It was an emotional moment. The war had been long. What would happen now? Fraunces Tavern was downtown (still is - amazing, right?) and Washington met with his officers and then walked outside to the nearby waterfront, and got on a barge that took him across the Hudson River, back to civilian life.

So let's back into this.

On November 2, 1783, Washington made a farewell address to the armies of the United States. Washington, a very formal patrician man, had deep wells of emotion in him (that much of his meticulous manners had been devised to hide): titanic rage, deep feeling, and while often in his correspondence he comes across as robotic, and so formal that it's hard to figure out what the damn dude is even SAYING - when the emotion gets too strong for him to hide (and it is usually rage that is the emotion), it sparks off the page at you. You can almost hear his living voice. His years-long haranguing of Congress and how badly they were managing the war is so frustrating to read now. You can feel his helplessness as he looks around at his nearly-naked starving troops, and you realize that Washington was not a man to be trifled with. You know, basically that he was 6 foot 8, weighs a fucking ton... And when he filled up with emotion it is so startling, the contrast with his regular formality. Someone like John Adams was a big ball of emotion at all times (for good or ill), and so his correspondence reads very differently than Washington's. Adams is funny, sensitive, cranky, touchy, observant - they feel like letters you could receive today. But Washington's are from another era entirely. It is hard to get a sense of the man, at times. In order to get a sense of him, you have to look at his actions - because the written word was not his forte. His Farewell Address, worked over and edited, is beautifully done, high-flung, inspirational. One can only imagine the response of the army who had stuck with him through years of war. Some excerpts from that address:

It is universally acknowledged, that the enlarged prospects of happiness, opened by the confirmation of our independence and sovereignty, almost exceeds the power of description. And shall not the brave men, who have contributed so essentially to these inestimable acquisitions, retiring victorious from the field of War to the field of agriculture, participate in all the blessings which have been obtained; in such a republic, who will exclude them from the rights of Citizens and the fruits of their labour. In such a Country, so happily circumstanced, the pursuits of Commerce and the cultivation of the soil will unfold to industry, the certain road to competence. To those hardy Soldiers, who are actuated by the spirit of Adventure the Fisheries will afford ample and profitable employment, and the extensive and fertile regions of the West will yield a most happy asylum to those, who, fond of domestic enjoyments are seeking for personal independence. Nor is it possible to conceive, that any one of the U States will prefer a national bankruptcy and a dissolution of the union, to a compliance with the requisitions of Congress and the payment of its just debts; so that the Officers and Soldiers may expect considerable assistance in recommencing their civil occupations from the sums due to them from the public, which must and will most inevitably be paid.

Ha. Shades of his anger at Congress there. You WILL pay the debt, Congress, you WILL. I DECLARE IT.

But here, in the closing of his Farewell Address, he takes it upon himself, as a father would almost, to coach the soldiers in how to re-enter normal civilian life. He is basically saying, "you can do this. You must do this." He knows it will not be easy. He himself would find it a struggle, although he loved domestic life, and it was a great sacrifice to him to be away from home for years. Here he says:

The Commander in chief conceives little is now wanting to enable the Soldiers to change the military character into that of the Citizen, but that steady and decent tenor of behaviour which has generally distinguished, not only the Army under his immediate command, but the different detachments and separate Armies through the course of the war. From their good sense and prudence he anticipates the happiest consequences; and while he congratulates them on the glorious occasion, which renders their services in the field no longer necessary, he wishes to express the strong obligation he feels himself under for the assistance he has received from every Class, and in every instance. He presents his thanks in the most serious and affectionate manner to the General Officers, as well for their counsel on many interesting occasions, as for their Order in promoting the success of the plans he had adopted. To the Commandments of Regiments and Corps, and to the other Officers for their great zeal and attention, in carrying his orders promptly into execution. To the Staff, for their alacrity and exactness in performing the Duties of their several Departments. And to the Non Commissioned Officers and private Soldiers, for their extraordinary patience in suffering, as well as their invincible fortitude in Action. To the various branches of the Army the General takes this last and solemn opportunity of professing his inviolable attachment and friendship. He wishes more than bare professions were in his power, that he were really able to be useful to them all in future life. He flatters himself however, they will do him the justice to believe, that whatever could with propriety be attempted by him has been done, and being now to conclude these his last public Orders, to take his ultimate leave in a short time of the military character, and to bid a final adieu to the Armies he has so long had the honor to Command, he can only again offer in their behalf his recommendations to their grateful country, and his prayers to the God of Armies. May ample justice be done them here, and may the choicest of heaven's favours, both here and hereafter, attend those who, under the devine auspices, have secured innumerable blessings for others; with these wishes, and this benediction, the Commander in Chief is about to retire from Service. The Curtain of separation will soon be drawn, and the military scene to him will be closed for ever.

Not a dry eye in the house.

On November 25, 1783, George Washington and his troops "took back" New York City in an emotional parade. New York had been under British control for the entirety of the war. A couple of weeks, later, on this day in history, Washington stepped down.

The more formal resignation would come on December 23, 1783, with a big speech he made to Congress in Annapolis - but first, he gathered with almost 50 officers at Fraunces Tavern for a good-bye. It was written up in the paper:

Last Thursday noon, the principal Officers of the army in town, assembled at Fraunces Tavern, to take a final leave of their illustrious, gracious, and much loved Commander, General Washington. The passions of human nature were never more tenderly agitated, than in this interesting and distressful scene…[His] words produced extreme sensibility on both sides… -- Rivington's New-York Gazette, and Universal Advertiser, December 6, 1783.

"interesting and distressful scene". I can only imagine.

On December 4, 1783, he gathered at Fraunces Tavern with his officers and they caroused, and made toasts, and it sounds from all the accounts like it was almost an encounter-group session a la the 1970s. Grown men blubbering into their handkerchiefs, embracing one another, expressing lifelong friendship - and basically living in that intense state where everything being felt is beyond words.

Washington raised a glass and said to the men (texts of all of his speeches gotten from George Washington : Writings (Library of America):

With a heart full of love and gratitude, I now take leave of you. I most devoutly wish that your latter days may be as prosperous and happy as your former ones have been glorious and honorable…I…shall feel obliged if each of you will come and take me by the hand.

General Henry Knox was standing right next to Washington, and upon those words, the two men turned to one another. What do you say?? Colonel Benjamin Talmadge wrote in his memoir that the two men were "suffused in tears" and "embraced each other in silence." Washington then moved on to the next officer, and the next - repeating this emotional goodbye with each one. Everyone's hearts must have been exploding. Nobody spoke. Washington's brief words at the beginning were the only words spoken. When he had embraced the last officer, he left the Tavern, with the entire group following him in silence. He passed through the corps of light infantry and made his way to the Whitehall Ferry Landing where a barge was waiting. He got on, with the crowd gathered on the landing, and as the boat sailed away, he waved.

A couple of weeks later, there was a formal dinner and dance in Annapolis, where Washington formally handed back his commission as Commander in Chief (it had been granted in 1775). He made yet another emotional speech, and then walked out. His horse was waiting by the door.

The famous story goes that King George in England, humiliated and baffled by this strange turn of events, asked Benjamin West (an American painter, living in England) what Washington would do now that it all was over. West said, "They say he will go back to live on his farm." King George thought about this, and replied, "If he does that, he will be the greatest man in the world."

Joseph Ellis, touching on this important point, writes in his book Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation:

...it is crucial to recognize that Washington's extraordinary reputation rested less on his prudent exercise of power than on his dramatic flair at surrendering it. He was, in fact, a veritable virtuoso of exits. Almost everyone regarded his retirement of 1796 as a repeat performance of his resignation as commander of the Continental Army in 1783. Back then, faced with a restive and unpaid remnant of the victorious army quartered in Newburgh, New York, he had suddenly appeared at a meeting of officers who were contemplating insurrection; the murky plot involved marching on the Congress and then seizing a tract of land for themselves in the West, all presumably with Washington as their leader. He summarily rejected their offer to become the American Caesar and denounced the entire scheme as treason to the cause for which they had fought. Then, in a melodramatic gesture that immediately became famous, he pulled a pair of glasses out of his pocket: "Gentlemen, you will permit me to put on my spectacles," he declared rhetorically, "for I have not only grown gray but almost blind in service to my country."... On December 22, 1783, Washington surrendered his commission to the Congress, then meeting in Annapolis: "Having now finished the work assigned me," he announced, "I now retire from the great theater of action." In so doing, he became the supreme example of the leader who could be trusted with power because he was so ready to give it up.

Extraordinary. So rare as to be almost unheard of.

Jefferson, who was in Annapolis, with Congress, stage-managed the entire dinner/dance/speech. (What a shock. He of the "who me? I just want to hang out on my farm and watch my flowers grow, I'm no politician" was, in fact, the most wily politician of them all!) The relationship between Washington and Congress was not friendly, to say the least, and Jefferson, with his inimitable sense of "the moment", the zeitgeist, and what was NEEDED (he really has no equal in this, whatever his other faults may be), knew that this thing required planning, exquisite and detailed management, so that it could come off as it needed to come off. Washington had requested Jefferson to do this for him. As Joseph Ellis commented, Washington was a "virtuoso of exits".

Willard Sterne Randall writes in George Washington: A Life:

At Annapolis, Jefferson, the most distinguished member of Congress was working secretly behind the scenes, stage-managing the important final tribute Washington was about to pay to a civilian government and, equally important, seeing to it that Congress responded with suitable dignity. Whether Congress won back any of the respect it had squandered during the Revolution depended on the perception, both in American and Europe, of Washington's grand public gesture of transforming his real power into the symbolism neceessary for a democratic government.

These men knew the eyes of the world were watching. These men knew that while there were a couple of nations out there who wanted this experiment to succeed, there were many more who hoped for failure. Symbolism, gesture, ritual, theatrics - all of this played a crucial part in the Revolution from start to finish. Awareness of posterity. Awareness of finding the RIGHT gesture. The RIGHT words. (Benjamin Franklin's precise editing of Thomas Jefferson's first draft of the Declaration of Independence is one of the greatest examples of that. Jefferson's draft was spectacular as it was, but Franklin's suggestions made it infinitely more powerful and universal. A gesture not just for their time and their circumstance, but one that could serve future generations in similar situations.)

Washington, after leaving New York on December 4, headed to Annapolis in a caravan with escorts. With each town he passed through, crowds of people gathered to greet him, cheer him, throw flowers at him. Martha was accompanying him. Leading citizens of the various towns, Philadelphia, Wilmington, Baltimore, gave him dinners and parties to celebrate him. To add to the impending drama, Congress was, as of yet, unaware that he was coming to resign his commission. They knew he approached, but that bit of information had been kept secret (although many suspected). Again, Washington (and his advisers) had a fine-tuned sense of the MOMENT. Jefferson met the Washingtons on the outskirts of town. The people of Annapolis had arranged a 13-gun salute in his honor, there were parties and celebrations, and in the midst of all of this, Jefferson and Washington were strategizing, meeting, huddling up. They had many worries about the ineptitude of the Continental Congress. Let's not forget that early in 1783, Congress had been forced to evacuate Philadelphia when threatened by troops who had marched on them demanding their pay. Congress was on the run, forced to take temporary seats in various cities, Princeton, etc. You know, this shite looks BAD. Washington's officers were enraged at the situation and had pressed Washington to seize power, become a dictator, essentially. Something needed to be done. Part of Washington's essential messages of farewell to his troops and the officers was about resisting the urge to KEEP power. Yes, there is chaos in any democracy, yes, it is a chaotic time, but retreat to your domestic life, and let it go. Let it go. He certainly wasn't about to "let go" the fact that Congress owed him money, but the alternative for him WASN'T storming Annapolis, with his army in tow, taking power by force. Nope. Not his thing. That is why King George felt that if Washington really meant what he said that he would be the greatest man who had ever lived.

Jefferson had arranged for Washington to head to the State House and hand in his resignation personally to the president of Congress. Interestingly enough, the President of Congress was Thomas Mifflin - who had fought beside Washington in the Bunker Hill days, and was now kind of in the enemy camp. Washington found this very disorienting. He had been in charge of Mifflin, once upon a time, and now Mifflin was President of the very body he held in such suspicion. He did not trust Mifflin, and certainly did not like being put in the position of having to ask Mifflin for instructions on what he should do next. Go to Congress personally? Write a letter to them? What?

His letter to Thomas Mifflin reads:

I take the earliest opportunity to inform Congress of my arrival in this city with the intention of asking leave to resign the commission I have the honor of holding in their service. It is essential for me to know their pleasure, and in what manner it will be most proper to offer my resignation, whether in writing or at an audience; I shall therefore request to be honored with the necessary information, that being apprized of the sentiments of Congress I may regulate my Conduct accordingly. I have the honor etc.

A real example of how everyone was just making this thing up as they went along. Also a real example of Washington's desire to have correct Conduct, which went back to his earliest days as a young boy, when he would copy out rules from various etiquette books into his diary.

Thomas Mifflin took the letter, read it out in Congress (without Washington present) and then, naturally, committees were formed to figure out the protocol. How does one resign the commission? What is appropriate? As always, these men knew that their choices would be watched by future generations (not to mention their present-day allies and enemies), and perhaps copied and imitated. The pressure!

Mifflin hosted a private dinner for Washington that week. Then came Congress' turn to pay homage. A delegate from Delaware, James Tilton, left his memories of that night.

Between the two and three hundred gentlemen dined together in the ballroom. The number of cheerful voices with the clangor of knives and forks made a din of a very extraordinary nature and most delightful influence. Every man seemed to be in heaven or so absorbed in the pleasures of imagination as to neglect the more sordid appetites, for not a soul got drunk.

On December 22, there was a ball at the State House.

Willard Sterne Randall describes the evening:

With Martha on his arm, Washington crossed the marble-floored portico, quickly bisecting the cheering citizenry, taking refuge in a wide arcaded hallway and seeing the shimmering Corinthian columns supporting the high central dome for the first time. The entire vaulted chamber was packed tonight with a jostling of invited guests. While Jefferson was too ill to be there, the fete was a tribute to his genius for behind-the-scenes organization, and Washington made the most of it. Tilton reported to Bedford, "To light the rooms every window was illuminated." The number of guests swelled to nearly six hundred, a "brilliant" assemblage, he added. George Washington, a famous dancer, astonished French officers with his skill and grace at the minute. "The General danced every set," Tilton recounted, "that all the ladies might have the pleasure of dancing with him or, as it has since been handsomely expressed, get a touch of him."

Ha! Celebrity culture lives in all eras.

December 23rd, the next day, was the big day, where Washington would appear before Congress and give a finely-crafted speech, the work of jefferson and Washington together. Nothing would be left to chance. Again, Martha accompanied her husband.

Willard Sterne Randall again:

On Tuesday, December 23, at the prescribed noon hour, Washington's carriage rolled up the long hill above Annapolis Harbor and swung around to the portico of the State House amid the roar of a throng of well-wishers. With Martha at his side and two aides close behind, he stepped up to the heavy doors and halted. At a tap from an aide, the doors to the bright green Senate Chamber swung open. Charles Thomas, secretary of every Continental Congress since the first, led Washington and his aides to the front of the chamber past the twenty congressmen, all sitting with their tricornered hats on. Washington, his own hat in hand, sat down facing up to the speaker's platform where President Mifflin stood to welcome him. At a nod from Mifflin, the chamber's doors opened again and a surge of two hundred women spectators, led by Martha Washington, climbed the narrow stairs and found seats in the balustraded visitors' gallery. On the main floor, behind a low screen and on every window seat two hundred men who had fought under Washington and a few who had fought against him jostled for a place. Mifflin pounded his gavel for quiet. There was a moment when the only sound in the crowded room was the crackling of logs burning in the ornately fluted fireplace.

The hushed assemblage included Maryland's four signers of the Declaration of Independent, two future presidents, four Revolutionary generals, and several future cabinet members. Then President Mifflin gave the nod for Washington to speak. He rose and faced Congress, remaining in front of his assigned chair: he made no move toward the podium. Following Jefferson's lead, the delegates raised their hats, then lowered them, keeping them on. His hand visibly trembling, Washington drew a paper from his breast pocket and began to speak with great emotion.

Washington's address to Congress as that day is as follows:

Mr. President: The great events on which my resignation depended having at length taken place; I now have the honor of offering my sincere Congratulations to Congress and of presenting myself before them to surrender into their hands the trust committed to me, and to claim the indulgence of retiring from the Service of my Country.

Happy in the confirmation of our Independence and Sovereignty, and pleased with the opportunity afforded the United States of becoming a respectable Nation, I resign with satisfaction the Appointment I accepted with diffidence. A diffidence in my abilities to accomplish so arduous a task, which however was superseded by a confidence in the rectitude of our Cause, the support of the Supreme Power of the Union, and the patronage of Heaven.

The Successful termination of the War has verified the most sanguine expectations, and my gratitude for the interposition of Providence, and the assistance I have received from my Countrymen, encreases with every review of the momentous Contest.

While I repeat my obligations to the Army in general, I should do injustice to my own feelings not to acknowledge in this place the peculiar Services and distinguished merits of the Gentlemen who have been attached to my person during the War. It was impossible the choice of confidential Officers to compose my family should have been more fortunate. Permit me Sir, to recommend in particular those, who have continued in Service to the present moment, as worthy of the favorable notice and patronage of Congress.

I consider it an indispensable duty to close this last solemn act of my Official life, by commending the Interests of our dearest Country to the protection of Almighty God, and those who have the superintendence of them, to his holy keeping.

Having now finished the work assigned me, I retire from the great theatre of Action; and bidding an Affectionate farewell to this August body under whose orders I have so long acted, I here offer my Commission, and take my leave of all the employments of public life.

Knowing what was in store for him, the words "That's what YOU think, George!" come to mind. You THINK you're going to retire from public life, but just you wait!

But we cannot know the future. This was a very very important exit. It had to be done. Not just for his own happiness (he missed his farm), but for the good of the brand new nation. War was over. Time to figure out how to get along in peace.

He got roped back in to public life (you know, with that minor event called "Becoming the First President of the United States"), but his genius was in relinquishing power at the exact moment when it seemed only natural that he should KEEP the power.

To quote Dad, "We were very very lucky."

Today in history: September 5, 1774

On September 5, 1774, the First Continental Congress convened at Carpenters Hall in Philadelphia.

It was a very stressful and dangerous time, and there was very little agreement among the colonies about what should be done. The Port Bill (closing down Boston to ships) had been passed by the British, in retaliation for the Boston Tea Party - and Boston was suffering greatly. The colonies faced the question, so monumental at the time: "Is Boston's suffering our business?" That question, of course, had large implications - the main one being: Are we, all the separate colonies, united? Are we willing to take a stand for Boston's survival, even though we're from South Carolina or Connecticut? The beginning of a union. There was no unanimity. They were all still subjects of the British crown. Many remained loyal, and the thought of breaking away was unthinkable, unimaginable (also not what they wanted at all). Others were already looking ahead to the eventual cataclysm, it was seen as an inevitability.

These were revolutionaries, although very few of them saw themselves as such. They were also good citizens of their various communities - lawyers and farmers, educated men, the elite. The time had not yet come for war. But the Port Bill was a gross and unfair "punishment" of a recalcitrant colony, and it was just a warning bell of things to come. These were men who considered themselves citizens of Britain - and to be treated in such a manner was outrageous.

They came from all the colonies. Delegates, sent with instructions and also their own biases, convened on Philadelphia.

Martha Washington wrote a letter to a relative on the eve of her husband's departure to the Convention:

I foresee consequences; dark days and darker nights; domestic happiness suspended; social enjoyments abandoned; property of every kind put in jeopardy by war, perhaps; neighbors and friends at variance, and eternal separations on earth possible. But what are all these evils when compared with the fate of which the Port Bill may be only a threat? My mind is made up; my heart is in the cause. George is right; he is always right. God has promised to protect the righteous, and I will trust him.

We have a series of letters from John Adams to his wife, describing this first Congress - they're fabulous, because Adams was not reticent at all with his wife. He had next to no formality with Abigail, he shared everything with her: his gripes, his self-doubt, his vanity, his jokes ... The letters are a rich first-person resource, one of the most amazing archives of letters we have in our national history.

Adams wrote a letter (the last paragraph of which is now rightly famous) to Abigail on his way down to Philadelphia:

We Yesterday visited Nassau Hall Colledge, and were politely treated by the Schollars, Tutors, Professors and President, whom We are, this Day to hear preach. Tomorrow We reach the Theatre of Action. God Almighty grant us Wisdom and Virtue sufficient for the high Trust that is devolved upon Us. The Spirit of the People wherever we have been seems to be very favourable. They universally consider our Cause as their own, and express the firmest Resolution, to abide the Determination of the Congress.

I am anxious for our perplexed, distressed Province [Boston] -- hope they will be directed into the right Path. Let me intreat you, my Dear, to make yourself as easy and quiet as possible. Resignation to the Will of Heaven is our only Resource in such Dangerous Times. Prudence and Caution should be our Guides. I have the strongest Hopes, that We shall yet see a clearer Sky, and better Times...

Your Account of the Rain refreshed me. [In his absence, Abigail took complete charge of the farm, the finances, the help, along with raising their growing brood of children. It is speculated as well that without this "help", John Adams might have run their finances into the ground. From his book allowance alone!] I hope our Husbandry is prudently and industriously managed. Frugality must be our Support...

The Education of our Children is never out of my Mind. Train them to Virtue, habituate them to industry, activity and Spirit. Make them consider every Vice, as shameful and unmanly: fire them Ambition to be usefull -- make them disdain to be destitute of any usefull, or ornamental Knowledge or Accomplishment. Fix their Ambition upon great and solid Objects, and their Contempt upon little, frivolous, and useless ones. It is Time, my dear, for you to begin to teach them French. Every Decency, Grace, and Honesty should be inculcated upon them.

And here - finally - in a letter dated September 16, John Adams describes the first meeting of the First Continental Congress. Gives me chills, every time. I love Samuel Adams' comment. If only other religious bigots could take his lead:

When the Congress first met, Mr. Cushing made a Motion, that it shouild be opened with Prayer. It was opposed by Mr. Jay of N. York and Mr. Rutledge of South Carolina, because we were so divided in religious Sentiments, some Episcopalians, some Quakers, some Aanabaptists, some Presbyterians and some Congregationalists, so that We could not join in the same Act of Worship. -- Mr. S. Adams arose and said he was no Bigot, and could hear a Prayer from a Gentleman of Piety and Virtue, who was at the same Time a Friend to his Country. He was a Stranger in Phyladelphia, but had heard that Mr. Duche (Dushay they pronounce it) deserved that Character, and therefore he moved that Mr. Duche, an episcopal Clergyman, might be desired, to read Prayers to the Congress, tomorrow Morning. The Motion was seconded and passed in the Affirmative. Mr. Randolph our President waited on Mr. Duche, and received for Answer that if his Health would permit, he certainly would. Accordingly next Morning he appeared with his Clerk and in his Pontificallibus, and read several Prayers, in the established Form; and then read the Collect for the seventh day of September, which was the Thirty Fifth Psalm. -- You must remember this was the next Morning after we heard the horrible Rumour, of the Cannonade of Boston. -- I never saw a greater Effect upon an Audience. It seemed as if Heaven had ordained that Psalm to be read on that Morning.

After this Mr. Duche, unexpected to every Body struck out into an extemporary Prayer, which filled the Bosom of every Man present. I must confess I never heard a better Prayer, or one so well pronounced. Episcopalian as he is, Dr. Cooper himself never prayed with such fervour, such Ardor, such Earnestness and Pathos, and in Language so elegant and sublime -- for America, for the Congress, for the Province of Massachusetts Bay, and especially the Town of Boston. It has had an excellent Effect upon every Body here.

I must beg you to read that Psalm.

Okay, John, relax, no need to beg, I'll read that Psalm.

The 35th Psalm

Oppose, LORD, those who oppose me; war upon those who make war upon me.
Take up the shield and buckler; rise up in my defense.

Brandish lance and battle-ax against my pursuers. Say to my heart, "I am your salvation."

Let those who seek my life be put to shame and disgrace. Let those who plot evil against me be turned back and confounded.

Make them like chaff before the wind, with the angel of the LORD driving them on.

Make their way slippery and dark, with the angel of the LORD pursuing them.

Without cause they set their snare for me; without cause they dug a pit for me.

Let ruin overtake them unawares; let the snare they have set catch them; let them fall into the pit they have dug.

Then I will rejoice in the LORD, exult in God's salvation.

My very bones shall say, "O LORD, who is like you, Who rescue the afflicted from the powerful, the afflicted and needy from the despoiler?"

Malicious witnesses come forward, accuse me of things I do not know.

They repay me evil for good and I am all alone.

Yet I, when they were ill, put on sackcloth, afflicted myself with fasting, sobbed my prayers upon my bosom.

I went about in grief as for my brother, bent in mourning as for my mother.

Yet when I stumbled they gathered with glee, gathered against me like strangers. They slandered me without ceasing;

without respect they mocked me, gnashed their teeth against me.

Lord, how long will you look on? Save me from roaring beasts, my precious life from lions!

Then I will thank you in the great assembly; I will praise you before the mighty throng.

Do not let lying foes smirk at me, my undeserved enemies wink knowingly.

They speak no words of peace, but against the quiet in the land they fashion deceitful speech.

They open wide their mouths against me. They say, "Aha! Good! Our eyes relish the sight!"

You see this, LORD; do not be silent; Lord, do not withdraw from me.

Awake, be vigilant in my defense, in my cause, my God and my Lord.

Defend me because you are just, LORD; my God, do not let them gloat over me.

Do not let them say in their hearts, "Aha! Just what we wanted!" Do not let them say, "We have devoured that one!"

Put to shame and confound all who relish my misfortune. Clothe with shame and disgrace those who lord it over me.

But let those who favor my just cause shout for joy and be glad. May they ever say, "Exalted be the LORD who delights in the peace of his loyal servant."

Then my tongue shall recount your justice, declare your praise, all the day long.

And finally - a funny excerpt from one of the many descriptive letters John Adams wrote to his wife during the Congress - just makes me chuckle:

This assembly is like no other that ever existed. Every man in it is a great man -- an orator, a critic, a statesman, and therefore every man upon every question must show his oratory, his criticism, his political abilities. The consequence of this is that business is drawn and spun out to immeasurable length. I believe if it was moved and seconded that we should come to a resolution that three and two make five, we should be entertained with logic and rhetoric, law, history, politics, and mathematics concerning the subject for two whole days, and then we should pass the resolution unanimously in the affirmative.

hahahahaha

Abigail Adams, as we all know:

-- kept the farm running for decades on end while John was away
-- broke with Thomas Jefferson after a series of unfortunate events
-- couldn't spell worth a lick
-- was a strict mother, especially to John Quincy
-- missed her husband desperately during his years away
-- believed in the idea of America, and supported her husband totally in his revolutionary activities

But I am not sure it is AS well known that Abigail Adams was also a rabid Celtics fan, who listened to the game on her ear-buds AS the shots were fired on Bunker Hill.

Abigail Adams on her blackberry

Last night at around 7 p.m., Kerry and I were emailing back and forth. It was fast and furious and had to do with men and getting ahead of ourselves and various heartcracks and how we should do whatever Mike says and also our cats and how much we love boys, in general. There were almost no pauses between emails.

But then I realized what time it was. 7 pm. Kerry is now playing Abigail Adams in the Paper Mill Playhouse's production of 1776 (buy tickets here - great show!!), which I went to see last Sunday with Siobhan and Ben - and the show was at 7:30.

I emailed Kerry, "Are you in costume right now?"

"Yes."

So. Kerry was dressed like this, emailing me from stage left.

I still laugh at Kate, dressed up in some bullshit fashion from the ancien regime, all very fin de siecle, calling me from DURING her show and then hanging up hurriedly. But to picture her in a powdered wig and beauty mark and decolletage on her cell phone ... Too much.

For example, at one point last night, Kerry responded to something I said with: "OMG! Heartcrack!"

Picturing her saying something like that dressed like that just makes me happy.

Today in history: April 18-19, 1775: "I set off upon a very good Horse"

On the night of April 18, into April 19, in 1775, Paul Revere made his famous ride.

The spring of 1775 was a tense time. Prominent Bostonians were under constant threat of arrest from the British, and many of them - to avoid this - moved their families to outlying communities. However, two of the main patriotic leaders (Benjamin Church and Joseph Warren) stayed in Boston. Paul Revere did as well, and kept a close eye on British movements through that spring. Revere was trusted as a messenger, he knew everybody.

In mid-April, Revere started to notice some ominous signs: mainly that the British ships were taken out of the water, to be worked on, repaired. He could sense that something was coming. He felt the British were preparing for some kind of attack.

Revere went to Concord on April 16 (most of the weaponry was stored there) and warned the leaders of that community that the British were preparing something, they were up to something, and if they were going to strike, they would most definitely try to seize the weapons stash in Concord. So the people of Concord went to work, hiding their store of weapons in barns, cellars, swamps, etc. (Like I mentioned: Paul Revere was trusted. He knew everybody. If you're interested, read the excerpt I posted of Malcolm Gladwell's fascinating analysis of Paul Revere - and Gladwell's comparison with the far less successful messenger on that very same night - William Dawes.)

So. April 16. Revere returned to Boston from Concord, and met with other revolutionary leaders, and that is when they came up with the "one if by land, two if by sea" warning system. Revere knew they needed a way to have some advance warning about which route the British were going to take when they finally did attack.

By land? Or by sea?

So, Revere set up the system: Signal lanterns would be placed in the belfry of Old North Church (the steeple can be seen across the Charles River). If two lanterns were hung, then the British would be crossing the Charles by boat. If one lantern was hung, then the British would choose to attack using a land route.

"One if by land, two if by sea."

The plan was put in place just in time. On April 18, in the early evening, a stable boy came to Paul Revere, telling him that he had overheard some British soldiers discussing the upcoming attack, and that it was planned for early the next morning. The stable boy knew who to bring this information to, and that was Paul Revere. (Again, check out Gladwell's analysis of Paul Revere's personality. Really interesting.)

Revere, on receiving this urgent piece of information, knew he had to get the warning out (and that he especially had to warn John Hancock and Samuel Adams who, at that time, were hiding out in Lexington).

So off he went on his now legendary ride (here's a cool map of the route he took). Revere took the water route out of Boston, rowed across the Charles, and galloped through the communities north of Boston sounding the alarm. (Medford, Charlestown, Lexington, Concord.) Because of Paul Revere, the British had completely lost the element of surprise. When they came to attack, they found the rebellious colonists waiting for them everywhere, ambushing them left and right, from behind stone walls, hiding behind trees ...

An interesting tidbit (this is why I love this time in American history - yeah, the events themselves are really cool ... but it's details like the following one that really have me hooked, like a crack addict):

In his hurry to depart, Revere forgot to bring along pieces of cloth to wrap the oars of his boat. The purpose of the cloth would be to muffle the sound of the oars cutting through the water. The Somerset (the British man-of-war) was at anchor, right there in the harbor. Paul Revere had to row right by them, and so any sound at all would have alerted the crew, and if Revere was busted, the whole jig would be up. Revere was in a bit of a pickle ... standing by his boat, trying to figure out how he could improvise ... could he take off his stockings? Tie them around the end of the oars?

One of the boatmen involved in helping Revere make this crossing came to the rescue. He ran to his girlfriend's house and asked her for her petticoat. One can only imagine her startled response to the nighttime demand at her door from her beau: "Please, dear. It's 10 pm, and I need you to take off your petticoat, give it to me, and don't ask me ANY questions about it!!" But apparently, this girl, whoever she was, complied - took off her petticoat, handed it over, and Revere used it to wrap up the ends of his oars.

I love that woman, whoever she is. You're part of this story, dear, even though your name has not been passed down through the ages.

So. In honor of this great moment in American history -here is Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's celebrated poem "Paul Revere's Ride". And below that, I am posting an old essay I wrote about babysitting Cashel - which is relevant to this date in history. A couple years ago, I read the Cashel piece on a radio program, which was a pretty cool experience - and reading over the piece today makes me nostalgic for when Cashel was so little!!

But back to the poem: I know large swaths of it by heart ... I grew up hearing it. I'm an East Coast girl, most of my family is from Boston. So all of these places in the poem are places I had been to many times as a child, and not just a tourist ... but just because we lived near them. That piece of history felt very real to me. The poem is thrilling to me - because of the story it tells, of course, but also because of its rollicking perfect rhythm, you can feel the suspense, you can feel the urgency, the whole thing ends up sounding like the clatter of horses hooves galloping through the night. It's meant to be read out loud. Try it for yourself!! The last stanza is beyond compare. "For borne on the night-wind of the Past ..." I mean, come ON!! I love, too, how Longfellow includes the bit about the "muffled oar". These things pass on into folk tales at some point, a local mythology, and that's part of the reason why I love it.

April 18, 1775. A great day in American history. "The fate of a nation was riding that night." One of my personal favorite stories of the American revolution.

Paul Revere's Ride

Listen my children and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.
He said to his friend, "If the British march
By land or sea from the town to-night,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch
Of the North Church tower as a signal light,--
One if by land, and two if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country folk to be up and to arm."

Then he said "Good-night!" and with muffled oar
Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore,
Just as the moon rose over the bay,
Where swinging wide at her moorings lay
The Somerset, British man-of-war;
A phantom ship, with each mast and spar
Across the moon like a prison bar,
And a huge black hulk, that was magnified
By its own reflection in the tide.

Meanwhile, his friend through alley and street
Wanders and watches, with eager ears,
Till in the silence around him he hears
The muster of men at the barrack door,
The sound of arms, and the tramp of feet,
And the measured tread of the grenadiers,
Marching down to their boats on the shore.

Then he climbed the tower of the Old North Church,
By the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread,
To the belfry chamber overhead,
And startled the pigeons from their perch
On the sombre rafters, that round him made
Masses and moving shapes of shade,--
By the trembling ladder, steep and tall,
To the highest window in the wall,
Where he paused to listen and look down
A moment on the roofs of the town
And the moonlight flowing over all.

Beneath, in the churchyard, lay the dead,
In their night encampment on the hill,
Wrapped in silence so deep and still
That he could hear, like a sentinel's tread,
The watchful night-wind, as it went
Creeping along from tent to tent,
And seeming to whisper, "All is well!"
A moment only he feels the spell
Of the place and the hour, and the secret dread
Of the lonely belfry and the dead;
For suddenly all his thoughts are bent
On a shadowy something far away,
Where the river widens to meet the bay,--
A line of black that bends and floats
On the rising tide like a bridge of boats.

Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride,
Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride
On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere.
Now he patted his horse's side,
Now he gazed at the landscape far and near,
Then, impetuous, stamped the earth,
And turned and tightened his saddle girth;
But mostly he watched with eager search
The belfry tower of the Old North Church,
As it rose above the graves on the hill,
Lonely and spectral and sombre and still.
And lo! as he looks, on the belfry's height
A glimmer, and then a gleam of light!
He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns,
But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight
A second lamp in the belfry burns.

A hurry of hoofs in a village street,
A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,
And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing, a spark
Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet;
That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the light,
The fate of a nation was riding that night;
And the spark struck out by that steed, in his flight,
Kindled the land into flame with its heat.
He has left the village and mounted the steep,
And beneath him, tranquil and broad and deep,
Is the Mystic, meeting the ocean tides;
And under the alders that skirt its edge,
Now soft on the sand, now loud on the ledge,
Is heard the tramp of his steed as he rides.

It was twelve by the village clock
When he crossed the bridge into Medford town.
He heard the crowing of the cock,
And the barking of the farmer's dog,
And felt the damp of the river fog,
That rises after the sun goes down.

It was one by the village clock,
When he galloped into Lexington.
He saw the gilded weathercock
Swim in the moonlight as he passed,
And the meeting-house windows, black and bare,
Gaze at him with a spectral glare,
As if they already stood aghast
At the bloody work they would look upon.

It was two by the village clock,
When he came to the bridge in Concord town.
He heard the bleating of the flock,
And the twitter of birds among the trees,
And felt the breath of the morning breeze
Blowing over the meadow brown.
And one was safe and asleep in his bed
Who at the bridge would be first to fall,
Who that day would be lying dead,
Pierced by a British musket ball.

You know the rest. In the books you have read
How the British Regulars fired and fled,---
How the farmers gave them ball for ball,
From behind each fence and farmyard wall,
Chasing the redcoats down the lane,
Then crossing the fields to emerge again
Under the trees at the turn of the road,
And only pausing to fire and load.

So through the night rode Paul Revere;
And so through the night went his cry of alarm
To every Middlesex village and farm,---
A cry of defiance, and not of fear,
A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,
And a word that shall echo for evermore!
For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,
Through all our history, to the last,
In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
The people will waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,
And the midnight message of Paul Revere.

Paul Revere himself wrote of that time (it's such a cliffhanger, with people threatening to "blow his brains out" every other second):

In the Fall of 1774 and Winter of 1775 I was one of upwards of thirty, cheifly mechanics, who formed our selves in to a Committee for the purpose of watching the Movements of the British Soldiers, and gaining every intelegence of the movements of the Tories.

We held our meetings at the Green-Dragon Tavern. We were so carefull that our meetings should be kept Secret; that every time we met, every person swore upon the Bible, that they would not discover any of our transactions, But to Messrs. HANCOCK, ADAMS, Doctors WARREN, CHURCH, and one or two more.

About November, when things began to grow Serious, a Gentleman who had Conections with the Tory party, but was a Whig at heart, acquainted me, that our meetings were discovered, and mentioned the identical words that were spoken among us the Night before. . . . We removed to another place, which we thought was more secure: but here we found that all our transactions were communicated to Governor Gage. (This came to me through the then Secretary Flucker; He told it to the Gentleman mentioned above). It was then a common opinion, that there was a Traytor in the provincial Congress, and that Gage was posessed of all their Secrets. (Church was a member of that Congress for Boston.) In the Winter, towards the Spring, we frequently took Turns, two and two, to Watch the Soldiers, By patroling the Streets all night. The Saturday Night preceding the 19th of April, about 12 oClock at Night, the Boats belonging to the Transports were all launched, and carried under the Sterns of the Men of War. (They had been previously hauld up and repaired). We likewise found that the Grenadiers and light Infantry were all taken off duty.

From these movements, we expected something serious was [to] be transacted. On Tuesday evening, the 18th, it was observed, that a number of Soldiers were marching towards the bottom of the Common. About 10 o'Clock, Dr. Warren Sent in great haste for me, and beged that I would imediately Set off for Lexington, where Messrs. Hancock and Adams were, and acquaint them of the Movement, and that it was thought they were the objets. When I got to Dr. Warren's house, I found he had sent an express by land to Lexington—a Mr. Wm. Daws. The Sunday before, by desire of Dr. Warren, I had been to Lexington, to Mess. Hancock and Adams, who were at the Rev. Mr. Clark's. I returned at Night thro Charlestown; there I agreed with a Col. Conant, and some other Gentlemen, that if the British went out by Water, we would shew two Lanthorns in the North Church Steeple; and if by Land, one, as a Signal; for we were aprehensive it would be dificult to Cross the Charles River, or git over Boston neck. I left Dr. Warrens, called upon a friend, and desired him to make the Signals. I then went Home, took my Boots and Surtout, and went to the North part of the Town, Where I had kept a Boat; two friends rowed me across Charles River, a little to the eastward where the Somerset Man of War lay. It was then young flood, the Ship was winding, and the moon was Rising. They landed me on Charlestown side. When I got into Town, I met Col. Conant, and several others; they said they had seen our signals. I told them what was Acting, and went to git me a Horse; I got a Horse of Deacon Larkin. While the Horse was preparing, Richard Devens, Esq. who was one of the Committee of Safty, came to me, and told me, that he came down the Road from Lexington, after Sundown, that evening; that He met ten British Officers, all well mounted, and armed, going up the Road.

I set off upon a very good Horse; it was then about 11 o'Clock, and very pleasant. After I had passed Charlestown Neck, and got nearly opposite where Mark was hung in chains, I saw two men on Horse back, under a Tree. When I got near them, I discovered they were British officer. One tryed to git a head of Me, and the other to take me. I turned my Horse very quick, and Galloped towards Charlestown neck, and then pushed for the Medford Road. The one who chased me, endeavoring to Cut me off, got into a Clay pond, near where the new Tavern is now built. I got clear of him, and went thro Medford, over the Bridge, and up to Menotomy. In Medford, I awaked the Captain of the Minute men; and after that, I alarmed almost every House, till I got to Lexington. I found Messrs. Hancock and Adams at the Rev. Mr. Clark's; I told them my errand, and inquired for Mr. Daws; they said he had not been there; I related the story of the two officers, and supposed that He must have been stopped, as he ought to have been there before me. After I had been there about half an Hour, Mr. Daws came; we refreshid our selves, and set off for Concord, to secure the Stores, &c. there. We were overtaken by a young Docter Prescot, whom we found to be a high Son of Liberty. I told them of the ten officers that Mr. Devens mett, and that it was probable we might be stoped before we got to Concord; for I supposed that after Night, they divided them selves, and that two of them had fixed themselves in such passages as were most likely to stop any intelegence going to Concord. I likewise mentioned, that we had better allarm all the Inhabitents till we got to Concord; the young Doctor much approved of it, and said, he would stop with either of us, for the people between that and Concord knew him, and would give the more credit to what we said. We had got nearly half way. Mr Daws and the Doctor stoped to allarm the people of a House: I was about one hundred Rod a head, when I saw two men, in nearly the same situation as those officer were, near Charlestown. I called for the Doctor and Daws to come up;—in an Instant I was surrounded by four;—they had placed themselves in a Straight Road, that inclined each way; they had taken down a pair of Barrs on the North side of the Road, and two of them were under a tree in the pasture. The Docter being foremost, he came up; and we tryed to git past them; but they being armed with pistols and swords, they forced us in to the pasture;—the Docter jumped his Horse over a low Stone wall, and got to Concord. I observed a Wood at a Small distance, and made for that. When I got there, out Started Six officers, on Horse back, and orderd me to dismount;—one of them, who appeared to have the command, examined me, where I came from, and what my Name Was? I told him. He asked me if I was an express? I answered in the afirmative. He demanded what time I left Boston? I told him; and aded, that their troops had catched aground in passing the River, and that There would be five hundred Americans there in a short time, for I had alarmed the Country all the way up. He imediately rode towards those who stoppd us, when all five of them came down upon a full gallop; one of them, whom I afterwards found to be Major Mitchel, of the 5th Regiment, Clapped his pistol to my head, called me by name, and told me he was going to ask me some questions, and if I did not give him true answers, he would blow my brains out. He then asked me similar questions to those above. He then orderd me to mount my Horse, after searching me for arms. He then orderd them to advance, and to lead me in front. When we got to the Road, they turned down towards Lexington. When we had got about one Mile, the Major Rode up to the officer that was leading me, and told him to give me to the Sergeant. As soon as he took me, the Major orderd him, if I attempted to run, or any body insulted them, to blow my brains out. We rode till we got near Lexington Meeting-house, when the Militia fired a Voley of Guns, which appeared to alarm them very much. The Major inquired of me how far it was to Cambridge, and if there were any other Road? After some consultation, the Major Rode up to the Sargent, and asked if his Horse was tired? He answered him, he was--(He was a Sargent of Grenadiers, and had a small Horse)—then, said He, take that man's Horse. I dismounted, and the Sargent mounted my Horse, when they all rode towards Lexington Meeting-House. I went across the Burying-ground, and some pastures, and came to the Revd. Mr. Clark's House, where I found Messrs. Hancok and Adams. I told them of my treatment, and they concluded to go from that House to wards Woburn. I went with them, and a Mr. Lowell, who was a Clerk to Mr. Hancock. When we got to the House where they intended to stop, Mr. Lowell and my self returned to Mr. Clark's, to find what was going on. When we got there, an elderly man came in; he said he had just come from the Tavern, that a Man had come from Boston, who said there were no British troops coming. Mr. Lowell and my self went towards the Tavern, when we met a Man on a full gallop, who told us the Troops were coming up the Rocks. We afterwards met another, who said they were close by. Mr. Lowell asked me to go to the Tavern with him, to git a Trunk of papers belonging to Mr. Hancock. We went up Chamber; and while we were giting the Trunk, we saw the British very near, upon a full March. We hurried to wards Mr. Clark's House. In our way, we passed through the Militia. There were about 50. When we had got about 100 Yards from the meeting-House the British Troops appeard on both Sides of the Meeting-House. In their Front was an Officer on Horse back. They made a Short Halt; when I saw, and heard, a Gun fired, which appeared to be a Pistol. Then I could distinguish two Guns, and then a Continual roar of Musquetry; When we made off with the Trunk.

As I have mentioned Dr. Church, perhaps it might not be disagreeable to mention some Matters of my own knowledge, respecting Him. He appeared to be a high son of Liberty. He frequented all the places where they met, Was incouraged by all the leaders of the Sons of Liberty, and it appeared he was respected by them, though I knew that Dr. Warren had not the greatest affection for him. He was esteemed a very capable writer, especially in verese; and as the Whig party needed every Strenght, they feared, as well as courted Him. Though it was known, that some of the Liberty Songs, which We composed, were parodized by him, in favor of the British, yet none dare charge him with it. I was a constant and critical observer of him, and I must say, that I never thought Him a man of Principle; and I doubted much in my own mind, wether He was a real Whig. I knew that He kept company with a Capt. Price, a half-pay British officer, and that He frequently dined with him, and Robinson, one of the Commissioners. I know that one of his intimate aquaintances asked him why he was so often with Robinson and Price? His answer was, that He kept Company with them on purpose to find out their plans. The day after the Battle of Lexington, I met him in Cambridge, when He shew me some blood on his stocking, which he said spirted on him from a Man who was killed near him, as he was urging the Militia on. I well remember, that I argued with my self, if a Man will risque his life in a Cause, he must be a Friend to that cause; and I never suspected him after, till He was charged with being a Traytor.

The full letter can be read here.

ONE IF BY LAND: An afternoon with Cashel
We colored for a while. As we waited for the pizza to arrive. Cashel commanded me to draw a house. So I did. Cashel was basically the architect and the interior designer. Telling me what he wanted to see.

"Put a playroom in the attic."

"But Auntie Sheila -- where are the stairs??"

I drew the bathroom, and the mere sight of the toilet caused Cashel to dissolve into mirth. Yes. Toilets are hilarious.

I drew a spiral staircase which blew Cashel away. "That's so COOL." Then I drew the living room. I said, "I think there needs to be a picture on the wall. Or a portrait. Whose picture should be on the wall, you think?"

Cashel said bluntly, "Einstein."

Okay, then. Einstein. So I drew this little cartoon of Einstein, with the crazy hair coming up, and Cashel said seriously, with all of his knowledge, "That really looks like Einstein."

We ate our pizza together, talking about stuff. Star Wars, Ben Franklin. Cashel informed me, "Ben Franklin discovered lightning."

Cashel is a wealth of information. Randomly, he told my parents that Vincent Van Gogh never sold a painting while he was alive, but that after he died, he became famous.

I read him a story. It was from the book of "Disney stories" which I had given him for his birthday. He loves it. He pulled it out of the bookshelf, and I said, "Oh! I gave that to you!" Cashel said, a little bit annoyed, "I know that."

He had me read the story of the little mouse who hung out with Ben Franklin, and basically (in the world of Disney) was the inspiration for all of Ben Franklin's famous moments. Cashel would shoot questions at me. "Why is Ben Franklin's hair white?" "Well ... he's old now. But also, in those days, men wore powdered wigs." Cashel's little serious face, listening, sponging this all up. Probably the next day he informed his friends that men in the olden days wore powdered wigs. He's that kind of listener, that kind of learner.

Then he put on his Obi Wan Kenobi costume which Grandma Peggy made him for Christmas. A long hooded brown cloak ... and he hooked his light saber into his waist, and galloped off down the hall. A mini Jedi knight.

I had him pick out three stories to read before bedtime. He sat beside me, curled up into me, looking at the pictures as I read to him. The last one we read was Longfellow's poem "Paul Revere's Ride". This poem was a favorite of ours, when we were kids. My dad would read it to us, and even now, when I read the words, I hear them in my father's voice. A magical poem. The way my dad read it to us (along with Longfellow's help) made us SEE it. The clock tower, the moon, the darkness ... the sense of anticipation, of secrecy, of urgency. It was thrilling. So I love that this is being passed on to Cashel! I've never read the poem outloud before, so I had one of those strange moments of the space-time continuum bending, me stepping into my father's shoes, Cashel 5 years old beside me, feeling the ghost of my own 5 year old self listening.

I also remember how Brendan and I used to chime in gleefully: "ONE IF BY LAND, TWO IF BY SEA!" And Cashel did the same thing. I paused before that moment in the poem, glanced down at him, and he screamed out, "ONE IF BY LAND, TWO IF BY SEA!"

There was also a subtlety of understanding in Cashel. For example, I read this part:

And lo! as he looks, on the belfry's height
A glimmer, and then a gleam of light!
He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns,
But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight
A second lamp in the belfry burns.

And Cashel exclaimed, in a sort of "Uh-oh" tone, "They're comin' by sea!!" Now the words don't actually SAY that, but he remembered the "one if by land two if by sea" signal, and puts it all together. That's my boy!

I remembered the first lines from memory:

Listen my children and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.

Again, those are just words on the page. But to me, they are filled with the echoes of my father's voice.

Cashel and I, as we went through the poem, had to stop many times for discussions.

There was one illustration of all the minute-men, hiding behind the stone walls, with a troop of Redcoats marching along, walking straight into the ambush. Cashel pointed at it, and stated firmly, "That's the civil war."

"Nope. Nope. That is actually a picture from the American Revolutionary War."

Cashel pondered this. Taking it in. Then: "The minute-men were in the civil war." But less certain. Glancing up at me for explanation.

"Nope. The minute-men were soldiers in the American Revolution. Do you know why they called them that?"

"Why?"

"Cause they were farmers, and regular people ... but they could be ready to go into battle in a minute."

Again, a long silence. Cashel filed this away for safekeeping. He forgets nothing.

"So ... Auntie Sheila ... what is the difference between the Revolutionary War and the Civil War?"

Woah. Okay. This will be a test. How to describe all of that in 5-year-old language. I mean, frankly, Cashel is not like a five-year-old at all. But still. Everything must be boiled down into its simplest components.

"Well. America used to be a part of England, and the American Revolutionary War was when America decided that it wanted to be free ... and Americans basically told the Brits to go home." Uh-oh. Brits? This is an inflammatory term. I corrected myself. "America told Great Britain that it wanted to be its own country. And the Civil War ... " Hmmm. How to begin ... what to say ... I know it was about more than slavery, but I decided to only focus on that one aspect. Economic theory and regional cultural differences would be too abstract. "In those days, Cashel, black people were slaves. And it was very very wrong. Can you understand that?"

He nodded. His little serious face.

"And the people in the South wanted to keep their slaves, and the people in the North said to the people in the South that they had to give up their slaves. And they ended up going to war. And eventually all the slaves were free."

Cashel accepted this explanation silently. Then he pointed back to the Paul Revere poem. "Read." he commanded.

"Yours, yours, yours" - Kerry O'Malley as Abigail Adams

Yes, yet another O'Malley cousin rockin' the planet.

My dear cousin (and friend) Kerry will be playing Abigail Adams in the Paper Mill Playhouse's upcoming production of 1776.

A wonderful interview with Kerry here about the project.

Good job, Kerry. You do us New Englanders proud.

Can't wait to see it.

Saltpeter. Pins.

Today in history: February 22, 1732

George Washington, first President of the United States, was born.

(All quotes from George Washington's letters below I got from my copy of the Library of America's compilation of his writings)

Thomas Jefferson on George Washington:

The moderation and virtue of a single character probably prevented this Revolution from being closed, as most others have been, by a subversion of that liberty it was intended to establish.

In May, 1754, Washington wrote a letter home to his brother, after his first experience of battle in the French and Indian War:

I heard Bullets whistle and believe me there was something charming in the Sound.

In November, 1754, George Washington wrote:

My inclinations are strongly bent to arms.

GEORGE WASHINGTON, in a letter written to a friend in 1774

Does it not appear as clear as the sun in its meridian brightness that there is a regular, systematic plan to fix the right and practice of taxation upon us? Ought we not, then, to put our virtue and fortitude to the severest tests?

One of the things I love about Washington is that his progression to Revolutionary was gradual, and began with practical matters, like being taxed, and having his autonomy as a farmer taken away from him (the British regulated where he could buy parts, taxing him to death, etc.) His was not a high-flung "all men are created equal" mindset, like Thomas Jefferson's ... He began with the unfairness and humiliation of his status as someone who is being occupied and bossed around. It took all kinds to make that revolution. If we had just had Thomas Jefferson, we would have been in trouble. But we needed Thomas Jefferson to put the ideals into words, for the ages. But it was the mixture of personalities and mindsets that made it a success. Very important. John Adams countered Jefferson. Hamilton countered Washington and Jefferson. Ben Franklin gave it a glitter and notoriety. Madison was the brainiac lawyer. John Jay, Samuel Adams ... all with their area of expertise, their interests and passions. Thank God we had a good mix.

In 1755, Washington wrote a complaining letter to his friend Robert Dinwiddie:

We cannot conceive that because we are Americans, we shou'd therefore be deprived of the Benefits Common to British Subjects.

In 1758, Washington wrote a couple of letters to Sally Fairfax, a woman he was in love with - his first love - someone he never really recovered from (letters to her at the end of his life suggest that):

'Tis true, I profess myself a Votary to Love - I acknowledge that a Lady is in the Case - and further I confess that this Lady is known to you. - Yes Madam, as well as she is to one, who is too sensible of her Charms to deny the Power, whose Influence he feels and must ever Submit to. I feel the force of her amiable beauties in the recollection of a thousand tender passages that I coud wish to obliterate, till I am bid to revive them. - but experience alas! Sadly reminds me how Impossible this is. - and evinces an opinion which I have long entertained, that there is a Destiny, which has the Sovereign Controul of our Actions - not to be resisted by the Strongest efforts of Human Nature.

The World has no business to know the object of my Love, declard in this manner to you - you when I want to conceal it - One thing, above all things in this World I wish to know, and only one person of your Acquaintance can solve me that, or guess my meaning. - but adieu to this, till happier times, if I shall ever see them ...

Excerpt from Joseph Ellis's His Excellency: George Washington:

All of which is to suggest that Washington did not need to read books by radical Whig writers or receive an education in political theory from George Mason in order to regard the British military occupation of Massachusetts in 1774 as the latest installment in a long-standing pattern. His own ideological origins did not derive primarily from books but from his own experience with what he had come to regard as the imperiousness of the British Empire. Mason probably helped him to develop a more expansive vocabulary to express his thoughts and feelings, but the thoughts, and even more so the feelings, had been brewing inside him for more than twenty years. At the psychological nub of it all lay an utter loathing for any form of dependency, a sense of his own significance, and a deep distrust of any authority beyond his direct control.

Martha Washington wrote a letter to a relative on the eve of her husband's departure to the Convention in 1774:

I foresee consequences; dark days and darker nights; domestic happiness suspended; social enjoyments abandoned; property of every kind put in jeopardy by war, perhaps; neighbors and friends at variance, and eternal separations on earth possible. But what are all these evils when compared with the fate of which the Port Bill may be only a threat? My mind is made up; my heart is in the cause. George is right; he is always right. God has promised to protect the righteous, and I will trust him.

PATRICK HENRY, on his return home from the first Continental Congress in 1774 was asked whom he thought was the foremost man in the group:

"Colonel Washington is unquestionably the greatest man on that floor."

Abigail Adams first met Washington in 1774, and wrote to her husband:

You had prepared me to entertain a favorable opinion of him, but I thought the half was not told me. Dignity with ease and complacency, the gentleman and the soldier look agreeably blended in him. Modesty marks every line and feature of his face.

When George Washington was elected (unanimously) by the First Continental Congress to be Commander in Chief (this was in June, 1775) - here was the brief acceptance he made:

"Lest some unlucky event should happen unfavorable to my reputation, I beg it may be remembered by every gentleman in the room, that I this day declare, with the utmost sincerity, I do not think myself equal to the command."

In a 1775 letter to his brother-in-law, Burwell Bassett:

I am now Imbarked on a tempestuous Ocean from whence, perhaps, no friendly harbour is to be found ... It is an honour I wished to avoid ... I can answer but for three things, a firm belief of the justice of our Cause - close attention to the prosecution of it - and the strictest Integrity - If these cannot supply the places of Ability & Experience, the cause will suffer & more than probably my character along with it, as reputation derives its principal support from success.

GEORGE WASHINGTON, writing to Martha on June 18, 1775, following his nomination as commander in chief

My Dearest: I now sit down to write to you on a subject which fills me with inexpressible concern, and this concern is greatly aggravated and increased when I reflect upon the uneasiness I know it will give you. It has been determined in Congress that the whole army raised for the defence of the American cause shall be put under my care, and that it is necessary for me to proceed immediately to Boston to take upon me the command of it.

You may believe me, my dear Patsy, when I assure you, in the most solemn manner, that, so far from seeking this appointment, I have used every endeavour in my power to avoid it, not only from my unwillingness to part with you and the family, but from a consciousness of its being a trust too great for my capacity, and that I should enjoy more real happiness in one month with you at home than I have the most distant prospect of finding abroad, if my stay were to be seven times seven years.

But as it has been a kind of destiny that has thrown me upon this service, I shall hope that my undertaking is designed to answer some good purpose.

George Washington describes here what a general expects in his aides:

The variegated and important duties of the aids of a commander in chief or the commander of a separate army require experienced officers, men of judgment and men of business, ready pens to execute them properly and with dispatch. A great deal more is required of them than attending him at a parade or delivering verbal orders here and there, or copying a written one. They ought, if I may be allowed to use the expression, to possess the Soul of the General, and from a single idea given to them, to convey his meaning in the clearest and fullest manner.

GEORGE WASHINGTON, letter to Joseph Reed, early December, 1775, after a disappointing recruiting drive

I have oftentimes thought how much happier I should have been if, instead of accepting the command under such circumstances, I had taken my musket on my shoulder and entered the ranks; or, if I could have justified the measure to posterity and my own conscience, had retired to the back country and lived in a wigwam. If I shall be able to rise superior to these and many other difficulties which might be enumerated, I shall most religiously believe that the finger of Providence is in it to blind the eyes of our enemies, for surely if we get well through this month it must be for want of their knowing the disadvantages which we labor under.

On August 1, 1777, Washington invited the newly arrived Marquis de Lafayette to witness a review of the troops. The American troops marched by, ragged, disheveled, shabby. Here is what the two men were reported to say to one another:

Washington: We are rather embarrassed to show ourselves to an officer who has just left the army of France.

Lafayette: I am here, sir, to learn and not to teach.

GEORGE WASHINGTON, on the self-sacrifice of his soldiers during the hard winter of 1777:

To see men without clothes to cover their nakedness, without blankets to lay on, without shoes, by which their marches might be traced by the blood from their feet, and almost as often without provisions as with; marching through frost and snow, and at Christmas taking up their winter quarters within a day's march of the enemy, without a house or hut to cover them till they could be built, and submitting to it without a murmur, is a mark of patience and obedience which in my opinion can scarce be paralleled.

In 1779, George Washington wrote:

Men are very apt to run into extremes; hatred to England may carry some into excessive Confidence in France ...; I am heartily disposed to entertain the most favourable sentiments of our new ally and to cherish them in others to a reasonable degree; but it is a maxim founded on the universal experience of mankind, that no nation is to be trusted farther than it is bound by its interest; and no prudent statesman or politician will venture to depart from it.

GEORGE WASHINGTON, letter of May 31, 1780, describing one of the things he was learning through the war - his frustration with Congress was constant, sometimes titanic rage (when he gets mad, boy, look out), other times just a nagging persistent annoyance.

Certain I am unless Congress speak in a more decisive tone, unless they are invested with powers by the several States competent to the great purposes of the war, or assume them as a matter of right, and they and the States respectively act with more energy than they hitherto have done, that our cause is lost. One State will comply with a requisition of Congress, another neglects to do it; a third executes it by halves; and all differ either in the manner, the matter, or so much in point of time, that we are always working up hill; and, while such a system as the present one or rather want of one prevails, we shall ever be unable to apply our strength or resources to any advantage.

Excerpt from Joseph Ellis's His Excellency: George Washington:

One incident near the end of the war provides a clue to the transformation in his character wrought by the intense experience of serving so long as the singular embodiment of commitment to the cause. In 1781, Lund Washington reported that a British warship had anchored in the Potomac near Mount Vernon, presumably with orders to ravage Washington's estate. When the British captain offered assurances that he harbored no hostile intentions, Lund sent out a boatload of provisions to express his gratitude for the captain's admirable restraint. When Washington learned of this incident he berated Lund: "It would have been a less painful circumstance to me, to have heard, that in consequence of your non-compliance with their request, they had burnt my House, and laid the Plantation to ruins."

And here is a story - (perhaps it's a rumor - but I love it nonetheless) of Benjamin Franklin's response to the news of the surrender at Yorktown on October 19, 1781. He was, of course, in Paris at the time, setting the world on fire with his homespun wisdom, bacchanalian propensities, chess-playing abilities - and the vision he presented to the world of what liberty, American-style, looked like. An international celebrity.

Word came to France of the decisive American victory, and the complete surrender to George Washington in Yorktown. Franklin attended a diplomatic dinner shortly thereafter - and, of course, everyone was discussing the British defeat.

The French foreign minister stood, and toasted Louis XVI: "To his Majesty, Louis the Sixteenth, who, like the moon, fills the earth with a soft, benevolent glow."

The British ambassador rose and said, "To George the Third, who, like the sun at noonday, spreads his light and illumines the world."

Franklin rose and countered, "I cannot give you the sun or the moon, but I give you George Washington, General of the armies of the United States, who, like Joshua of old, commanded both the sun and the moon to stand still, and both obeyed."

Excerpt from Joseph Ellis's His Excellency: George Washington:

After Yorktown, moreover, new life was breathed into these old fears, since Washington's insistence on maintaining the Continental army at full strength during a time when the majority of the citizenry believed, correctly it turned out, that the war was over only intensified fears that he intended to become the American Cromwell ... Such loose talk triggered the fear that the infant American republic was about to be murdered in its infancy by the same kind of military dictatorship that had destroyed the Roman and English republics in their formative phases. And since these were the only two significant efforts to establish republican governments in recorded history, the pattern did not bode well.

Washington was fully aware of this pattern, and therefore recognized the need to make explicit statements of his intention to defy it. In May 1782 a young officer at the Newburgh encampment, Lewis Nicola, put in writing what many officers were whispering behind the scenes: that the Continental Congress's erratic conduct of the war had exposed the weakness of all republics and the certain disaster that would befall postwar America unless Washington declared himself king ... Washington responded with a stern lecture to "banish these thoughts from your Mind," and denounced the scheme as "big with the greatest mischiefs that can befall my Country." When word of Washington's response leaked out to the world, no less an expert on the subject than George III was heard to say that, if Washington resisted the monarchical mantle and retired, as he always said he would, he would be "the greatest man in the world".

While George III's judgment as a student of history has never met the highest standards, his opinion on this matter merits our attention, for it underlines the truly exceptional character of Washington's refusal to regard himself as the indispensable steward of the American Revolution. Oliver Cromwell had not surrendered power after the English Revolution. Napoleon, Lenin, Mao, and Castro did not step aside to leave their respective revolutionary settlements to others in subsequent centuries. We need to linger over this moment to ask what was different about Washington, or what was different about the political conditions created by the American Revolution, that allowed him to resist temptations that other revolutionary leaders before and since found irresistible.

GEORGE WASHINGTON, letter of (unwelcome) advice sent to governors of the 13 states, 1783, as the army began to disband.

Americans are now sole lords and proprietors of a vast tract of continent comprehending all the various soils and climates of the world and abounding with all the necessaries and conveniences of life - Heaven has crowned all other blessings, by giving a fairer opportunity for political happiness, than any other nation has been favored with - This is the time of their political probation; this is the moment when the eyes of the whole world are turned upon them; this is the moment to establish or ruin their national character forever; this is the favorable moment to give such a tone to our federal government as will enable it to answer the ends of its institution; or this may be the ill-fated moment for relaxing the powers of the Union, annihilating the cement of the Confederation and exposing us to become the sport of European politics, which may play one state against another, to prevent their growing importance and to serve their own interested purposes. For, according to the system of policy the states shall adopt at this moment, they will stand or fall; and by their confirmation or lapse it is yet to be decided whether the Revolution must ultimately be considered a blessing or a curse - a blessing or a curse, not to the present age alone, for with our fate will the destiny of unborn millions be involved.

[He states that there are 4 requirements for the new America]

First. An indissoluble union of the states under one federal head. Secondly. A sacred regard to public justice (that is, the payment of debts). Thirdly. The adoption of a proper peace establishment (that is, an army and a navy). Fourthly. The prevalence of that pacific and friendly disposition among the people of the Union, which will influence them to forget their local prejudices and policies; to make those mutual concessions, which are requisite to the general prosperity; and, in some instances, to sacrifice their individual advantages to the interest of the community. These are the pillars on which the glorious future of our independency and national character must be supported.

Then there was the Newburgh Conspiracy, in March 1783, when a group of congressmen aligned with officers in the army threatened a military coup for various reasons. The new federal government was barely formed, there was no constitution yet - and the states were vying for powerful positions. It's important to remember just how tenuous all of this was at the time. It wasn't a smooth clear path full of Revolutionary-Era virtue and certainty, although there are bozos who claim that it was like that. They need to read their history books. Washington heard of the plot, and decided to address it headon. Now. One of the things I love about this story is that Washington - while he obviously said time and time again that he was uncomfortable with being a "symbol" (and I believe him) - he also realized that it was pointless to fight against it, and when he needed to USE that symbolic stature to get something done that he wanted, he had no problem with playing that card. This is a highly theatrical moment, described vividly by every person who was there, who left an account, and they all say the same thing. There wasn't a dry eye in the house. Perhaps it's my theatrical background, but I cannot believe that Washington was unaware of the effect he wanted to have, and that he did not USE that gesture described so vividly in a conscious manner. There is a way, you know, to be FALSE and TRUE at the same time. Any actor can tell you that. You are playing make-believe, you are pretending to be someone else - so that's the FALSE part - but your reactions and gestures all come from a very TRUE place, and many an actor will tell you that they feel MORE true when they are acting than when they are just out and about as a regular civilian. So that's my interpretation of Washington's big gesture here. It was certainly planned, and so that is FALSE ... but it was also organic and came from a true place. It was chosen for the EFFECT it would have. Washington was a celebrity. He knew that. He hated it. But he used it when convenient. Anyway, I'm going on and on but this is just one of my favorite moments of his life - I love its theatricality - and I also just wish I had been there. But so many people described the moment that I do feel like I can live it vicariously. Like Patrick Henry's "give me liberty or give me death" speech, where people record his gestures, his pantomime, the tenor of his voice. I have imagined myself there.

So Washington gets wind of this dangerous conspiracy, to basically take over, and undermine Washington's authority - not to mention the authority of the baby federal government.

Excerpt from Joseph Ellis's His Excellency: George Washington:

For obvious reasons, the secret conversations within the officers' corps never found their way into the historical record, making all efforts to recover the shifting factions in the plot educated guesses at best. We can be sure that the crisis came to a head on March 11, when the dissident officers scheduled a meeting to coordinate their strategy. Washington countermanded the order for a meeting, saying only he could issue such an order, then scheduled a session for all officers on March 16.

He spent the preceding day drafting, in his own hand, the most impressive speech he ever wrote. Beyond the verbal felicities and classic cadences, the speech established a direct link between his own honor and reputation and the abiding goals of the American Revolution. His central message was that any attempted coup by the army was simultaneously a repudiation of the principles for which they had all been fighting and an assault on his own integrity. Whereas Cromwell and later Napoleon made themselves synonymous with the revolution in order to justify the assumption of dictatorial power, Washington made himself synonymous with the American Revolution in order to declare that it was incompatible with dictatorial power.

On March 16, 1783, George Washington made the following speech to his group of officers:

Gentlemen: By an anonymous summons, an attempt has been made to convene you together; how inconsistent with the rules of propriety, how unmilitary, and how subversive of all order and discipline, let the good sense of the army decide...

Thus much, gentlemen, I have thought it incumbent on me to observe to you, to show upon what principles I opposed the irregular and hasty meeting which was proposed to have been held on Tuesday last - and not because I wanted a disposition to give you every opportunity consistent with your own honor, and the dignity of the army, to make known your grievances. If my conduct heretofore has not evinced to you that I have been a faithful friend to the army, my declaration of it at this time would be equally unavailing and improper. But as I was among the first who embarked in the cause of our common country. As I have never left your side one moment, but when called from you on public duty. As I have been the constant companion and witness of your distresses, and not among the last to feel and acknowledge your merits. As I have ever considered my own military reputation as inseparably connected with that of the army. As my heart has ever expanded with joy, when I have heard its praises, and my indignation has arisen, when the mouth of detraction has been opened against it, it can scarcely be supposed, at this late stage of the war, that I am indifferent to its interests.

But how are they to be promoted? The way is plain, says the anonymous addresser. If war continues, remove into the unsettled country, there establish yourselves, and leave an ungrateful country to defend itself. But who are they to defend? Our wives, our children, our farms, and other property which we leave behind us. Or, in this state of hostile separation, are we to take the two first (the latter cannot be removed) to perish in a wilderness, with hunger, cold, and nakedness? If peace takes place, never sheathe your swords, says he, until you have obtained full and ample justice; this dreadful alternative, of either deserting our country in the extremest hour of her distress or turning our arms against it (which is the apparent object, unless Congress can be compelled into instant compliance), has something so shocking in it that humanity revolts at the idea. My God! What can this writer have in view, by recommending such measures? Can he be a friend to the army? Can he be a friend to this country? Rather, is he not an insidious foe? Some emissary, perhaps, from New York, plotting the ruin of both, by sowing the seeds of discord and separation between the civil and military powers of the continent? And what a compliment does he pay to our understandings when he recommends measures in either alternative, impracticable in their nature?

I cannot, in justice to my own belief, and what I have great reason to conceive is the intention of Congress, conclude this address, without giving it as my decided opinion, that that honorable body entertain exalted sentiments of the services of the army; and, from a full conviction of its merits and sufferings, will do it complete justice. That their endeavors to discover and establish funds for this purpose have been unwearied, and will not cease till they have succeeded, I have not a doubt. But, like all other large bodies, where there is a variety of different interests to reconcile, their deliberations are slow. Why, then, should we distrust them? And, in consequence of that distrust, adopt measures which may cast a shade over that glory which has been so justly acquired; and tarnish the reputation of an army which is celebrated through all Europe, for its fortitude and patriotism? And for what is this done? To bring the object we seek nearer? No! most certainly, in my opinion, it will cast it at a greater distance.

For myself (and I take no merit in giving the assurance, being induced to it from principles of gratitude, veracity, and justice), a grateful sense of the confidence you have ever placed in me, a recollection of the cheerful assistance and prompt obedience I have experienced from you, under every vicissitude of fortune, and the sincere affection I feel for an army I have so long had the honor to command will oblige me to declare, in this public and solemn manner, that, in the attainment of complete justice for all your toils and dangers, and in the gratification of every wish, so far as may be done consistently with the great duty I owe my country and those powers we are bound to respect, you may freely command my services to the utmost of my abilities.

While I give you these assurances, and pledge myself in the most unequivocal manner to exert whatever ability I am possessed of in your favor, let me entreat you, gentlemen, on your part, not to take any measures which, viewed in the calm light of reason, will lessen the dignity and sully the glory you have hitherto maintained; let me request you to rely on the plighted faith of your country, and place a full confidence in the purity of the intentions of Congress; that, previous to your dissolution as an army, they will cause all your accounts to be fairly liquidated, as directed in their resolutions, which were published to you two days ago, and that they will adopt the most effectual measures in their power to render ample justice to you, for your faithful and meritorious services. And let me conjure you, in the name of our common country, as you value your own sacred honor, as you respect the rights of humanity, and as you regard the military and national character of America, to express your utmost horror and detestation of the man who wishes, under any specious pretenses, to overturn the liberties of our country, and who wickedly attempts to open the floodgates of civil discord and deluge our rising empire in blood.

By thus determining and thus acting, you will pursue the plain and direct road to the attainment of your wishes. You will defeat the insidious designs of our enemies, who are compelled to resort from open force to secret artifice. You will give one more distinguished proof of unexampled patriotism and patient virtue, rising superior to the pressure of the most complicated sufferings. And you will, by the dignity of your conduct, afford occasion for posterity to say, when speaking of the glorious example you have exhibited to mankind, "Had this day been wanting, the world had never seen the last stage of perfection to which human nature is capable of attaining."

I hope you made it through that whole thing. It is rather extraordinary. BUT the most extraordinary thing is the "improvised" moment that came directly BEFORE he made that speech. It was the GESTURE that ended the coup, not his words. Or perhaps a mixture of both. But never ever underestimate the power of gesture.

Here is Joseph Ellis again on the moment in question:

Washington has just entered the New Building at Newburgh, a large auditorium recently built by the troops and also called The Temple. About 500 officers are present in the audience. Horatio Gates is chairing the meeting, a rich irony since Gates is most probably complicitous in the plot to stage a military coup that Washington has come to quash. Everything has been scripted and orchestrated beforehand. Washington's aides fan out into the audience to prompt applause for the general's most crucial lines. Washington walks slowly to the podium and reaches inside his jacket to pull out his prepared remarks. Then he pauses - the gesture is almost certainly planned - and pulls from his waistcoat a pair of spectacles recently sent to him by David Rittenhouse, the Philadelphia scientist. No one has ever seen Washington wear spectacles before on public occasions. He looks out to his assembled officers while adjusting the new glasses and says: "Gentlemen, you will permit me to put on my spectacles, for I have not only grown gray, but almost blind in the service of my country." Several officers began to sob. The speech itself is anti-climactic. All thoughts of a military coup die at that moment.

On November 25, 1783: George Washington "took back" New York.

The peace treaty had been signed a year before, France had pledged support and recognition of the new United States, but the redcoats remained in New York, waiting for their written orders from London. George Washington vowed that he would not go home, he would not break up his army, until every last redcoat had left.

Nov. 25 was that momentous day - the day the American troops marched back into town, after the departure of the British.

The exhausted army marched the long way downtown, through what was now a war-ravaged New York City. People lined the streets, throwing laurels in front of Washington's horse, screaming, crying ... a huge display of emotion and reverence that made the typically humble Washington feel uncomfortable.

A woman in the crowd that day wrote the following in her diary:

We had been accustomed for a long time to military display in all the finish and finery of [British] garrison life. The troops just leaving us were as if equipped for a show and with their scarlet uniforms and burnished arms made a brilliant display. The troops that marched in, on the contrary, were ill-clad and weather-beaten and made a forlorn appearance. But then, they were our troops and as I looked at them and thought upon all they had done and suffered for us, my heart and my eyes were full.

GEORGE WASHINGTON'S MOTHER to Lafayette, 1784:

"I am not surprised at what George has done, for he was always a good boy."

George Washington wrote the following on the eve of his inauguration in 1789:

It is said that every man has his portion of ambition. I may have mine, I suppose, as well as the rest, but if I know my own heart, my ambition would not lead me into public life; my only ambition is to do my duty in this world as well as I am capable of performing it, and to merit the good opinion of all good men.

David McCullough describes, in his book on John Adams, the first inauguration day:

On the day of his inauguration, Thursday, April 30 1789, Washington rode to Federal Hall in a canary-yellow carriage pulled by six white horses and followed by a long column of New York militia in full dress. The air was sharp, the sun shone brightly, and with all work stopped in the city, the crowds along his route were the largest ever seen. It was as if all New York had turned out and more besides. "Many persons in the crowd," reported the Gazette of the United States "were heard to say they should now die contented - nothing being wanted to complete their happiness - but the sight of the savior of his country."

In the Senate Chamber were gathered the members of both houses of Congress, the Vice President, and sundry officials and diplomatic agents, all of whom rose when Washington made his entrance, looking solemn and stately. His hair powdered, he wore a dress sword, white silk stockings, shoes with silver buckles, and a suit of the same brown Hartford broadcloth that Adams, too, was wearing for the occasion. They might have been dressed as twins, except that Washington's metal buttons had eagles on them.

It was Adams who formally welcomed the General and escorted him to the dais. For an awkward moment Adams appeared to be in some difficulty, as though he had forgotten what he was supposed to say. then, addressing Washington, he declared that the Senate and House of Representatives were ready to attend him for the oath of office as required by the Constitution. Washington said he was ready. Adams bowed and led the way to the outer balcony, in full view of the throng in the streets. People were cheering and waving from below, and from windows and rooftops as far as the eye could see. Washington bowed once, then a second time.

Fourteen years earlier, it had been Adams who called on the Continental Congress to make the tall Virginian commander-in-chief of the army. Now he stood at Washington's side as Washington, his right hand on the Bible, repeated the oath of office as read by Chancellor Robert R. Livingston of New York, who had also been a member of the Continental Congress.

In a low voice Washington solemnly swore to execute the office of the President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, to "preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States." Then, as not specified in the Constitution, he added, "So help me God", and kissed the Bible, thereby establishing his own first presidential tradition.

"It is done," Livingston said, and, turning to the crowd, cried out, "Long live George Washington, President of the United States."

George Washington said:

Men may speculate as they will, they may talk of patriotism; they may draw a few examples from current story - but whoever builds upon it as a sufficient basis for conducting a long and bloody war will find themselves deceived in the end - For a long time it may of itself push men to action, to bear much, to encounter difficulties, but it will not endure unassisted by Interest.

On August 17, 1790, George Washington visited Newport Rhode Island - and visited the Jewish congregation of the Touro Synagogue (which still stands - gorgeous building. We went on a field trip there in grade school). The congregation presented an address to George Washington, welcoming him to Newport, and to their synagogue. A couple of days later George Washington wrote an eloquent response. Both the address as well as Washington's response were printed in all of the "national" newspapers at the time.

August 21st, 1790
To the Hebrew Congregation in Newport Rhode Island.

Gentleman.

While I receive, with much satisfaction, your Address replete with expressions of affection and esteem; I rejoice in the opportunity of assuring you, that I shall always retain a grateful remembrance of the cordial welcome I experienced in my visit to Newport, from all classes of Citizens.

The reflection on the days of difficulty and danger which are past is rendered the more sweet, from a consciousness that they are succeeded by days of uncommon prosperity and security. If we have wisdom to make the best use of the advantages with which we are now favored, we cannot fail, under the just administration of a good Government, to become a great and happy people.

The Citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for having given to mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy: a policy worthy of imitation.

All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship. It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights. For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.

It would be inconsistent with the frankness of my character not to avow that I am pleased with your favorable opinion of my Administration, and fervent wishes for my felicity. May the children of the Stock of Abraham, who dwell in this land, continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other Inhabitants; while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and figtree, and there shall be none to make him afraid. May the father of all mercies scatter light and not darkness in our paths, and make us all in our several vocations useful here, and in his own due time and way everlastingly happy.

G. Washington

He expresses there my own issues with the concept of "tolerance", with his "It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights." Mitchell and I have bitched about that very thing before, only in not so beautiful language. Don't condescend to TOLERATE me. Don't "indulge" me, from your height of belonging, because that means that it is only by YOUR grace that I am tolerated. Fuck you. I don't care if you TOLERATE me or not, it makes no difference to me. I am protected by the laws of the land, and as long as I abide by those laws, then it doesn't matter in the slightest what you think of me. Good for you, George, for putting that into words. The Jewish people, as long as they were good citizens, had nothing to fear. It was not up to one group of people to decide to 'tolerate' them or not. They were citizens of the land, and therefore protected.

This is why John Adams said he wanted the new nation to be a nation "of laws, not men." Because men are fickle and subject to emotion and temptation. They may "tolerate" you one day and hate you the next. As long as we are a nation "of laws, not men" ... then that will not matter. Yes, there will be growth pains, as we saw in the suffragette movement, the civil rights movement, and as we continue to see in the gay / lesbian / transgender movement. Nothing is perfect. Thank God. Perfection means stasis, a perfect way to describe a totalitarian top-down state. We are not that. We are ruled by "laws, not men", so the Jewish synagogue in Newport was protected by the law, regardless of the anti-Semitism they may have faced around them.

Now I will wait for someone to pipe up "but Washington had slaves!"

Yes. He had slaves. You know why? Because he was a man of HIS time, not our own. It was a grave sin on the society at the time, and many - including Washington - were tormented by the contradiction. It was so interwoven with their own prosperity that many could not see a way out of it. But to discount everything he said because he happened to live THEN not NOW, and was therefore subject to the prejudices of his time, is ridiculous. It's also a shame. Because if you take that view - then you cut yourself off from the wisdom of the ages.

From Joseph Ellis' book Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation:

First, it is crucial to recognize that Washington's extraordinary reputation rested less on his prudent exercise of power than on his dramatic flair at surrendering it. He was, in fact, a veritable virtuoso of exits. Almost everyone regarded his retirement of 1796 as a repeat performance of his resignation as commander of the Continental Army in 1783. Back then, faced with a restive and unpaid remnant of the victorious army quartered in Newburgh, New York, he had suddenly appeared at a meeting of officers who were contemplating insurrection; the murky plot involved marching on the Congress and then seizing a tract of land for themselves in the West, all presumably with Washington as their leader.

He summarily rejected their offer to become the American Caesar and denounced the entire scheme as treason to the cause for which they had fought. Then, in a melodramatic gesture that immediately became famous, he pulled a pair of glasses out of his pocket: "Gentlemen, you will permit me to put on my spectacles," he declared rhetorically, "for I have not only grown gray but almost blind in service to my country." Upon learning that Washington intended to reject the mantle of emperor, no less an authority than George III allegedly observed, "If he does that, he will be the greatest man in the world." True to his word, on December 22, 1783, Washington surrendered his commission to the Congress, then meeting in Annapolis: "Having now finished the work assigned me," he announced, "I now retire from the great theatre of action." In so doing, he became the supreme example of the leader who could be trusted with power because he was so ready to give it up.

Excerpt from Joseph Ellis's His Excellency: George Washington, on the final days of Washington's presidency:

The last days were spent hosting dinners and dances in his honor. The ceremonials culminated with the [John] Adams inauguration, where, somewhat to Adams's irritation, more attention was paid to the outgoing than incoming president. Adams reported to Abigail that he thought he heard Washington murmuring under his breath at the end of the ceremony: "Ay! I am fairly out and you are fairly in! See which of us will be the happiest." But the story is probably apocryphal. Washington's diary entry for the day was typically flat and unrevealing: "Much such a day as yesterday in all respects. Mercury at 41." The public man was already receding into the proverbial mists. The private man could not wait to get those new dentrues and place himself beneath those vines and fig trees.

Washington said, at one point, to the doctor, during his final illness in 1799:

"Doctor, I die hard, but I am not afraid to go."

George Washington's last words:

"I feel myself going. I thank you for your attentions; but I pray you to take no more trouble about me. Let me go off quietly. I cannot last long."

Henry Lee said, in eulogy:

First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen.

Mark Twain wrote in 1871:

I have a higher and greater standard of principle [than George Washington]. Washington could not lie. I can lie but I won't.

Gouverneur Morris said, upon the death of George Washington:

It is a question, previous to the first meeting, what course shall be pursued. Men of decided temper, who, devoted to the public, overlooked prudential considerations, thought a form of government should be framed entirely new. But cautious men, with whom popularity was an object, deemed it fit to consult and comply with the wishes of the people. AMERICANS! -- let the opinion then delivered by the greatest and best of men, be ever present to your remembrance. He was collected within himself. His countenance had more than usual solemnity -- His eye was fixed, and seemed to look into futurity. 'It is (said he)too probable that no plan we propose will be adopted. Perhaps another dreadful conflict is to be sustained. If to please the people, we offer what we ourselves disapprove, how can we afterwards defend our work? Let us raise a standard to which the wise and the honest can repair. The event is in the hand of God.'--this was the patriot voice of WASHINGTON; and this the constant tenor of his conduct.

My father said, in regards to Washington being our first President:

"We were so lucky."

And below, a video in praise of "George Washington's awesome-ness": Did you know he weighed "a fucking ton"? Well, he did.

On that note, happy birthday, Mr. Washington!

February 13, three letters, one year apart:

On Board the Frigate Boston
5 O Clock in the Afternoon
Feb. 13, 1778

Dearest of Friends

I am favored with an unexpected Opportunity, by Mr. Woodward the later Man who once lived at Mr. Belchers, and who promises in a very kind manner to take great Care of the Letter, to inform you of our Safe Passage from the Moon head, on Board the ship. --The sea ran very high and the Spray of the seas would have wet Us, but Captn. Tucker kindly brought great Coats on Purpose with which he covered Up me and John so that We came very dry. -- Tomorrow Morning We sail. -- God bless you, and my Nabby, my Charley, my Tommy and all my Friends.

Yours, ever, ever, ever yours,

John Adams

Febry. 13. 1779

My Dearest Friend

This is the Anniversary of a very melancholy Day to me, it rose upon me this morning with the recollection of Scenes too tender to Name. -- Your own Sensibility will supply your Memory and dictate to your pen a kind remembrance of those dear connections to whom you waved an adieu, whilst the full Heart and weeping Eye followed your foot steps till intervening objects obstructed the Sight.

This Anniversary shall ever be more particularly Devoted to my Friend till the happy Day arrives that shall give him back to me again. Heaven grant that it may not be far distant, and that the blessings which he has so unweariedly and constantly sought after may crown his Labours and bless his country.

It is with double pleasure that I hold my pen this day to acquaint my Friend that I have had a rich feast indeed, by the Miflin privateer, which arrived here the 8th of this month and brought his Letters of 9 of Sepbr., 23 of october, 2d of November, 2d of December all together making more than I have received since your absence at one time. The Hankerchiefs in which the[y] were tied felt to me like the return of an absent Friend - tis Natural to feel an affection for every thing which belongs to those we love, and most so when the object is far - far distant from us.

You chide me for my complaints, when in reality I had so little occasion for them. I must intreat you to attribute it to the real cause - an over anxious Solicitude to hear of your welfare, and an illgrounded fear least multiplicity of publick cares, and avocations might render you less attentive to your pen than I could wish. But bury my dear Sir, in oblivion every expression of complaint - erase them from the Letters which contain them, as I have from my mind every Idea so contrary to that regard and affection you have ever manifested towards me. -- Have you a coppy of your Letter December the d. Some disagreeable circumstances had agitated your mind News from Rhoad Island - or what? Why was I not by to sooth my Friend to placidness - but I unhappily had contributed to it. With this consideration I read those passages, which would have been omited had the Letter been coppied.

And does my Friend think that there are no hopes of peace? Must we still endure the Desolations of war with all the direfull consequences attending it. -- I fear we must and that America is less and less worthy of the blessings of peace.

Luxery that bainfull poison has unstrung and enfeabled her sons. The soft penetrating plague has insinuated itself into the freeborn mind, blasting that noble ardor, that impatient Scorn of base subjection which formerly distinguished your Native Land, and the Benevolent wish of general good is swallowed up by a Narrow selfish Spirit, by a spirit of oppression and extortion.

Nourished and supported by the flood of paper which has nearly overwhelmed us, and which depreciates in proportion to the exertions to save it, and tho so necessary to us is of less value than any commodity whatever, yet the demand for it is beyond conception, and those to whom great sums of it have fallen, or been acquired, vest it in Luxurys, dissipate it in Extravagance, realize it at any rate. But I hope the time is not far distant when we shall in some measure be extricatd from our present difficulties and a more virtuous spirit succeed the unfealing dissipation which at present prevails. And America shine with virtuous citizens as much as she now deplores her degenerate sons.

Enclosed you will find a Letter wrote at your request, and if rewarded by your approbation it will abundantly gratify your

Portia

Passy Feb. 13 1779

My dearest Friend

Yours of 15 Decr. was sent me Yesterday by the Marquiss whose Praises are celebrated in all the Letters from America. You must be content to receive a short letter, because I have not Time now to write a long one. -- I have lost many of your Letters, which are invaluable to me, and you have lost a vast Number of mine. Barns, Niles, and many other Vessels are lost.

I have received Intelligence much more agreeable than that of a removal to Holland, I mean that of being reduced to a private Citizen which gives me more Pleasure, than you can imagine. I shall therefore soon present before you, your own good Man. Happy - happy indeed shall I be, once more to see our Fireside.

I have written before to Mrs. Warren and shall write again now.

Dr. J. is transcribing your scotch song, which is a charming one. Oh my leaping Heart.

I must not write a Word to you about Politicks, because you are a Woman.

What an offence have I committed? -- a Woman!

I shall soon make it up. I think Women better than Men in General, and I know that you can keep a Secret as well as any Man whatever. But the World dont know this. Therefore if I were to write any Secrets to you and the letter should be caught, and hitched into a Newspaper, the World would say, I was not to be trusted with a Secret.

I never had so much Trouble in my Life, as here, yet I grow fat. The Climate and soil agree with me - so do the Cookery and even the Manners of the People, of those of them at least that I converse with. Churlish Republican, as some of you, on your side the Water call me. The English have got at me in their News Papers. They make fine work of me - fanatic - Bigot - perfect Cypher - not one Word of the Language - aukward Figure - uncouth dress - no Address - No Character - cunning hard headed Attorney. But the falsest of it all is, that I am disgusted with the Parisians - Whereas I declare I admire the Parisians prodigiously. They are the happiest People in the World, I believe, and have the best Disposition to make others so.

If I had your Ladyship and our little folks here, and no Politicks to plague me and an hundred Thousand Livres a Year Rent, I should be the happiest Being on Earth - nay I believe I could make it do with twenty Thousand.

One word of Politicks - The English reproach the French with Gasconade, but I dont believe their whole History could produce so much of it as the English have practised this War.

The Commissioners Proclamation, with its sanction from the Ministry and Ratification by both Houses, I suppose is hereafter to be interpreted like Burgoines - Speaking Daggers, but using none. They cannot send any considerable Reinforcement, nor get an Ally in Europe - this I think you may depend upon. Their Artifice in throwing out such extravagant Threats, was so gross, that I presume it has not imposed on any. Yet a Nation that regarded its Character never could have threatened in that manner.

Adieu.

Today in History: November 14, 1732

On this day in history, the Library Company of Philadelphia (founded by Benjamin Franklin in 1731 - and still open today) hired its first librarian, and opened for "business".

Here is a painting of Benjamin Franklin opening the first subscription library - (painting by Charles Mill):

The Library Company was the brainchild of "The Junto", a group of local merchants and bigwigs in the community, who would gather periodically to talk about philosophy, politics, literature, whatever. Eventually, one of the things that came up in their conversations was the general need for more comprehensive libraries. Naturally having a library of your own at that time was the mark of a successful person, so there were private libraries, mainly in people's homes, and books, in general, were not always easy to come by. So at first, these Junto gentlemen wanted to expand their OWN libraries and thought if they pooled their resources (sharing book seller contacts in America and abroad) they could do that. But eventually, this idea expanded into the thought of creating a subscription library for the entire community.

Here are the "minutes" from the board of directors meeting where that decision was made:

[An] Extract from minutes of the directors of the Library Company of Philadelphia, dated August 31 st ., directed to the President, was read, as follows:

Upon motion, ordered,
That the Librarian furnish the gentlemen, who are to meet in Congress, with the use of such Books as they may have occasion for, during their sitting, taking a receipt for them.
By order of the Directors,

(Signed) William Attmore, Sec'y.

Ordered, That the thanks of the Congress be returned to the Directors of the Library Company of Philadelphia, for their obliging order.

Gives me goosebumps!

Here's a description of the plan from HW Brands' (not-very-good) biography of Ben Franklin: The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin:

Private libraries were common enough among men of wealth in the colonies. Franklin had taken advantage of a few himself. Nor were institutional libraries unheard of; these were usually joined to churches or other bodies heavenly bent. A secular subscription library, however, was something new. Subscribers would pool their resources to buy books all would share and from which all might benefit. Franklin floated the idea in the Junto; upon favorable reception he drew up a charter specifying an initiation fee of forty shillings and annual dues of ten shillings. The charter was signed in July 1731, to take effect upon the collection of fifty subscriptions.

Franklin led the effort to obtain the subscriptions. At first, in doing so, he presented the library as his own idea, as indeed it was. But he encountered a certain resistance on the part of potential subscribers, a subtle yet unmistakable disinclination in some people to give credit by their participation to one so openly civic-minded. They asked themselves, if they did not ask him, what was in this for Ben Franklin that made him so eager to promote the public weeal. To allay their suspicions, Franklin resorted to a subterfuge. "I therefore put myself as much as I could of sight, and stated it as a scheme of a number of friends, who had requested me to go about and propose it to such as they thought lovers of reading."

Within four months the Library Company had its requisite two score and ten commitments. Compiling the initial book order involved identifying favorite titles and consulting James Logan, the most learned man in Pennsylvania. Logan knew Latin, Greek, Hebrew, French, and Italian and was said to be the only person in America sufficiently conversant with mathematics to be able to comprehend Newton's great Principia Mathematica. Before Franklin's emergence, Logan -- who was thirty years the elder and had been the personal protege of William Penn -- was the leading figure of Pennsylvania letters (and numbers). Naturally Franklin cultivated him as source of advice, patronage, and civic goodwill. Logan listed several items essential to the education of any self-respecting person; between these and the titles Franklin and the other library directors chose on their own, early purchases covered topics ranging from geometry to journalism, natural philopsophy to metaphysics, poetry to gardening.

Louis Timothée, a journeyman in Franklin's shop, was hired as librarian, and a room to house the collection was rented. Franklin and the other directors of the library instructed Timothée to open the room from two till three on Wednesday afternoons and from ten till four on Saturdays. Any "civil gentlemen" might peruse the books, but only subscribers could borrow them. (Exception was made for James Logan, in gratitude for his advice in creating the collection.) Borrowers might have one book at a time. Upon accepting a volume each borrower must sign a promissory note covering the cost of the book. This would be voided upon return of the book undamaged. The borrower might then take out another, building his edifice of knowledge, as it were, one brick at a time.

In 1774, they ended up making their entire library collection available to the first Continental Congress which was gathering in Philadelphia in Sept. 1774.

One of the things I am most impressed by, when it comes to our Founding Fathers, is that - unequivocally - each one of them would sense voids in the community (lack of newspapers, or libraries, or fire departments) and so would go about creating whatever needed to be created to fill that void, on their own. They did not look to others. They did not bitch about how there wasn't such-and-such yet. There are notable exceptions, obviously - they were, after all, men of THEIR day and age, not OURS - but in general: every single of one of them were can-do people. They did things themselves, without waiting. They were NOT like the people described in that excerpt above: the ones who were suspicious of Benjamin Franklin's enthusiasm and civic energy. Alexander Hamilton, working as a lawyer in New York, realized how his job was made so much more difficult because all of the laws in New York were not compiled and written down in one place. So, duh, he sat down and wrote that book. A huge undertaking, but SOMEONE had to do it. Nobody asked him to do it. He just sensed that void, feeling it at work in his own life, on a personal level, so decided to change the situation.

Ben Franklin realized that a public subscription library would be a wonderful thing for the community. And so he set about creating it.

So today in history: the Library Company hired Louis Timothée, as the first public librarian in the United States of America.

My father is a librarian. I cherish this date in history. I post it in honor of him.

Today in history: October 19, 1781

The surrender at Yorktown, which ended the American Revolutionary War.

Day before:

General Lord Charles Cornwallis to General George Washington, October 18, 1781

I agree to open a treaty of capitulation upon the basis of the garrisons of York and Gloucester, including seamen, being prisoners of war, without annexing the condition of their being sent to Europe; but I expect to receive a compensation in the articles of capitulation for the surrender of Gloucester in its present state of defence.

I shall, in particular, desire, that the Bonetta sloop of war may be left entirely at my disposal, from the hour that the capitulation is signed, to receive an aid-de-camp to carry my dispatches to Sir Henry Clinton. Such soldiers as I may think proper to send as passengers in her, to be manned with fifty men of her own crew, and to be permitted to sail without examination, when my dispatches are ready: engaging, on my part, that the ship shall be brought back and delivered to you, if she escapes the dangers of the sea, that the crew and soldiers shall be accounted for in future exchanges, that she shall carry off no officer without your consent, nor public property of any kind; and I shall likewise desire, that the traders and inhabitants may preserve their property, and that no person may be punished or molested for having joined the British troops.

If you choose to proceed to negociation on these grounds, I shall appoint two field officers of my army to meet two officers from you, at any time and place that you think proper, to digest the articles of capitulation.

(Check out the full correspondence in the days leading up to the 19th)

Cornwallis had realized that aid would not come in time - and after two days of bombardment - he sent a drummer out into view, who apparently beat the rhythm of: "STOP! LET'S TALK!!!" A British officer high in rank came forward, was blindfolded and taken to George Washington (who was on his last legs himself).

The surrender document had already been drawn up, with Washington dictating the terms. Oh - here are the Articles of Capitulation.

Over 7,000 soldiers surrendered at Yorktown. The war was over.

The story is that as the defeated army marched away, the song "The World Turned Upside Down" was played. I did a quick Google search and there are lots of defensive people out there who feel the need to shout out into the wilds of the Internet, "There is NO evidence that 'The World Turned Upside Down' was played at that moment ..." Ha. I love freaks who take sides in meaningless historical debates like this. I adore them. We are all geeks cut from the same cloth. But still. It's a good story, I think. There are a couple of versions of said song (which has, by itself, a long interesting history). Here is one of the versions:

If buttercups buzz'd after the bee,
If boats were on land, churches on sea,
If ponies rode men and if grass ate the cows,
And cats should be chased into holes by the mouse,
If the mamas sold their babies
To the gypsies for half a crown;
If summer were spring and the other way round,
Then all the world would be upside down.

Dr. James Thacher, who served in the Continental Army, is one of our eyewitnesses of the capitulation, and he published his version of events a couple of years later, the relevant passage being:

"At about twelve o'clock, the combined army was arranged and drawn up in two lines extending more than a mile in length. The Americans were drawn up in a line on the right side of the road, and the French occupied the left. At the head of the former, the great American commander [George Washington], mounted on his noble courser, took his station, attended by his aides. At the head of the latter was posted the excellent Count Rochambeau and his suite. The French troops, in complete uniform, displayed a martial and noble appearance; their bands of music, of which the timbrel formed a part, is a delightful novelty, and produced while marching to the ground a most enchanting effect.

The Americans, though not all in uniform, nor their dress so neat, yet exhibited an erect, soldierly air, and every countenance beamed with satisfaction and joy. The concourse of spectators from the country was prodigious, in point of numbers was probably equal to the military, but universal silence and order prevailed.

It was about two o'clock when the captive army advanced through the line formed for their reception. Every eye was prepared to gaze on Lord Cornwallis, the object of peculiar interest and solicitude; but he disappointed our anxious expectations; pretending indisposition, he made General O'Hara his substitute as the leader of his army. This officer was followed by the conquered troops in a slow and solemn step, with shouldered arms, colors cased and drums beating a British march. Having arrived at the head of the line, General O'Hara, elegantly mounted, advanced to his excellency the commander-in-chief, taking off his hat, and apologized for the non-appearance of Earl Cornwallis. With his usual dignity and politeness, his excellency pointed to Major-General Lincoln for directions, by whom the British army was conducted into a spacious field, where it was intended they should ground their arms.

The royal troops, while marching through the line formed by the allied army, exhibited a decent and neat appearance, as respects arms and clothing, for their commander opened his store and directed every soldier to be furnished with a new suit complete, prior to the capitulation. But in their line of march we remarked a disorderly and unsoldierly conduct, their step was irregular, and their ranks frequently broken.

But it was in the field, when they came to the last act of the drama, that the spirit and pride of the British soldier was put to the severest test: here their mortification could not be concealed. Some of the platoon officers appeared to be exceedingly chagrined when giving the word "ground arms," and I am a witness that they performed this duty in a very unofficer-like manner; and that many of the soldiers manifested a sullen temper, throwing their arms on the pile with violence, as if determined to render them useless. This irregularity, however, was checked by the authority of General Lincoln. After having grounded their arms and divested themselves of their accoutrements, the captive troops were conducted back to Yorktown and guarded by our troops till they could be removed to the place of their destination."

One of my favorite sites, Boston 1775, describes the blame-game that ensued, following the capitulation, between the British generals.

I have put a strategic military map from 1781 below the fold. On it you can see the positions of the British Army commanded by Cornwallis - you can see the American and French forces commanded by Washington - and check out the French fleet comin' down the pike - under Count de Grasse!! The last-minute cavalry charge!

And here is a story - (perhaps it's apocryphal, or an out-and-out fabrication - but I love it nonetheless and I will continue to do my part to spread word of this story far and wide) of Benjamin Franklin's response to the news of the surrender. He was, of course, in Paris at the time, setting the world on fire with his homespun wisdom, bacchanalian propensities, chess-playing abilities, fur-lined hats, and his dazzling ways with the ladies. The vision he presented to the world of what liberty, American-style, looked like. An international celebrity.

Word came to France of the decisive American victory, and the complete surrender to George Washington in Yorktown. Franklin attended a diplomatic dinner shortly thereafter - and, of course, everyone was discussing the British defeat.

The French foreign minister stood, and toasted Louis XVI: "To his Majesty, Louis the Sixteenth, who, like the moon, fills the earth with a soft, benevolent glow."

The British ambassador rose and said, "To George the Third, who, like the sun at noonday, spreads his light and illumines the world."

Franklin rose and countered, "I cannot give you the sun or the moon, but I give you George Washington, General of the armies of the United States, who, like Joshua of old, commanded both the sun and the moon to stand still, and both obeyed."

Map found here in this awesome collection - I could get lost in there forever.

July 4, 1826

It was the 50th anniversary of July 4, 1776. Both John Adams and Thomas Jefferson had been invited to attend huge celebrations in honor of the anniversary, but due to illness - both had sent their regrets and also best wishes, saying they would not be able to come. Thomas Jefferson's letter to the mayor of Washington, declining the invitation, ended as follows:

May it be to the world, what I believe it will be (to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all) the signal of arousing men to burst the chains under which monkish ignorance and superstition and persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings and security of self-government ... All eyes are opened or opening to the rights of man. The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few, booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately by the grace of God. These are the grounds of hope for others; for ourselves, let the annual return of this day forever refresh our recollections of these rights, and an undiminished devotion to them.

Adams was too ill to put pen to paper. The light was going out. For both of them.

These two men, two of the main architects of the American Revolution, long estranged due to political differences, (and Jefferson referring, in public, to "political heresies" among some of his colleagues - a clear dig at Adams - and a clear sign of Jefferson's belief in some political orthodoxy, which was the breaking point for the overly sensitive Adams) had finally reconciled. The reconciliation had been engineered by Benjamin Rush, who thought it a shame that these two great patriots, once dear friends, would go to their graves without making up. Benjamin Rush had a dream that Adams and Jefferson became friends again (I wonder if he really had that dream? Or if it was just a fabrication in order to move things along). Rush wrote to Adams,

"And now, my dear friend, permit me again to suggest to you to receive the olive branch which has thus been offered to you by the hand of a man who still loves you. Fellow laborers in erecting the great fabric of American independence! ... embrace - embrace each other!"

Adams and Jefferson began to correspond ... and it lasted over a period of 12-years ... a correspondence that has to be read to be believed. Rush's dream was prophetic (Adams said so himself: "your prophecy fulfilled! You have worked wonders! .... In short, the mighty defunct Potentates of Mount Wollaston and Monticello by your sorceries ... are again in being."). What an amazing gift to posterity those letters are.

When they finally began corresponding again, Rush (who had also been writing to Jefferson, urging him to make peace) wrote to Adams, and you can feel his excitement in his words:

I rejoice in the correspondence which has taken place between you and your old friend Mr. Jefferson. I consider you and him as the North and South Poles of the American Revolution. Some talked, some wrote, and some fought to promote and establish it but you and Mr. Jefferson thought for us all.

And then ... on the same day in 1826 ... which happened to be July 4 ... which happened to be the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence ... John Adams and Thomas Jefferson both died. Within hours of each other.

David McCullough writes in his biography of John Adams:

That John Adams and Thomas Jefferson had died on the same day, and that it was, of all days, the Fourth of July, could not be seen as a mere coincidence: it was a "visible and palpable" manifestation of "Divine favor," wrote John Quincy Adams in his diary that night, expressing what was felt and would be said again and again everywhere the news spread.

John Adams' last words were either "Jefferson ... still lives." or "Jefferson ... survives."

I will never get tired of thinking about that, wondering, contemplating, shaking my head. I think I know what it means, and WHY Adams said it, and then I realize - No, I have no idea - and I prefer it that way. I prefer the mystery of it, the question, the subtlety - I prefer to just think about it, and wonder about it . I love it.

Amazingly, though, Jefferson actually had died a couple of hours earlier. Which makes this an even more amazing story. Like ... twins who live on opposite sides of the planet, and one twin knows when the other twin scrapes his knee. There are things that cannot be sufficiently explained. There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

Thomas Jefferson's last words are in dispute - but there are enough similarities to suggest that something along these lines occurred. (I love the discrepancy, by the way - I love it because it just adds to the mystery.) According to Robley Dunglison, the attending physician, Jefferson dozed through the day on July 3rd, and woke up in the early evening, saying as he awoke, "Is it the Fourth?" (A lump in my throat ...) Dunglison said to him that it soon would be. Nicholas Trist, married to Jefferson's granddaughter, remembers it this way: Jefferson woke and said, "This is the Fourth?" Trist remembers pretending not to hear the question, because he didn't want to tell Jefferson that it was still only the 3rd of July. But Jefferson asked again, "This is the Fourth?" Trist caved, and nodded - and he felt very bad about his lie. Virginia Randolph, his granddaughter, remembers it differently. She remembers him waking and saying, clearly, "This is the Fourth." No question. A statement. Jefferson faded out after that, and the next day, the Fourth, he called out for help at one point - and someone remembers him saying, at one point, "No, doctor. Nothing more." But it is his question/statement about what the date was that has passed down through the years as Jefferson's final words. In the end, it doesn't really matter, of course, although the story itself is one I treasure, in all its different details.

Did he wait? When he found out it was still just the Third, did he wait? To die on the Fourth? I wouldn't put it past him, he always loved symmetry.

Yes, Mr. Jefferson. It is the fourth. And thank you. Thank you both. Thank you for thinking for us all.

Happy 4th of July, everybody!

On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five; Hardly a man is now alive Who remembers that famous day and year.

On the night of April 18, into April 19, in 1775, Paul Revere made his famous ride.

The spring of 1775 was a tense time. Prominent Bostonians were under constant threat of arrest from the British, and many of them - to avoid this - moved their families to outlying communities. However, two of the main patriotic leaders (Benjamin Church and Joseph Warren) stayed in Boston. Paul Revere did as well, and kept a close eye on British movements through that spring. Revere was trusted as a messenger, he knew everybody.

In mid-April, Revere started to notice some ominous signs: mainly that the British ships were taken out of the water, to be worked on, repaired. He could sense that something was coming. He felt the British were preparing for some kind of attack.

Revere went to Concord on April 16 (most of the weaponry was stored there) and warned the leaders of that community that the British were preparing something, they were up to something, and if they were going to strike, they would most definitely try to seize the weapons stash in Concord. So the people of Concord went to work, hiding their store of weapons in barns, cellars, swamps, etc. (Like I mentioned: Paul Revere was trusted. He knew everybody. If you're interested, read the excerpt I posted of Malcolm Gladwell's fascinating analysis of Paul Revere - and Gladwell's comparison with the far less successful messenger on that very same night - William Dawes.)

So. April 16. Revere returned to Boston from Concord, and met with other revolutionary leaders, and that is when they came up with the "one if by land, two if by sea" warning system. Revere knew they needed a way to have some advance warning about which route the British were going to take when they finally did attack.

By land? Or by sea?

So, Revere set up the system: Signal lanterns would be placed in the belfry of Old North Church (the steeple can be seen across the Charles River). If two lanterns were hung, then the British would be crossing the Charles by boat. If one lantern was hung, then the British would choose to attack using a land route.

"One if by land, two if by sea."

The plan was put in place just in time. On April 18, in the early evening, a stable boy came to Paul Revere, telling him that he had overheard some British soldiers discussing the upcoming attack, and that it was planned for early the next morning. The stable boy knew who to bring this information to, and that was Paul Revere. (Again, check out Gladwell's analysis of Paul Revere's personality. Really interesting.)

Revere, on receiving this urgent piece of information, knew he had to get the warning out (and that he especially had to warn John Hancock and Samuel Adams who, at that time, were hiding out in Lexington).

So off he went on his now legendary ride (here's a cool map of the route he took). Revere took the water route out of Boston, rowed across the Charles, and galloped through the communities north of Boston sounding the alarm. (Medford, Charlestown, Lexington, Concord.) Because of Paul Revere, the British had completely lost the element of surprise. When they came to attack, they found the rebellious colonists waiting for them everywhere, ambushing them left and right, from behind stone walls, hiding behind trees ...

An interesting tidbit (this is why I love this time in American history - yeah, the events themselves are really cool ... but it's details like the following one that really have me hooked, like a crack addict):

In his hurry to depart, Revere forgot to bring along pieces of cloth to wrap the oars of his boat. The purpose of the cloth would be to muffle the sound of the oars cutting through the water. The Somerset (the British man-of-war) was at anchor, right there in the harbor. Paul Revere had to row right by them, and so any sound at all would have alerted the crew, and if Revere was busted, the whole jig would be up. Revere was in a bit of a pickle ... standing by his boat, trying to figure out how he could improvise ... could he take off his stockings? Tie them around the end of the oars?

One of the boatmen involved in helping Revere make this crossing came to the rescue. He ran to his girlfriend's house and asked her for her petticoat. One can only imagine her startled response to the nighttime demand at her door from her beau: "Please, dear. It's 10 pm, and I need you to take off your petticoat, give it to me, and don't ask me ANY questions about it!!" But apparently, this girl, whoever she was, complied - took off her petticoat, handed it over, and Revere used it to wrap up the ends of his oars.

I love that woman, whoever she is.

So. In honor of this great moment in American history -here is Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's celebrated poem "Paul Revere's Ride". And below that, I am posting an old essay I wrote about babysitting Cashel - which is relevant to this date in history. A couple years ago, I read the Cashel piece on a radio program, which was a pretty cool experience - and reading over the piece today makes me nostalgic for when Cashel was so little!!

But back to the poem: I know large swaths of it by heart ... I grew up hearing it. I'm an East Coast girl, most of my family is from Boston. So all of these places in the poem are places I had been to many times as a child, and not just a tourist ... but just because we lived near them. That piece of history felt very real to me. The poem is thrilling to me - because of the story it tells, of course, but also because of its rollicking perfect rhythm, you can feel the suspense, you can feel the urgency, the whole thing ends up sounding like the clatter of horses hooves galloping through the night. It's meant to be read out loud. Try it for yourself!! The last stanza is beyond compare. "For borne on the night-wind of the Past ..." I mean, come ON!!

April 18, 1775. A great day in American history. "The fate of a nation was riding that night." One of my personal favorite stories of the American revolution.

Paul Revere's Ride

Listen my children and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.
He said to his friend, "If the British march
By land or sea from the town to-night,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch
Of the North Church tower as a signal light,--
One if by land, and two if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country folk to be up and to arm."

Then he said "Good-night!" and with muffled oar
Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore,
Just as the moon rose over the bay,
Where swinging wide at her moorings lay
The Somerset, British man-of-war;
A phantom ship, with each mast and spar
Across the moon like a prison bar,
And a huge black hulk, that was magnified
By its own reflection in the tide.

Meanwhile, his friend through alley and street
Wanders and watches, with eager ears,
Till in the silence around him he hears
The muster of men at the barrack door,
The sound of arms, and the tramp of feet,
And the measured tread of the grenadiers,
Marching down to their boats on the shore.

Then he climbed the tower of the Old North Church,
By the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread,
To the belfry chamber overhead,
And startled the pigeons from their perch
On the sombre rafters, that round him made
Masses and moving shapes of shade,--
By the trembling ladder, steep and tall,
To the highest window in the wall,
Where he paused to listen and look down
A moment on the roofs of the town
And the moonlight flowing over all.

Beneath, in the churchyard, lay the dead,
In their night encampment on the hill,
Wrapped in silence so deep and still
That he could hear, like a sentinel's tread,
The watchful night-wind, as it went
Creeping along from tent to tent,
And seeming to whisper, "All is well!"
A moment only he feels the spell
Of the place and the hour, and the secret dread
Of the lonely belfry and the dead;
For suddenly all his thoughts are bent
On a shadowy something far away,
Where the river widens to meet the bay,--
A line of black that bends and floats
On the rising tide like a bridge of boats.

Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride,
Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride
On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere.
Now he patted his horse's side,
Now he gazed at the landscape far and near,
Then, impetuous, stamped the earth,
And turned and tightened his saddle girth;
But mostly he watched with eager search
The belfry tower of the Old North Church,
As it rose above the graves on the hill,
Lonely and spectral and sombre and still.
And lo! as he looks, on the belfry's height
A glimmer, and then a gleam of light!
He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns,
But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight
A second lamp in the belfry burns.

A hurry of hoofs in a village street,
A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,
And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing, a spark
Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet;
That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the light,
The fate of a nation was riding that night;
And the spark struck out by that steed, in his flight,
Kindled the land into flame with its heat.
He has left the village and mounted the steep,
And beneath him, tranquil and broad and deep,
Is the Mystic, meeting the ocean tides;
And under the alders that skirt its edge,
Now soft on the sand, now loud on the ledge,
Is heard the tramp of his steed as he rides.

It was twelve by the village clock
When he crossed the bridge into Medford town.
He heard the crowing of the cock,
And the barking of the farmer's dog,
And felt the damp of the river fog,
That rises after the sun goes down.

It was one by the village clock,
When he galloped into Lexington.
He saw the gilded weathercock
Swim in the moonlight as he passed,
And the meeting-house windows, black and bare,
Gaze at him with a spectral glare,
As if they already stood aghast
At the bloody work they would look upon.

It was two by the village clock,
When he came to the bridge in Concord town.
He heard the bleating of the flock,
And the twitter of birds among the trees,
And felt the breath of the morning breeze
Blowing over the meadow brown.
And one was safe and asleep in his bed
Who at the bridge would be first to fall,
Who that day would be lying dead,
Pierced by a British musket ball.

You know the rest. In the books you have read
How the British Regulars fired and fled,---
How the farmers gave them ball for ball,
From behind each fence and farmyard wall,
Chasing the redcoats down the lane,
Then crossing the fields to emerge again
Under the trees at the turn of the road,
And only pausing to fire and load.

So through the night rode Paul Revere;
And so through the night went his cry of alarm
To every Middlesex village and farm,---
A cry of defiance, and not of fear,
A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,
And a word that shall echo for evermore!
For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,
Through all our history, to the last,
In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
The people will waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,
And the midnight message of Paul Revere.

Paul Revere himself wrote of that time:

In the Fall of 1774 and Winter of 1775 I was one of upwards of thirty, cheifly mechanics, who formed our selves in to a Committee for the purpose of watching the Movements of the British Soldiers, and gaining every intelegence of the movements of the Tories.

We held our meetings at the Green-Dragon Tavern. We were so carefull that our meetings should be kept Secret; that every time we met, every person swore upon the Bible, that they would not discover any of our transactions, But to Messrs. HANCOCK, ADAMS, Doctors WARREN, CHURCH, and one or two more.

About November, when things began to grow Serious, a Gentleman who had Conections with the Tory party, but was a Whig at heart, acquainted me, that our meetings were discovered, and mentioned the identical words that were spoken among us the Night before. . . . We removed to another place, which we thought was more secure: but here we found that all our transactions were communicated to Governor Gage. (This came to me through the then Secretary Flucker; He told it to the Gentleman mentioned above). It was then a common opinion, that there was a Traytor in the provincial Congress, and that Gage was posessed of all their Secrets. (Church was a member of that Congress for Boston.) In the Winter, towards the Spring, we frequently took Turns, two and two, to Watch the Soldiers, By patroling the Streets all night. The Saturday Night preceding the 19th of April, about 12 oClock at Night, the Boats belonging to the Transports were all launched, and carried under the Sterns of the Men of War. (They had been previously hauld up and repaired). We likewise found that the Grenadiers and light Infantry were all taken off duty.

From these movements, we expected something serious was [to] be transacted. On Tuesday evening, the 18th, it was observed, that a number of Soldiers were marching towards the bottom of the Common. About 10 o'Clock, Dr. Warren Sent in great haste for me, and beged that I would imediately Set off for Lexington, where Messrs. Hancock and Adams were, and acquaint them of the Movement, and that it was thought they were the objets. When I got to Dr. Warren's house, I found he had sent an express by land to Lexington—a Mr. Wm. Daws. The Sunday before, by desire of Dr. Warren, I had been to Lexington, to Mess. Hancock and Adams, who were at the Rev. Mr. Clark's. I returned at Night thro Charlestown; there I agreed with a Col. Conant, and some other Gentlemen, that if the British went out by Water, we would shew two Lanthorns in the North Church Steeple; and if by Land, one, as a Signal; for we were aprehensive it would be dificult to Cross the Charles River, or git over Boston neck. I left Dr. Warrens, called upon a friend, and desired him to make the Signals. I then went Home, took my Boots and Surtout, and went to the North part of the Town, Where I had kept a Boat; two friends rowed me across Charles River, a little to the eastward where the Somerset Man of War lay. It was then young flood, the Ship was winding, and the moon was Rising. They landed me on Charlestown side. When I got into Town, I met Col. Conant, and several others; they said they had seen our signals. I told them what was Acting, and went to git me a Horse; I got a Horse of Deacon Larkin. While the Horse was preparing, Richard Devens, Esq. who was one of the Committee of Safty, came to me, and told me, that he came down the Road from Lexington, after Sundown, that evening; that He met ten British Officers, all well mounted, and armed, going up the Road.

I set off upon a very good Horse; it was then about 11 o'Clock, and very pleasant. After I had passed Charlestown Neck, and got nearly opposite where Mark was hung in chains, I saw two men on Horse back, under a Tree. When I got near them, I discovered they were British officer. One tryed to git a head of Me, and the other to take me. I turned my Horse very quick, and Galloped towards Charlestown neck, and then pushed for the Medford Road. The one who chased me, endeavoring to Cut me off, got into a Clay pond, near where the new Tavern is now built. I got clear of him, and went thro Medford, over the Bridge, and up to Menotomy. In Medford, I awaked the Captain of the Minute men; and after that, I alarmed almost every House, till I got to Lexington. I found Messrs. Hancock and Adams at the Rev. Mr. Clark's; I told them my errand, and inquired for Mr. Daws; they said he had not been there; I related the story of the two officers, and supposed that He must have been stopped, as he ought to have been there before me. After I had been there about half an Hour, Mr. Daws came; we refreshid our selves, and set off for Concord, to secure the Stores, &c. there. We were overtaken by a young Docter Prescot, whom we found to be a high Son of Liberty. I told them of the ten officers that Mr. Devens mett, and that it was probable we might be stoped before we got to Concord; for I supposed that after Night, they divided them selves, and that two of them had fixed themselves in such passages as were most likely to stop any intelegence going to Concord. I likewise mentioned, that we had better allarm all the Inhabitents till we got to Concord; the young Doctor much approved of it, and said, he would stop with either of us, for the people between that and Concord knew him, and would give the more credit to what we said. We had got nearly half way. Mr Daws and the Doctor stoped to allarm the people of a House: I was about one hundred Rod a head, when I saw two men, in nearly the same situation as those officer were, near Charlestown. I called for the Doctor and Daws to come up;—in an Instant I was surrounded by four;—they had placed themselves in a Straight Road, that inclined each way; they had taken down a pair of Barrs on the North side of the Road, and two of them were under a tree in the pasture. The Docter being foremost, he came up; and we tryed to git past them; but they being armed with pistols and swords, they forced us in to the pasture;—the Docter jumped his Horse over a low Stone wall, and got to Concord. I observed a Wood at a Small distance, and made for that. When I got there, out Started Six officers, on Horse back, and orderd me to dismount;—one of them, who appeared to have the command, examined me, where I came from, and what my Name Was? I told him. He asked me if I was an express? I answered in the afirmative. He demanded what time I left Boston? I told him; and aded, that their troops had catched aground in passing the River, and that There would be five hundred Americans there in a short time, for I had alarmed the Country all the way up. He imediately rode towards those who stoppd us, when all five of them came down upon a full gallop; one of them, whom I afterwards found to be Major Mitchel, of the 5th Regiment, Clapped his pistol to my head, called me by name, and told me he was going to ask me some questions, and if I did not give him true answers, he would blow my brains out. He then asked me similar questions to those above. He then orderd me to mount my Horse, after searching me for arms. He then orderd them to advance, and to lead me in front. When we got to the Road, they turned down towards Lexington. When we had got about one Mile, the Major Rode up to the officer that was leading me, and told him to give me to the Sergeant. As soon as he took me, the Major orderd him, if I attempted to run, or any body insulted them, to blow my brains out. We rode till we got near Lexington Meeting-house, when the Militia fired a Voley of Guns, which appeared to alarm them very much. The Major inquired of me how far it was to Cambridge, and if there were any other Road? After some consultation, the Major Rode up to the Sargent, and asked if his Horse was tired? He answered him, he was--(He was a Sargent of Grenadiers, and had a small Horse)—then, said He, take that man's Horse. I dismounted, and the Sargent mounted my Horse, when they all rode towards Lexington Meeting-House. I went across the Burying-ground, and some pastures, and came to the Revd. Mr. Clark's House, where I found Messrs. Hancok and Adams. I told them of my treatment, and they concluded to go from that House to wards Woburn. I went with them, and a Mr. Lowell, who was a Clerk to Mr. Hancock. When we got to the House where they intended to stop, Mr. Lowell and my self returned to Mr. Clark's, to find what was going on. When we got there, an elderly man came in; he said he had just come from the Tavern, that a Man had come from Boston, who said there were no British troops coming. Mr. Lowell and my self went towards the Tavern, when we met a Man on a full gallop, who told us the Troops were coming up the Rocks. We afterwards met another, who said they were close by. Mr. Lowell asked me to go to the Tavern with him, to git a Trunk of papers belonging to Mr. Hancock. We went up Chamber; and while we were giting the Trunk, we saw the British very near, upon a full March. We hurried to wards Mr. Clark's House. In our way, we passed through the Militia. There were about 50. When we had got about 100 Yards from the meeting-House the British Troops appeard on both Sides of the Meeting-House. In their Front was an Officer on Horse back. They made a Short Halt; when I saw, and heard, a Gun fired, which appeared to be a Pistol. Then I could distinguish two Guns, and then a Continual roar of Musquetry; When we made off with the Trunk.

As I have mentioned Dr. Church, perhaps it might not be disagreeable to mention some Matters of my own knowledge, respecting Him. He appeared to be a high son of Liberty. He frequented all the places where they met, Was incouraged by all the leaders of the Sons of Liberty, and it appeared he was respected by them, though I knew that Dr. Warren had not the greatest affection for him. He was esteemed a very capable writer, especially in verese; and as the Whig party needed every Strenght, they feared, as well as courted Him. Though it was known, that some of the Liberty Songs, which We composed, were parodized by him, in favor of the British, yet none dare charge him with it. I was a constant and critical observer of him, and I must say, that I never thought Him a man of Principle; and I doubted much in my own mind, wether He was a real Whig. I knew that He kept company with a Capt. Price, a half-pay British officer, and that He frequently dined with him, and Robinson, one of the Commissioners. I know that one of his intimate aquaintances asked him why he was so often with Robinson and Price? His answer was, that He kept Company with them on purpose to find out their plans. The day after the Battle of Lexington, I met him in Cambridge, when He shew me some blood on his stocking, which he said spirted on him from a Man who was killed near him, as he was urging the Militia on. I well remember, that I argued with my self, if a Man will risque his life in a Cause, he must be a Friend to that cause; and I never suspected him after, till He was charged with being a Traytor.

The full letter can be read here.

ONE IF BY LAND
We colored for a while. As we waited for the pizza to arrive. Cashel commanded me to draw a house. So I did. Cashel was basically the architect and the interior designer. Telling me what he wanted to see.

"Put a playroom in the attic."

"But Auntie Sheila -- where are the stairs??"

I drew the bathroom, and the mere sight of the toilet caused Cashel to dissolve into mirth. Yes. Toilets are hilarious.

I drew a spiral staircase which blew Cashel away. "That's so COOL." Then I drew the living room. I said, "I think there needs to be a picture on the wall. Or a portrait. Whose picture should be on the wall, you think?"

Cashel said bluntly, "Einstein."

Okay, then. Einstein. So I drew this little cartoon of Einstein, with the crazy hair coming up, and Cashel said seriously, with all of his knowledge, "That really looks like Einstein."

We ate our pizza together, talking about stuff. Star Wars, Ben Franklin. Cashel informed me, "Ben Franklin discovered lightning."

Cashel is a wealth of information. Randomly, he told my parents that Vincent Van Gogh never sold a painting while he was alive, but that after he died, he became famous.

I read him a story. It was from the book of "Disney stories" which I had given him for his birthday. He loves it. He pulled it out of the bookshelf, and I said, "Oh! I gave that to you!" Cashel said, a little bit annoyed, "I know that."

He had me read the story of the little mouse who hung out with Ben Franklin, and basically (in the world of Disney) was the inspiration for all of Ben Franklin's famous moments. Cashel would shoot questions at me. "Why is Ben Franklin's hair white?" "Well ... he's old now. But also, in those days, men wore powdered wigs." Cashel's little serious face, listening, sponging this all up. Probably the next day he informed his friends that men in the olden days wore powdered wigs. He's that kind of listener, that kind of learner.

Then he put on his Obi Wan Kenobi costume which Grandma Peggy made him for Christmas. A long hooded brown cloak ... and he hooked his light saber into his waist, and galloped off down the hall. A mini Jedi knight.

I had him pick out three stories to read before bedtime. He sat beside me, curled up into me, looking at the pictures as I read to him. The last one we read was Longfellow's poem "Paul Revere's Ride". This poem was a favorite of ours, when we were kids. My dad would read it to us, and even now, when I read the words, I hear them in my father's voice. A magical poem. The way my dad read it to us (along with Longfellow's help) made us SEE it. The clock tower, the moon, the darkness ... the sense of anticipation, of secrecy, of urgency. It was thrilling. So I love that this is being passed on to Cashel! I've never read the poem outloud before, so I had one of those strange moments of the space-time continuum bending, me stepping into my father's shoes, Cashel 5 years old beside me, feeling the ghost of my own 5 year old self listening.

I also remember how Brendan and I used to chime in gleefully: "ONE IF BY LAND, TWO IF BY SEA!" And Cashel did the same thing. I paused before that moment in the poem, glanced down at him, and he screamed out, "ONE IF BY LAND, TWO IF BY SEA!"

There was also a subtlety of understanding in Cashel. For example, I read this part:

And lo! as he looks, on the belfry's height
A glimmer, and then a gleam of light!
He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns,
But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight
A second lamp in the belfry burns.

And Cashel exclaimed, in a sort of "Uh-oh" tone, "They're comin' by sea!!" Now the words don't actually SAY that, but he remembered the "one if by land two if by sea" signal, and puts it all together. That's my boy!

I remembered the first lines from memory:

Listen my children and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.

Again, those are just words on the page. But to me, they are filled with the echoes of my father's voice.

Cashel and I, as we went through the poem, had to stop many times for discussions.

There was one illustration of all the minute-men, hiding behind the stone walls, with a troop of Redcoats marching along, walking straight into the ambush. Cashel pointed at it, and stated firmly, "That's the civil war."

"Nope. Nope. That is actually a picture from the American Revolutionary War."

Cashel pondered this. Taking it in. Then: "The minute-men were in the civil war." But less certain. Glancing up at me for explanation.

"Nope. The minute-men were soldiers in the American Revolution. Do you know why they called them that?"

"Why?"

"Cause they were farmers, and regular people ... but they could be ready to go into battle in a minute."

Again, a long silence. Cashel filed this away for safekeeping. He forgets nothing.

"So ... Auntie Sheila ... what is the difference between the Revolutionary War and the Civil War?"

Woah. Okay. This will be a test. How to describe all of that in 5-year-old language. I mean, frankly, Cashel is not like a five-year-old at all. But still. Everything must be boiled down into its simplest components.

"Well. America used to be a part of England, and the American Revolutionary War was when America decided that it wanted to be free ... and Americans basically told the Brits to go home." Uh-oh. Brits? This is an inflammatory term. I corrected myself. "America told Great Britain that it wanted to be its own country. And the Civil War ... " Hmmm. How to begin ... what to say ... I know it was about more than slavery, but I decided to only focus on that one aspect. Economic theory and regional cultural differences would be too abstract. "In those days, Cashel, black people were slaves. And it was very very wrong. Can you understand that?"

He nodded. His little serious face.

"And the people in the South wanted to keep their slaves, and the people in the North said to the people in the South that they had to give up their slaves. And they ended up going to war. And eventually all the slaves were free."

Cashel accepted this explanation silently. Then he pointed back to the Paul Revere poem. "Read." he commanded.

The perfect library

110 best books ...

Of course the thing with these lists is people get uppity and pissed, either by what is left off (My first uppity question is: "where the hell is Harriet the Spy??") or by the bias shown by the list-maker ("He's such a snob!" - Or - "what the hell is such-and-such doing on that list?? THAT INVALIDATES THE WHOLE LIST.") Etc. You know, people go apeshit. But it's really just because they want us to know who THEY are, and the books THEY would choose. And they express themselves in a defensive manner. They get angry at the elitism in lists, they get angry at what they feel is the lack of respect for their perfect library. I get annoyed with such people, mainly because I get annoyed when people get angry for no reason. Don't get so pissed off: Tell me YOUR perfect library then, but without the chip on your shoulder, how 'bout? I understand you want to be heard. And seen. I get that. We all want to be known. And to book lovers, it IS by our books that we are known. Some lists are ridiculous and snotty, and some do reveal the bias of the list-maker, and all that - but I still think they are interesting jumping-off points for conversation. I mean looking at that list, I can honestly say that The Beauty Myth did not change MY world - as a matter of fact I have some pretty strong negative feelings about Naomi Wolf (Ahem) - and so that shows the bias of the list-maker, but I choose not to discount the list entire because of stuff like that. Bias is interesting. So apparently - to that list-maker, it was a book that changed his/her world ... how fascinating. I wouldn't have it on my list, but it's interesting to see it there nonetheless. I have many of the books on the list, naturally - many I do not have and feel I should get - I had forgotten all about The Railway Children - I LOVED that book when I was little, loved loved loved it ... and now I realize I have been separated from it for FAR too long!

Some view of my library - which is far from perfect, but which gives me great pleasure:

The list - which is supposed to make up a "perfect library" reminds me of two things - a letter Charlotte Bronte wrote, where she recommended books to a friend (a female friend) - and also a letter Thomas Jefferson wrote, where he listed, exhaustively, the books every gentleman should have in his library. It's worth printing both of these in full:

CHARLOTTE BRONTE:

"You ask me to recommend you some books for your perusal. I will do so in as few words as I can. If you like poetry, let it be first-rate; Milton, Shakespeare, Thomson, Goldsmith, Pope (if you will, though I don't admire him), Scott, Byron, Campbell, Wordsworth, and Southey. Now don't be startled at the names of Shakespeare and Byron. Both these were great men, and their works are like themselves. You will know how to choose the good, and to avoid the evil; the finest passages are always the purest, the bad are invariably revolting; you will never wish to read them over twice. Omit the comedies of Shakespeare and the Don Juan, perhaps the Cain, of Byron, though the latter is a magnificent poem, and read the rest fearlessly; that must indeed be a depraved mind which can gather evil from Henry VIII, from Richard III, from Macbeth, and Hamlet, and Julius Caesar. Scott's sweet, wild, romantic poetry can do you no harm. Nor can Wordsworth's, nor Campbell's, nor Southey's -- the greatest part at least of his; some is certainly objectionable. For history, read Hume, Rollin, and the Universal History, if you can; I never did. For fiction, read Scott alone; all novels after his are worthless. For biography, read Johnson's Lives of the Poets, Boswell's Life of Johnson, Southey's Life of Nelson, Lockhart's Life of Burns, Moore's Life of Sheridan, Moore's Life of Byron, Wolfe's Remains. For natural history, read Bewick and Audobon, and Goldsmith, and White's History of Selborne. For divinity, your brother will advise you there. I can only say, adhere to standard authors, and avoid novelty."

I mean, honestly.

And are you ready for Thomas Jefferson's "gentleman's library"? I never look at this without feeling bad about myself, and woefully uneducated.

Thomas Jefferson to Robert Skip with a List of Books, Aug. 3, 1771

I sat down with a design of executing your request to form a catalogue of books to the amount of about 50 lib. sterl. But could by no means satisfy myself with any partial choice I could make. Thinking therefore it might be as agreeable to you I have framed such a general collection as I think you would wish and might in time find convenient to procure. Out of this you will chuse for yourself to the amount you mentioned for the present year and may hereafter as shall be convenient proceed in completing the whole. A view of the second column in this catalogue would I suppose extort a smile from the face of gravity. Peace to its wisdom! Let me not awaken it. A little attention however to the nature of the human mind evinces that the entertainments of fiction are useful as well as pleasant. That they are pleasant when well written every person feels who reads. But wherein is its utility asks the reverend sage, big with the notion that nothing can be useful but the learned lumber of Greek and Roman reading with which his head is stored?

I answer, everything is useful which contributes to fix in the principles and practices of virtue. When any original act of charity or of gratitude, for instance, is presented either to our sight or imagination, we are deeply impressed with its beauty and feel a strong desire in ourselves of doing charitable and grateful acts also. On the contrary when we see or read of any atrocious deed, we are disgusted with it's deformity, and conceive an abhorence of vice. Now every emotion of this kind is an exercise of our virtuous dispositions, and dispositions of the mind, like limbs of the body acquire strength by exercise. But exercise produces habit, and in the instance of which we speak the exercise being of the moral feelings produces a habit of thinking and acting virtuously. We never reflect whether the story we read be truth or fiction. If the painting be lively, and a tolerable picture of nature, we are thrown into a reverie, from which if we awaken it is the fault of the writer. I appeal to every reader of feeling and sentiment whether the fictitious murther of Duncan by Macbeth in Shakespeare does not excite in him as great a horror of villany, as the real one of Henry IV. by Ravaillac as related by Davila? And whether the fidelity of Nelson and generosity of Blandford in Marmontel do not dilate his breast and elevate his sentiments as much as any similar incident which real history can furnish? Does he not in fact feel himself a better man while reading them, and privately covenant to copy the fair example? We neither know nor care whether Lawrence Sterne really went to France, whether he was there accosted by the Franciscan, at first rebuked him unkindly, and then gave him a peace offering: or whether the whole be not fiction. In either case we equally are sorrowful at the rebuke, and secretly resolve we will never do so: we are pleased with the subsequent atonement, and view with emulation a soul candidly acknowleging it's fault and making a just reparation. Considering history as a moral exercise, her lessons would be too infrequent if confined to real life. Of those recorded by historians few incidents have been attended with such circumstances as to excite in any high degree this sympathetic emotion of virtue. We are therefore wisely framed to be as warmly interested for a fictitious as for a real personage. The field of imagination is thus laid open to our use and lessons may be formed to illustrate and carry home to the heart every moral rule of life. Thus a lively and lasting sense of filial duty is more effectually impressed on the mind of a son or daughter by reading King Lear, than by all the dry volumes of ethics, and divinity that ever were written. This is my idea of well written Romance, of Tragedy, Comedy and Epic poetry. -- If you are fond of speculation the books under the head of Criticism will afford you much pleasure. Of Politics and Trade I have given you a few only of the best books, as you would probably chuse to be not unacquainted with those commercial principles which bring wealth into our country, and the constitutional security we have for the enjoiment ofthat wealth. In Law I mention a few systematical books, as a knowledge of the minutiae of that science is not neces-sary for a private gentleman. In Religion, History, Natural philosophy, I have followed the same plan in general, -- But whence the necessity of this collection? Come to the new Rowanty, from which you may reach your hand to a library formed on a more extensive plan. Separated from each other but a few paces the possessions of each would be open to the other. A spring centrically situated might be the scene of every evening's joy. There we should talk over the lessons of the day, or lose them in music, chess or the merriments of our family companions. The heart thus lightened our pillows would be soft, and health and long life would attend the happy scene. Come then and bring our dear Tibby with you, the first in your affections, and second in mine. Offer prayers for me too at that shrine to which tho' absent I pray continual devotions. In every scheme of happiness she is placed in the foreground of the picture, as the princi-pal figure. Take that away, and it is no picture for me. Bear my affections to Wintipock clothed in the warmest expressions of sincerity; and to yourself be every human felicity.

Adieu.

FINE ARTS.

Observations on gardening. Payne. 5/
Webb's essay on painting. 12mo 3/
Pope's Iliad. 18/
------- Odyssey. 15/
Dryden's Virgil. 12mo. 12/
Milton's works. 2 v. 8vo. Donaldson. Edinburgh 1762. 10/
Hoole's Tasso. 12mo. 5/
Ossian with Blair's criticisms. 2 v. 8vo. 10/
Telemachus by Dodsley. 6/
Capell's Shakespear. 12mo. 30/
Dryden's plays. 6v. 12mo. 18/
Addison's plays. 12mo. 3/
Otway's plays. 3 v. 12mo. 9/
Rowe's works. 2 v. 12mo. 6/
Thompson's works. 4 v. 12mo. 12/
Young's works. 4 v. 12mo. 12/
Home's plays. 12mo. 3/
Mallet's works. 3 v. 12mo. 9/
Mason's poetical works. 5/
Terence. Eng. 3/
Moliere. Eng. 15/
Farquhar's plays. 2 v. 12mo. 6/
Vanbrugh's plays. 2 v. 12mo. 6/
Steele's plays. 3/
Congreve's works. 3 v. 12mo. 9/
Garric's dramatic works. 2 v. 8vo. 10/
Foote's dramatic works. 2 v. 8vo. 10/
Rousseau's Eloisa. Eng. 4 v. 12mo. 12/
----- Emilius and Sophia. Eng. 4 v. 12mo. 12/
Marmontel's moral tales. Eng. 2 v. 12mo. 12/
Gil Blas. by Smollett. 6/
Don Quixot. by Smollett 4 v. 12mo. 12/
David Simple. 2 v. 12mo. 6/
Roderic Random. 2 v. 12mo. 6/ these are written by Smollett
Peregrine Pickle. 4 v. 12mo. 12/
Launcelot Graves. 6/
Adventures of a guinea. 2 v. 12mo. 6/
Pamela. 4 v. 12mo. 12/ these are by Richardson.
Clarissa. 8 v. 12mo. 24/
Grandison. 7 v. 12mo. 9/
Fool of quality. 3 v. 12mo. 9/
Feilding's works. 12 v. 12mo. pound 1.16
Constantia. 2 v. 12mo. 6/ by Langhorne.
Solyman and Almena. 12mo. 3/
Belle assemblee. 4 v. 12mo. 12/
Vicar of Wakefeild. 2 v. 12mo. 6/. by Dr. Goldsmith
Sidney Bidulph. 5 v. 12mo. 15/
Lady Julia Mandeville. 2 v. 12mo. 6/
Almoran and Hamet. 2 v. 12mo. 6/
Tristam Shandy. 9 v. 12mo. pound 1.7
Sentimental journey. 2 v. 12mo. 6/
Fragments of antient poetry. Edinburgh. 2/
Percy's Runic poems. 3/
Percy's reliques of antient English poetry. 3 v. 12mo. 9/
Percy's Han Kiou Chouan. 4 v. 12mo. 12/
Percy's Miscellaneous Chinese peices. 2 v. 12mo. 6/
Chaucer. 10/
Spencer. 6 v. 12mo. 15/
Waller's poems. 12mo. 3/
Dodsley's collection of poems. 6 v. 12mo. 18/
Pearch's collection of poems. 4 v. 12mo. 12/
Gray's works. 5/
Ogilvie's poems. 5/
Prior's poems. 2 v. 12mo. Foulis. 6/
Gay's works. 12mo. Foulis. 3/
Shenstone's works. 2 v. 12mo. 6/
Dryden's works. 4 v. 12mo. Foulis. 12/
Pope's works. by Warburton. 12mo. pound 1.4
Churchill's poems. 4 v. 12mo. 12/
Hudibrass. 3/
Swift's works. 21 v. small 8vo. pound 3.3
Swift's literary correspondence. 3 v. 9/
Spectator. 9 v. 12mo. pound 1.7
Tatler. 5 v. 12mo. 15/
Guardian. 2 v. 12mo. 6/
Freeholder. 12mo. 3/
Ld. Lyttleton's Persian letters. 12mo. 3/

CRITICISM ON THE FINE ARTS.

Ld. Kaim's elements of criticism. 2 v. 8vo. 10/
Burke on the sublime and beautiful. 8vo. 5/
Hogarth's analysis of beauty. 4to. pound 1.1
Reid on the human mind. 8vo. 5/
Smith's theory of moral sentiments. 8vo. 5/
Johnson's dictionary. 2 v. fol. pound 3
Capell's prolusions. 12mo. 3/

POLITICKS, TRADE.

Montesquieu's spirit of the laws. 2 v. 12mo. 6/
Locke on government. 8vo. 5/
Sidney on government. 4to. 15/
Marmontel's Belisarius. 12mo. Eng. 3/
Ld. Bolingbroke's political works. 5 v. 8vo. pound 1.5
Montesquieu's rise & fall of the Roman governmt. 12mo. 3/
Steuart's Political oeconomy. 2 v. 4to. pound 1.10
Petty's Political arithmetic. 8vo. 5/

RELIGION.

Locke's conduct of the mind in search of truth. 12mo. 3/
Xenophon's memoirs of Socrates. by Feilding. 8vo. 5/
Epictetus. by Mrs. Carter. 2 v. 12mo. 6/
Antoninus by Collins. 3/
Seneca. by L'Estrange. 8vo. 5/
Cicero's Offices. by Guthrie. 8vo. 5/
Cicero's Tusculan questions. Eng. 3/
Ld. Bolingbroke's Philosophical works. 5 v. 8vo. pound 1.5
Hume's essays. 4 v. 12mo. 12/
Ld. Kaim's Natural religion. 8vo. 6/
Philosophical survey of Nature. 3/
Oeconomy of human life. 2/
Sterne's sermons. 7 v. 12mo. pound 1.1
Sherlock on death. 8vo. 5/
Sherlock on a future state. 5/

LAW.

Ld. Kaim's Principles of equity. fol. pound 1.1
Blackstone's Commentaries. 4 v. 4to. pound 4.4
Cuningham's Law dictionary. 2 v. fol. pound 3

HISTORY. ANTIENT.

Bible. 6/
Rollin's Antient history. Eng. 13 v. 12mo. pound 1.19
Stanyan's Graecian history. 2 v. 8vo. 10/
Livy. (the late translation). 12/
Sallust by Gordon. 12mo. 12/
Tacitus by Gordon. 12mo. 15/
Caesar by Bladen. 8vo. 5/
Josephus. Eng. 1.0
Vertot's Revolutions of Rome. Eng. 9/
Plutarch's lives. by Langhorne. 6 v. 8vo. pound 1.10
Bayle's Dictionary. 5 v. fol. pound 7.10.
Jeffery's Historical & Chronological chart. 15/

HISTORY. MODERN.

Robertson's History of Charles the Vth. 3 v. 4to. pound 3.3
Bossuet's history of France. 4 v. 12mo. 12/
Davila. by Farneworth. 2 v. 4to. pound 1.10.
Hume's history of England. 8 v. 8vo. pound 2.8.
Clarendon's history of the rebellion. 6 v. 8vo. pound 1.10.
Robertson's history of Scotland. 2 v. 8vo. 12/
Keith's history of Virginia. 4to. 12/
Stith's history of Virginia. 6/

NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. NATURAL HISTORY &c.

Nature displayed. Eng. 7 v. 12mo.
Franklin on Electricity. 4to. 10/
Macqueer's elements of Chemistry. 2 v. 8vo. 10/
Home's principles of agriculture. 8vo. 5/
Tull's horse-hoeing husbandry. 8vo. 5/
Duhamel's husbandry. 4to. 15/
Millar's Gardener's diet. fol. pound 2.10.
Buffon's natural history. Eng. pound 2.10.
A compendium of Physic & Surgery. Nourse. 12mo. 1765. 3/
Addison's travels. 12mo. 3/
Anson's voiage. 8vo. 6/
Thompson's travels. 2 v. 12mo. 6/
Lady M. W. Montague's letters. 3 v. 12mo. 9/

MISCELLANEOUS.

Ld. Lyttleton's dialogues of the dead. 8vo. 5/
Fenelon's dialogues of the dead. Eng. 12mo. 3/
Voltaire's works. Eng. pound 4.
Locke on Education. 12mo. 3/
Owen's Dict. of arts & sciences 4 v. 8vo. pound 2.

Happy birthday to James Madison

... fourth President of the United States, born on this day in Virginia, 1751.

"The principles and modes of government are too important to be disregarded by an inquisitive mind, and I think are well worthy of a critical examination by all students that have health and leisure." -- James Madison, age 22, to his friend who was just beginning to study the law

Elected to the presidency in 1808 - and then again for a second term in 1812 - - he didn't really have a good time of it in office, what with, you know, the war of 1812 and all, and the Brits burning down our damn capital. Not a very successful President - but the story of his administration is a fascinating one - its failures, its successes, war again ... Henry Clay said about Madison, as President, "Nature has cast him in too benevolent a mould. Admirably adapted to the tranquil scenes of peace, blending all the mild and amiable virtues, he is not fit for the rough and rude blasts which the conflicts of nations generate."

Madison's greatest accomplishment was his crafting of the US Constitution and also his commitment (second only to Alexander Hamilton's) to getting it ratified. Madison wrote Federalist #10 - probably the most famous of all of the Federalist Papers (I babble about it here) - although, if you haven't read them all in their entirety, all I can say is: do yourself a favor! (Excerpt here from # 15) It's the best civics class you'll ever get. Madison's mind was sharp, probing, deep - and all of the great political minds (especially the Virginians at the time) looked to him for guidance. Federalist #10 warns about the dangers of factions. But Madison, in his cunning behind-the-scenes manner, was hardly a neutral party himself in the battles of the day - and he had famous fights and breaks with his compatriots over matters of policy.

In May of 1787, the delegates arrived in Philadelphia for the Constitutional Convention ... the articles of Confederation, which loosely held the states together, were proving far too inefficient as time went on ... and people like Madison, Hamilton, John Jay, and certainly Washington - who had been raging about the slowness of Congress since the war began - thought that the articles needed to be revised. As Washington wrote, "Thirteen sovereignties pulling against each other, and all tugging at the foederal head, will soon bring ruin on the whole." However, these were conservative men, despite their revolutionary fervor - they were not interested in tearing things down - but building upon foundations already there ... so it was not considered that a whole new form of government was going to be raised - although Madison - and Hamilton - went in there with preconceived notions, definitely. Nobody was more prepared than those two. The Articles could not stand. Earlier that year, the Shays Rebellion had taken place - which had pretty much freaked everyone out. What had happened to solidarity? Should military force be used to put down the rebellion? There couldn't have been a better time for the Constitutional Convention.

Catherine Drinker-Bowen, in her WONDERFUL book Miracle at Philadelphia, describes the beginning of the Convention - with a wonderful mini-portrait of James Madison:

On the twenty-fifth of May, when a quorum was obtained, Washington was unanimously elected president of the Convention and escorted to the chair. From his desk on the raised dais he made a little speech of acceptance, depreciating his ability to give satisfaction in a scene so novel. "When seated," wrote a member, "he declared that as he never had been in such a situation he felt himself embarrassed, that he hoped his errors, as they would be unintended, would be excused. He lamented his want of qualifications."...

In the front row near the desk, James Madison sat bowed over his tablet, writing steadily. His eyes were blue, his face ruddy; he did not have the scholar's pallor. His figure was well-knit and muscular and he carried his clothes with style. Though he usually wore black, he has also been described as handsomely dressed in blue and buff, with ruffles at breast and wrist. Already he was growing bald and brushed his hair down to hide it; he wore a queue and powder. He walked with the quick bouncing step that sometimes characterizes men of remarkable energy.

As a reporter Madison was indefatigable, his notes comprehensive, set down without comment or aside. One marvels that he was able at the same time to take so large a part in the debates. It is true that in old age Madison made some emendations in the record to accord with various disparate notes which later came to light; he has been severely criticized for it. Other members took notes at the Convention: Hamilton, Yates and Lansing of New York, McHenry of Maryland, Paterson of New Jersey, Rufus King of Massachusetts, William Pierce of Georgia, George Mason of Virginia. But most of these memoranda were brief, incomplete; had it not been for Madison we should possess very scanty records of the Convention. His labors, he said later, nearly killed him. "I chose a seat," he afterward wrote, "in front of the presiding member, with the other members on my right and left hand. In this favorable position for hearing all that passed, I noted in terms legible and in abbreviations and marks intelligble to myself what was read from the Chair or spoken by the members; and losing not a moment unnecessarily between the adjournment and reassembling of the Convention I was enabled to write out my daily notes during the session or within a few finishing days after its close in the extent and form preserved in my own hand on my files ... I was not absent a single day, nor more than a casual fraction of an hour in any day, so that I could not have lost a single speech, unless a very short one."

It was, actually, a tour de force, not to be published -- and scarcely seen -- until thirty years after the Convention. "Do you know," wrote Jefferson to John Adams from Monticello in 1815, "that there exists in manuscript the ablest work of this kind ever yet executed, of the debates of the constitutional convention of Philadelphia ...? The whole of everything said and done there was taken down by Mr. Madison, with a labor and exactness beyond comprehension." ...

As I mentioned before, these were all practical men - and many of them had gathered with practical concerns, about raising money, and internal improvements - and how the Articles would be able to handle such large projects. Madison and Hamilton kept their cards close to their chests, at first ... (this, of course, was long before their famous break ...) Hamilton was a practical man as well. He had a lot of problems with the Constitution as it was laid out in embryonic form by Madison. But he recognized the genius within, recognized the need for such a thing - and nobody - but NOBODY - worked harder for ratification than my dead boyfriend. It is amazing the amount of print he was able to devote to the Federalist Papers - it STILL boggles the mind.

But back to Madison. Poor man ... his glittery compatriots always have a way of stealing the spotlight, don't they?? -

Catherine Drinker-Bowen goes on:

Time would pass before members realized how far the plans of such men as Madison and Hamilton reached, and what the Constitution promised to be. It would be misleading to name thus early the Constitution's "enemies", or to set down this name or that as "against" the Constitution. Five delegates in the end would refuse to sign -- Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts, Yates and Lansing of New York, George Mason and Edmund Randolph of Virginia -- all men of decided views and each with a different reason for his action. More vociferous than any of these would be Luther Martin of Maryland, who, though out of town on private business at the moment of signing, later declared that had he been present he would have given the document his "solemn negative," even had he "stood single and alone".

It would be four months before the Constitution was finally ratified and signed.

I know I'm leaping around in a frightful way, sorry. Garry Wills has some very interesting thoughts on the famous Federalist 10 in his book on James Madison - it's long, but worth quoting in full:

Madison's debut contribution [to "The Federalist Papers"], would in time (a long time) become the most famous of them all. It crammed into a narrow space all the arguments Madison had been sifting and refining in his opposition to the Continental Congress's weakness, in his preparation for the convention, in his crafting of the Virginia Plan, and in his debates at the convention. Madison goes behind specific weaknesses in the Articles to expose the fundamental error on which the Articles were based, the idea that the only worthy democracy is direct democracy.

Madison's attack on that concept is so radical for its time that it is often downplayed, or even altogether missed. The most important passage in the Number is its claim that no man can be a judge in his own case. Not much is made of that in some treatments of the Number. We hear about the tyranny of majorities (though Madison treats that as just a symptom of direct democracy). We hear about the difference between a small republic and an extended republic (whereas Madison is talking about the difference between a direct democracy and a republic). We hear that Madison wanted to multiply factions (though he thought all factions bad things). We hear that Madison wanted to create a national elite, above the states, because he distrusted the people (though his system calls precisely for trust - direct democracy is built on distrust). We hear that he was trying to set up a mechanical system for producing correct decisions (though he said that no governmental machinery can produce good results without virtue in its operators).

It has puzzled people that Number 10 did not get much attention until the twentieth century. It was not a matter of great dispute in the ratification debates, though it would have clarified and focused those debates - they spent endless hours on the number of representatives, rather than on the nature of representation. The reason for this is that a dismissal of direct democracy was almost literally unthinkable to the men who debated the Constitution. Every constitution in America was based on that ideal, as a thing to be approximated even when it could not be literally enacted. If people could not directly make the government's decisions, as in a New England town meeting or the Athenian Assembly, then they should tie down those making the decisions, making them (so far as possible) passive tools in their own hands. That is why short terms, rotation, instruction open proceedings (to see that instruction is followed), recall (to punish departures from instruction), and weak executives were adopted. These were the necessary melioratives for the necessary evil of any departure from direct democracy.

The rightness of all these measures was so self-evident to those who accepted them that the could not even imagine someone making the attack on them that Madison did. He did not say, as many did, that direct democracy would be wonderful if it were possible but, since it is not possible in large communities, some approximation to it must be cobbled up. He did not think direct democracy wonderful. He thought it fundamentally unjust.

No man is allowed to be a judge in his own cause, because his interests would certainly bias his judgment, and, not improbably, corrupt his integrity. With equal, nay with greater reason, a body of men are unfit to be both judges and parties at the same time; yet what are many of the most important acts of legislation but so many judicial determinations, not indeed concerning the right of single persons but concerning the right of large bodies of citizens; and what are the different classes of legislators but advocates and parties to the causes which they determine?

By calling legislation quasi-judicial, he instantly disqualifies all those who come to the task of legislating with nothing but their own interest in mind. They have come to be judges in their own case - and that is what proponents of direct democracy would justify. In doing so, they defend a system of majority tyranny. If naked interest is all that can be expressed, then only one thing will determine the outcome. The only question to be decided is: which interest has the greater number backing it.

I find Madison a very interesting fellow, although not as easy to get to know as John Adams, who was a passionate warm-blooded flawed and sensitive man ... Madison is a bit more "close", perhaps. (You won't see an HBO miniseries about Madison any day soon!!) A wife of one of Madison's friends referred to Madison as a "gloomy stiff creature" - and that is obviously not one of the qualities that leads to an endearing and well-liked president (although the office was still, obviously, in its infancy when Madison held it). He did marry Dolley Madison - who remains, to this day, at the top of the list of "favorite first ladies" - not that anyone remembers her personally now, of course - but by all accounts she was a vivacious social happy woman, and everyone liked her.

The two did not have children, but it appears the marriage was a happy one (she referred to him as her "great little Madison"). Unlike many other first ladies since, Dolley Madison didn't have a problem with the social rigors of her position - she loved it. Men and women alike found her charming, easy-going.

Wills describes the burning of the capital and its aftermath:

During the night of the fires in Washington, Madison and Dolley were unable to find each other - she stayed at one friend's home in Virginia, he in another. He met her the next day; then, assured of her safety, he went to consult with Winder, whose troops were on the road toward Baltimore ... Madison wrote to Dolley suggesting she not return to Washington until he was sure the city was safe. But she was already on her way back to him.

It was suggested that Madison would summon Congress to a different, safer spot - Congress had, after all, been shifted about during the Revolution. But Madison knew the government must be seen to function, and he called Congress back for an early session. He had chambers prepared for the House and Senate in the Post Office and Patent Building, which had escaped the fires. He and Dolley moved into the house they had lived in when he was secretary of state - though the French minister, Louis Serurier, soon vacated his own residence, the current Octagon House, for their use. Dolley found these quarters too cramped, and she would end up in the former offices of the Treasury, where she could entertain on the scale she was used to. She, too, realized that it was important to return the city to its normal patterns. But the Madisons never returned to the blackened White House.

I think someone's choice of a wife can be pretty illuminating. Madison was often seen as a dour brainiac and he loved Dolley, who was pretty, friendly, funny ... and let's not forget resourceful: Perhaps her most famous moment is this: during the burning of the capital, Dolly was forced to flee by carriage - but she had the presence of mind to roll up Gilbert Stuart's portrait of George Washington - (she had to break the frame in order to get the painting out) - and give it to some soldiers to keep safe. And of course, it was preserved, for all time, thanks to her foresight.

I mean, you gotta love a person like that.

And so happy birthday, "great little Madison". We are forever in your debt!

Today in history, March 5, 1770

The Boston Massacre. Probably should say "massacre" - with quotation marks - since "massacre" was a bit of a stretch - and used more for propaganda purposes. Same as Paul Revere's famous engraving - which is pretty much how we, modern-day folks, see the Boston Massacre. It's his image - kind of brilliant (below the fold) that sticks in our mind ... the smoke from the guns, advancing redcoats, and the poor victimized colonists ... who did NOTHING to provoke such a massacre. Naturally, the truth was a little bit more complex. The rebellious crowd had gathered after an altercation between one of them and a British soldier. The British soldiers brandished their weapons, but did not shoot. The crowd were throwing things at the British soldiers - mainly snowballs, and ice. Taunting them, etc. When the whole thing ended - 5 colonists lay dead.

The tale of this massacre spread throughout the land - naturally, it was in the colonists interests to keep the outrage alive, to pump it up, to fan the flames of resentment towards the British standing army in their midst.

One of the most important things about the Boston massacre is John Adams' part in the aftermath of it. He, a lawyer in the area, defended the British soldiers. Nobody could accuse him of harboring sympathies for the British crown - although, of course, that was what he was accused of. And whatever he may have thought about the soldiers, he did think they deserved a defense. And whatever this new entity would be ... whatever this new nation would be, if they ever freed themselves from the British yoke - Adams was committed to the idea that it would be a nation "of laws, not men".

Laws above men. It is the principle of the thing. (It reminds me of the great story of Alexander Hamilton lambasting the unruly crowds clamoring to attack the pro-British president of King's College. He was just a student at that time, and although he was on his way to being a full-time revolutionary - any mob like that terrified and angered him. He stood on the steps of the college and made a fiery speech about liberty that people talked about later - it was remembered. Pretty amazing.) The detachment of these gentlemen. Principled detachment.

Below the fold find Paul Revere's stirring engraving - propaganda, basically - very successful propaganda. Love it.

Geek

You know you're a US presidents geek when you accidentally buy the same biography of Chester Alan Arthur twice. Chester freakin' Alan Arthur? Ooh, let me bone up on Chester Alan Arthur ... need to have two of the same biography ... one for work, one for home ....

Next up? Millard freakin' Fillmore. Fun!

No. It's not fun. But it's totally interesting, and I'm getting a bit autistic about it.

It is also just proof that I have too many books. I am unaware of what I already own.

I'm going chronologically thru the presidents, reading bios of each. I'm on Andrew Jackson now. There's a lot I didn't know. You know, like James K. Polk's teenage agony.

Happy birthday to Sharon's dead boyfriend ...

... George Washington, who was born on this day in 1732.

Thomas Jefferson on George Washington:

The moderation and virtue of a single character probably prevented this Revolution from being closed, as most others have been, by a subversion of that liberty it was intended to establish.

More awesome quotes (and a video clip) below:

Martha Washington wrote a letter to a relative on the eve of her husband's departure to the Convention in 1774:

I foresee consequences; dark days and darker nights; domestic happiness suspended; social enjoyments abandoned; property of every kind put in jeopardy by war, perhaps; neighbors and friends at variance, and eternal separations on earth possible. But what are all these evils when compared with the fate of which the Port Bill may be only a threat? My mind is made up; my heart is in the cause. George is right; he is always right. God has promised to protect the righteous, and I will trust him.

PATRICK HENRY, on his return home from the first Continental Congress in 1774 was asked whom he thought was the foremost man in the group:

"Colonel Washington is unquestionably the greatest man on that floor."

Abigail Adams first met Washington in 1774, and wrote to her husband:

You had prepared me to entertain a favorable opinion of him, but I thought the half was not told me. Dignity with ease and complacency, the gentleman and the soldier look agreeably blended in him. Modesty marks every line and feature of his face.

When George Washington was elected (unanimously) by the First Continental Congress to be Commander in Chief (this was in June, 1775) - here was the brief acceptance he made:

"Lest some unlucky event should happen unfavorable to my reputation, I beg it may be remembered by every gentleman in the room, that I this day declare, with the utmost sincerity, I do not think myself equal to the command."

GEORGE WASHINGTON, writing to Martha on June 18, 1775, following his nomination as commander in chief

My Dearest: I now sit down to write to you on a subject which fills me with inexpressible concern, and this concern is greatly aggravated and increased when I reflect upon the uneasiness I know it will give you. It has been determined in Congress that the whole army raised for the defence of the American cause shall be put under my care, and that it is necessary for me to proceed immediately to Boston to take upon me the command of it.

You may believe me, my dear Patsy, when I assure you, in the most solemn manner, that, so far from seeking this appointment, I have used every endeavour in my power to avoid it, not only from my unwillingness to part with you and the family, but from a consciousness of its being a trust too great for my capacity, and that I should enjoy more real happiness in one month with you at home than I have the most distant prospect of finding abroad, if my stay were to be seven times seven years.

But as it has been a kind of destiny that has thrown me upon this service, I shall hope that my undertaking is designed to answer some good purpose.

George Washington describes here what a general expects in his aides:

The variegated and important duties of the aids of a commander in chief or the commander of a separate army require experienced officers, men of judgment and men of business, ready pens to execute them properly and with dispatch. A great deal more is required of them than attending him at a parade or delivering verbal orders here and there, or copying a written one. They ought, if I may be allowed to use the expression, to possess the Soul of the General, and from a single idea given to them, to convey his meaning in the clearest and fullest manner.

GEORGE WASHINGTON, letter to Joseph Reed, early December, 1775, after a disappointing recruiting drive

I have oftentimes thought how much happier I should have been if, instead of accepting the command under such circumstances, I had taken my musket on my shoulder and entered the ranks; or, if I could have justified the measure to posterity and my own conscience, had retired to the back country and lived in a wigwam. If I shall be able to rise superior to these and many other difficulties which might be enumerated, I shall most religiously believe that the finger of Providence is in it to blind the eyes of our enemies, for surely if we get well through this month it must be for want of their knowing the disadvantages which we labor under.

George Washington wrote the following on the eve of his inauguration in 1789:

It is said that every man has his portion of ambition. I may have mine, I suppose, as well as the rest, but if I know my own heart, my ambition would not lead me into public life; my only ambition is to do my duty in this world as well as I am capable of performing it, and to merit the good opinion of all good men.

David McCullough describes, in his book on John Adams, the first inauguration day:

On the day of his inauguration, Thursday, April 30 1789, Washington rode to Federal Hall in a canary-yellow carriage pulled by six white horses and followed by a long column of New York militia in full dress. The air was sharp, the sun shone brightly, and with all work stopped in the city, the crowds along his route were the largest ever seen. It was as if all New York had turned out and more besides. "Many persons in the crowd," reported the Gazette of the United States "were heard to say they should now die contented - nothing being wanted to complete their happiness - but the sight of the savior of his country."

In the Senate Chamber were gathered the members of both houses of Congress, the Vice President, and sundry officials and diplomatic agents, all of whom rose when Washington made his entrance, looking solemn and stately. His hair powdered, he wore a dress sword, white silk stockings, shoes with silver buckles, and a suit of the same brown Hartford broadcloth that Adams, too, was wearing for the occasion. They might have been dressed as twins, except that Washington's metal buttons had eagles on them.

It was Adams who formally welcomed the General and escorted him to the dais. For an awkward moment Adams appeared to be in some difficulty, as though he had forgotten what he was supposed to say. then, addressing Washington, he declared that the Senate and House of Representatives were ready to attend him for the oath of office as required by the Constitution. Washington said he was ready. Adams bowed and led the way to the outer balcony, in full view of the throng in the streets. People were cheering and waving from below, and from windows and rooftops as far as the eye could see. Washington bowed once, then a second time.

Fourteen years earlier, it had been Adams who called on the Continental Congress to make the tall Virginian commander-in-chief of the army. Now he stood at Washington's side as Washington, his right hand on the Bible, repeated the oath of office as read by Chancellor Robert R. Livingston of New York, who had also been a member of the Continental Congress.

In a low voice Washington solemnly swore to execute the office of the President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, to "preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States." Then, as not specified in the Constitution, he added, "So help me God", and kissed the Bible, thereby establishing his own first presidential tradition.

"It is done," Livingston said, and, turning to the crowd, cried out, "Long live George Washington, President of the United States."

George Washington said:

Men may speculate as they will, they may talk of patriotism; they may draw a few examples from current story - but whoever builds upon it as a sufficient basis for conducting a long and bloody war will find themselves deceived in the end - For a long time it may of itself push men to action, to bear much, to encounter difficulties, but it will not endure unassisted by Interest.

On August 17, 1790, George Washington visited Newport Rhode Island - and visited the Jewish congregation of the Touro Synagogue (which still stands - gorgeous building. We went on a field trip there in grade school). The congregation presented an address to George Washington, welcoming him to Newport, and to their synagogue. A couple of days later George Washington wrote an eloquent response. Both the address as well as Washington's response were printed in all of the "national" newspapers at the time.

August 21st, 1790
To the Hebrew Congregation in Newport Rhode Island.

Gentleman.

While I receive, with much satisfaction, your Address replete with expressions of affection and esteem; I rejoice in the opportunity of assuring you, that I shall always retain a grateful remembrance of the cordial welcome I experienced in my visit to Newport, from all classes of Citizens.

The reflection on the days of difficulty and danger which are past is rendered the more sweet, from a consciousness that they are succeeded by days of uncommon prosperity and security. If we have wisdom to make the best use of the advantages with which we are now favored, we cannot fail, under the just administration of a good Government, to become a great and happy people.

The Citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for having given to mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy: a policy worthy of imitation.

All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship. It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights. For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.

It would be inconsistent with the frankness of my character not to avow that I am pleased with your favorable opinion of my Administration, and fervent wishes for my felicity. May the children of the Stock of Abraham, who dwell in this land, continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other Inhabitants; while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and figtree, and there shall be none to make him afraid. May the father of all mercies scatter light and not darkness in our paths, and make us all in our several vocations useful here, and in his own due time and way everlastingly happy.

G. Washington

From Joseph Ellis' book The Founding Brothers:

First, it is crucial to recognize that Washington's extraordinary reputation rested less on his prudent exercise of power than on his dramatic flair at surrendering it. He was, in fact, a veritable virtuoso of exits. Almost everyone regarded his retirement of 1796 as a repeat performance of his resignation as commander of the Continental Army in 1783. Back then, faced with a restive and unpaid remnant of the victorious army quartered in Newburgh, New York, he had suddenly appeared at a meeting of officers who were contemplating insurrection; the murky plot involved marching on the Congress and then seizing a tract of land for themselves in the West, all presumably with Washington as their leader.

He summarily rejected their offer to become the American Caesar and denounced the entire scheme as treason to the cause for which they had fought. Then, in a melodramatic gesture that immediately became famous, he pulled a pair of glasses out of his pocket: "Gentlemen, you will permit me to put on my spectacles," he declared rhetorically, "for I have not only grown gray but almost blind in service to my country." Upon learning that Washington intended to reject the mantle of emperor, no less an authority than George III allegedly observed, "If he does that, he will be the greatest man in the world." True to his word, on December 22, 1783, Washington surrendered his commission to the Congress, then meeting in Annapolis: "Having now finished the work assigned me," he announced, "I now retire from the great theatre of action." In so doing, he became the supreme example of the leader who could be trusted with power because he was so ready to give it up.

George Washington's last words:

"I feel myself going. I thank you for your attentions; but I pray you to take no more trouble about me. Let me go off quietly. I cannot last long."

Mark Twain wrote in 1871:

I have a higher and greater standard of principle [than George Washington]. Washington could not lie. I can lie but I won't.

Gouverneur Morris said, upon the death of this great man:

It is a question, previous to the first meeting, what course shall be pursued. Men of decided temper, who, devoted to the public, overlooked prudential considerations, thought a form of government should be framed entirely new. But cautious men, with whom popularity was an object, deemed it fit to consult and comply with the wishes of the people. AMERICANS! -- let the opinion then delivered by the greatest and best of men, be ever present to your remembrance. He was collected within himself. His countenance had more than usual solemnity -- His eye was fixed, and seemed to look into futurity. 'It is (said he)too probable that no plan we propose will be adopted. Perhaps another dreadful conflict is to be sustained. If to please the people, we offer what we ourselves disapprove, how can we afterwards defend our work? Let us raise a standard to which the wise and the honest can repair. The event is in the hand of God.'--this was the patriot voice of WASHINGTON; and this the constant tenor of his conduct.

My father said, in regards to Washington being our first President:

"We were so lucky."

And below: "George Washington's awesome-ness", featuring the lyrics:

"Washington, Washington,
6 foot 8
Weighs a fucking ton
Opponents beware
Opponents beware
He's coming
He's coming
He's coming ..."

Happy birthday, George! And thanks!

In honor of president's day:

Last night, I had a nightmare about James K. Polk's gallstone operation. I had just read a harrowing description of it - and could not (still cannot, actually) get it out of my mind (if you don't know what was done to him, Google around, you'll eventually find it). No anesthesia, no antiseptic - I cannot even imagine. He was 17 years old when it was done.

I woke up at 2 am, with my hands clutching at my own legs ... trying to stave off the surgeon's knife from 1811 as it were.

I had a big president's day thing planned but couldn't do it. James K. Polk's agony will have to do instead!

The no comments thing will probably be temporary. I just can't have comments right now. i need to preserve my energy - and I don't know, it feels right at the moment.

You know you're a US President geek when you dream about an operation that occurred almost 200 years ago.

"Do you bite your thumb at me, Sir?"

This is the kind of anecdote I totally adore. Like the one where Alexander Hamilton dares someone to walk up to George Washington and throw his arm around him in a chummy way. You just did not do that with Washington. The image of Revolutionary War heroes standing around at some tavern playing "I double-dog dare you" games is just so pleasing and funny to me. But here's a good one, too. This is from the biography of James Monroe I just finished, by Gary Hart:

Despite the relative social quiet of the Monroe White House, it was not without a little drama. The story is told of a ministerial dinner at which the British minister Sir Charles Vaughan saw the French minister Count de Serurier, directly across from him, bite his thumb every time Vaughan made a remark. "Do you bite your thumb at me, Sir?" Vaughan finally challenged. "I do," was the Frenchman's reply. They promptly withdrew and were at sword points in an adjoining hall when President Monroe arrived and threw up their swords with his own. Their carriages were called, and Monroe sent them, separately, away.

Culture snapshots

-- I am not at all in love with the new season of Rock of Love. It cannot come close to the brilliance of the first season - and I can't believe I am saying this, but I miss Lacey! As heinous as that bitch was, she MADE that show. All the girls on the show now seem to be strippers with enormous collagen lips. Nobody seems normal. They all seem like ragged whores on the edge of oblivion. Not that there's anything wrong with that, if they're happy ... but the first season was so good because there were a handful of relatively normal girls (albeit clinically insane) - who were vying for Bret Michaels' attention. But now it doesn't seem to have that OOMPH. Because yes. I do want Bret Michaels to find someone to "continue to rock his world". I yearn for his happiness. I lose sleep over it. But to see those girls whip around the roller rink with baby carriages ... in some sort of maternal roller-derby situation ... My God. Television has never been so awesome. But where is Lacey? And Heather? I love those girls!

-- I am reading a biography of James Monroe right now (making my way through Schlesinger's awesome American Presidents series). I didn't know much about James Monroe - except that he was part of that Virginia dynasty of men ... but other than that, I didn't know much about him. It's fascinating. Gary Hart wrote the book - he has done a great job. I'm loving it. I love the whole series, in general. They haven't published all of them yet - but I have all of the ones in the series so far. They aren't going in order, either - so the George H.W. Bush volume is published - but the one on Abraham Lincoln hasn't come out yet (and freakin' EL Doctorow has written that one - I am dying to read it!) Great series. Having a lot of fun with it.

-- Watched Fort Apache last night, and was struck, for the 5000th time, with John Wayne's effectiveness as an actor and movie star. He has one moment where he shouts, "HOLD YOUR FIRE, MEN" and then says to himself, "Hold your fire." A possibly cheesy moment. But John Wayne doesn't have a cheesy bone in his body. You cannot force that man to ham. To overplay. The movie is interesting because it places Henry Fonda in the position of being the true alpha-dog ... and usually it's John Wayne who's the alpha, in his films. To see Fonda be above him, and watching Wayne have to deal with that - is fascinating. They both have their points - and in Wayne's moving monologue at the end, we can see that he has conceded to Fonda's position ... that Fonda's hard-ness had made the regiment better. He was willing to be "the bad guy" to his men - in order to make them better. And Shirley Temple is adorable in the movie. Surprise surprise. I love John Ford's movies because it's like an old-time regional theatre, where the same people keep showing up, in project after project. Like: Ward Bond (GOD WHO IS BETTER THAN HIM??) and Victor Maclagen (LOVE HIM) ... John Ford standbys. Always good. His movies would not work without that rock-solid ensemble of players. Love the movie.

Happy birthday to Ben Franklin

I have only a few years to live and I am resolved to devote them to the work that my fellow citizens deem proper for me; or speaking as old-clothes dealers do of a remnant of goods, 'You shall have me for what you please.' --

Benjamin Franklin to Benjamin Rush, before leaving for France in 1776

Ben Franklin was born on this day in 1706. His accomplishments make me feel like a teeny homunculit or an unproductive one-celled organism. I read his lifestory and just think: But ... but ... how ... how ... how (How-ARD. Howard!) ... What a mind. What curiosity. What humor. Of all of the Founding Fathers, he seems the most human to me. Even though what he managed to do in his life is almost super-human. And any ONE of those things (the almanac, the kite, the Declaration of Independence, his sojourn in Paris) would have been enough to put him in the history books forever. But all of it? It's unbelievable. But still - even with all of that - somehow he seems the most ... accessible. Perhaps because he wrote a pamphlet about farts. Because of his almanac, and how funny it is. Perhaps because beneath all of it - you sense a man who LIVED. He was brilliant, of course - but ... he also seemed to be very much of this earth. He liked to drink, play cards, read, flirt ... His intelligence was of a wide scope. He inquired about everything. That is a mark of true intelligence: can you admit how much you DON'T know?

Every year I commemorate the day that the Library Company opened - which is one of my favorite stories of Franklin's life - the creation of that library, still a library today. Awe-inspiring.

Things he invented, investigated, developed - electricity, bifocals, the fire department in Philadelphia, the glass armonica, the list goes on and on. Wind-surfing across a pond, etc. Love the guy!!

I love this - I found this on the Library of Congress website. In response to the Stamp Act - which impacted Franklin's newspaper (and all newspapers) because it had to be printed on stamped paper - Franklin printed the following, on November 7, 1765. No date, no masthead, no page numbers.

Ben Franklin said, "A man wrapped up in himself makes a very small bundle." Reminds me of Henry Miller's great quote: "Develop interest in life as you see it, in people, things, literature, music - the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people. Forget yourself."

That, to me, describes Benjamin Franklin.

Happy birthday, Ben!

Update: I knew Alex had written a fun tribute to him last year. Just tracked it down!

More Ben Franklin posts:

Paul Johnson's discussion of the writing of the Declaration

Ben Franklin on John Adams

Ben Franklin: "I cannot give you the sun ..."

The chessboard

Science and the Founding Fathers

Benson Bobrick on the signing of the Declaration

Excerpt from Franklin's wonderful autobiography

Excerpt from HW Brands' The First American

Happy birthday to my dead boyfriend - Alexander Hamilton

Photo by me, that's near my house

On this day, in 1755, Alexander Hamilton was born in the British West Indies. Happy birthday to one of the most compelling (to me anyway) founding fathers that we have. He was illegitimate (or - as John Adams called him: "the bastard brat of a Scotch pedlar")- his illegitimacy was a stain on his birth he strove to wipe away for the rest of his short life.

Hamilton:

Take mankind in general, they are vicious - their passions may be operated upon. Take mankind as they are, and what are they governed by? Their passions. There may be in every government a few choice spirits, who may act from more worthy motives [but] one great error is that we suppose mankind more honest than they are. Our prevailing passions are ambition and interest. Wise government should avail itself of those passions, to make them subservient to the public good.

Hamilton's also the one who said, at the end of his 6-hour long speech at the Constitutional Convention: "Decision is true wisdom." This is part of the reason why he is one of the most important members of that founding generation - but it is also the reason that people found him terrifying. Abigail Adams warned her husband, "That man is another Bonaparte."

There is a contradictory dynamic within him that I find so compelling.

Hamilton would be number 1 on my geeky historical freebie list, as well as on my: "People From The Past I would Like To Have At My Perfect Dinner Party" list.

Also. He's a bit hot.

Rowr.

Here's a skit I wrote, imagining our first fateful meeting. I do not know if you could be geekier than I am.

Here's a big post I wrote a while back about one of my pet obsessions: the election of 1800. Some awesome information there about this man. Nobody was neutral about him. He was a polarizing kind of guy.

A couple years ago, the New York Historical Society had a massive Alexander Hamilton exhibit and Bill McCabe and I went - it was so so terrific. It was one of those events in New York when I was so excited to see all of it that I actually felt a bit nervous. You know what really got me? His DESK. I love actual objects ... the stuff historical figures actually touched, used ... He sat at that desk ...Here's a re-cap of our trip to the museum. Bill said something funny like, "I think this might be the first time I've gone to an exhibit like this where I'm with someone who knows MORE than I do about the topic." Hahahaha. History geeks - unite!!

The following is a letter the 17-year-old Alexander Hamilton wrote to his father, describing the hurricane that hit St. Croix on August 31, 1772 - one of the worst in the recorded history of the island. A couple of days later, Hamilton showed a copy of this letter to Reverend Knox (a very important person in the story of Alexander Hamilton - a real father figure to the boy.) Knox was so impressed with the prose that he arranged to have it published in the "Gazette". The letter was so well-received that Knox set the wheels in motion to send Hamilton to the colonies, so that he could get a college-level education. This move changed Hamilton's life. Here is the letter. It's riveting:

It began at dusk, at North, and raged very violently 'till ten o'clock. Then ensued a sudden and unexpected interval, which lasted about an hour. Meanwhile the wind was shifting 'round to the southwest ... it returned with redoubled fury and continued so 'till near three o'clock in the morning. Good God! What horror and destruction. It's impossible for me to describe or you to form any idea of it. It seemed as if a total dissolution of nature was taking place. The roaring of the sea and wind, fiery meteors flying about it in the air, the prodigious glare of almost perpetual lightning, the crash of the falling houses, and the ear-piercing shrieks of the distressed were sufficient to strike astonishment into angels.

A great part of the buildings throughout the island are leveled to the ground, almost all the rest very much shattered, several persons killed and numbers utterly ruined, whole families running about the streets unknowing where to find a place of shelter; the sick exposed to the keenness of the water and air without a bed to lie upon or a dry covering to their bodies; and our harbors entirely bare. In a word, misery, in all its hideous shapes, spread over the whole face of the country ...

As to my reflections and feelings on this frightful and melancholy ocassion ...

Where now, oh! vile worm, is all thy boasted fortitude and resolution? What is become of thine arrogance and self-sufficiency? Why dost thou tremble and stand aghast? How humble, how helpless, how contemptible you now appear. And for why? The jarring of elements -- the discord of clouds? Oh! impotent presumptuous fool! Death comes rushing on in triumph, veiled in a mantle of tenfold darkness ... On his right hand sits destruction, hurling the winds and belching forth flames: calamity on his left threatening famine, disease and distress of all kinds. And oh! thou wretch, look still a little further. See the gulf of eternal misery open. There mayest thou shortly plunge -- the just reward of thy vileness. Alas! whither canst thou fly? Where hide thyself?

Uhm ... I look at my Diary Friday entries - written when I was 17 ... and ... er ... I hide my head in shame.

This is from a letter Alexander Hamilton wrote in 1780.

No wise statesman will reject the good from an apprehension of the ill. The truth is, in human affairs, there is no good, pure and unmixed. Every advantage has two sides, and wisdom consists in availing ourselves of the good and guarding as much as possible against the bad...

A national debt, if it is not excessive, will be to us a national blessing. It will be powerful cement of our union. It will also create a necessity for keeping up taxation to such a degree which, without being oppressive, will be a spur to industry.

"A national debt, if it is not excessive, will be to us a national blessing." Ah. They are just words. But they went over like a BOMB exploding through the colonies. WHAT IS HE SAYING? WHAT IS HE TALKING ABOUT? IS HE THE DEVIL?

Alexander Hamilton made a six hour speech at the Constitutional Convention ... People scrawled down notes of it, because he spoke without notes (except when he laid out his plan for the Government), so whatever we have of that speech is from those notes. How I wish I had been in that room. It was a rousing call to a strong central government, a rousing call for the states to give up their power and their identities - to submerge themselves into America. This obviously did not go over well in some quarters. Another delegate to the Congress described Hamilton as "praised by everybody but supported by none". Anyway, here are some excerpts from his 6-hour speech in Philadlelphia, 1787.

All the passion we see, of avarice, ambition, interest, which govern most individuals and all public bodies, fall into the current of the states and do not flow into the stream of the general national government ... How then are all these evils to be avoided? Only by such a complete sovereignty in the general government as will turn all the strong principles and passions to its side.

In the context of the time, it is not surprising at all that people hated Hamilton, and thought he spoke treasonously. They had just thrown OFF the yoke of a monarch who had "complete sovereignty" ... and now Hamilton wanted to put the yoke on again?? This was heresy to this brand new nation.

More:

In every community where industry is encouraged, there will be a division of it into the few and the many. Hence, separate interests will arise. There will be debtors and creditors. Give all power to the many, they will oppress the few. Give all power to the few, they will oppress the many. Both, therefore, ought to have power, that each may defend itself against the other.

Hamilton read aloud from his notes - and what HE proposed as the set-up for the national government is basically what we have to this day (except for the "executive for life" thing.)

I think he went way too far out with some of his ideas - but that was his role, historically. I see him in that context. You always need someone like that - someone to be imaginative, bold, to push the boundaries OUT. He, as an immigrant, was not attached to any one state, in his loyalty. He stands out, because of this. His ideas were bold and new and there was literally no pause between thought and action with this guy (and that's why he got into so much trouble.) But great men usually have such a fatal flaw in their makeup. If they didn't have that, they wouldn't be great at all.

It reminds me of that great EM Forster quote: "Don't start with proportion. Only prigs do that." I believe in my heart that Hamilton was the most far-seeing of all of our founding fathers. He saw the world we live in now. I don't know how he did, but he did. They all still lived in an agrarian society, where land was power and prestige. Jefferson couldn't really imagine any other kind of world. Hamilton did and could imagine it. He saw ahead to the industrial revolution. He knew our society's set-up would change drastically ... and he wanted the economy to be flexible enough to deal with those changes. Most of the commentary at the time from his contemporaries (all brilliant men in their own right) is all along the lines of: "Alexander Hamilton is frightening." "Hamilton is dangerous and must be stopped." Etc.

I think he was way ahead of his time, almost as though he had dropped in from the future - and people like that always meet resistance.

Here is the ringing first paragraph of Federalist 1, written by Alexander Hamilton, published on October 27, 1787, in the "New York Independent Journal" - the first of 85 essays (written by Alexander Hamilton mostly, but James Madison wrote Federalist 10 - maybe the most famous of all of them, and John Jay contributed 5 essays). The purpose of this onslaught was to put the case for the Constitution before the New York public for its review. Here is the first paragraph of the first essay:

After a full experience of the insufficiency of the existing federal government, you are invited to deliberate upon a new Constitution for the United States of America. The subject speaks its own importance, comprehending in its consequences nothing less than the existence of the UNION, the safety and welfare of the parts of which it is composed, the fate of an empire in many respects the most interesting in the world.

Uhm, yeah. That prose would have gotten MY attention - as I scanned the "For Sale" ads for ladies hats and buggy whips surrounding it.

Alexander Hamilton, as Secretary of Treasury, put forth a monumental report to Congress calling for a national bank (this is something he had been pondering for years). He wanted it to be run by private citizens, and not the government. The bank had the power to issue paper money - the federal government should not have that power. Hamilton opposed the government running the printing presses to produce money. He wanted it to be separate, entirely. A quote from his report:

The wisdom of the government will be shown in never trusting itself with the use of so seducing and dangerous and expedient.

Brilliant.

The following anecdote (and quote) is pretty much why people were terrified of Alexander Hamilton, and felt that he should be stopped. To give you the proper context: he was answering criticism from his former Federalist Paper collaborator James Madison that this proposed Bank of America was un-constitutional. Hamilton had asked for a federal charter for the bank, Madison said there was nothing in the Constitution saying that the government should fund corporations. Hamilton pointed out that the last article of the Constitution - the one about Congress being able to make "all laws which shall be necessary and proper" - He said that that article was sufficient evidence that a charter would be constitutional.

BUT - the way Hamilton summed it all up was not calculated to assuage his enemies who feared his lust for power. He wrote:

Wherever the end is required, the means are authorized.

Gotcha, Machiavelli. Thanks for sharing. Then he went on:

If the end be clearly comprehended within any of the specified powers, and if the measure have an obvious relation to that end, and is not forbidden by any particular provision of the Constitution, it may safely be deemed to come within the compass of the national authority.

Fascinating - the story of the turbulent national debate about Hamilton's financial plan for the country is amazing. I've read about it from all sides: Hamilton's side, of course - but then John Adams' analysis of it, his letters to his wife, Jefferson's side of it, Washington's side of it ... - If you don't know all the ins and outs of this debate, I highly recommend you go back and check it out, read a biography of Hamilton, read his financial essays ... Truly an incredible time in our nation's history.

And about that duel. Hamilton had I guess what you could call a death-wish. I don't know if I want to diagnose him - but the thought of a "glorious" death permeates his personal letters. There are times when he is so cynical about his fellow man (due, probably, to his horrific upbringing) that he wants to end it all. Much of what happened to him came out of this death-wish ... there are times when he behaves in an absolutely incomprehensible manner - as though he WANTS to go down. As though, with all of his brilliance and intellectual power - he knew he would have a short life. He was involved in a sex scandal. He behaved with reckless abandon. He wrote a paper on John Adams, when Adams was president - which basically said that Adams was mentally incompetent, and not fit for office. It is a blistering attack, and so wrongheaded that you gasp at Hamilton's self-destructiveness. It was the death knell for his career. His makeup was such that he followed his impulses - and when he was on? BOY, was he on. Nobody has ever been so on in their lives! But when he messed up? He messed up big. His battle with Burr was fierce and long-standing. Honor was a huge deal to Hamilton. Maybe because of his illegitimacy, his sorry-ass beginnings ... he was very very sensitive to any slight. He felt disrespected by Washington - there is one famous incident where Hamilton kept Washington waiting for 5 minutes, because he had to talk to somebody else - and Washington was very angry and publicly told Hamilton so. Hamilton was so insulted by this (and obviously, his resentment had been growing - he wanted to see ACTION in the war, not just sit and be a clerk, and write 150 letters a day) that he asked to be released from his duties immediately. It was a total breach for him. He could not be insulted. If you insulted him by throwing a tiny arrow his way, he would respond with 25 cannon balls. He was, uhm, touchy. He had the presence of mind though, at least early in his career, to know that Washington (and what he stood for) was very important to America, and the union - so he wanted to keep his personal feelings out of it ... He was very concerned, when he left Washington's employ, that the real reasons be kept private (he mentions this in a couple of letters). Washington's image as a universally beloved leader was more important than Hamilton airing his grievances against the man. Later in life, though, Hamilton was unable to hold his personal feelings back, in such situations ... and more often than not, he would make his feelings public. This was not a casual thing for him. Honor, and his integrity, and his character - his very NAME - was something to be defended to the death. It HAD to be that way.

On July 10, 1804, Alexander Hamilton wrote the following letter to his wife Eliza:

My beloved Eliza Mrs. Mitchel is the person in the world to whom as a friend I am under the greatest Obligations. I have not hitherto done my duty to her. But resolved to repair my omission as much as possible, I have encouraged her to come to this Country and intend, if it shall be in my power to render the Evening of her days comfortable. But if it shall please God to put this out of my power and to inable you hereafter to be of service to her, I entreat you to do it and to treat her with the tenderness of a Sister.

This is my second letter.

The Scruples of a Christian have determined me to expose my own life to any extent rather than subject my self to the guilt of taking the life of another. This must increase my hazards & redoubles my pangs for you. But you had rather I should die innocent than live guilty. Heaven can preserve me and I humbly hope will but in the contrary event I charge you to remember that you are a Christian. God's Will be done. The will of a merciful God must be good.

Once more Adieu My Darling darling Wife

AH
Tuesday Evening 10 oClock

Joseph Ellis, in his wonderful book Founding Brothers, opens the book with the story of the duel between Hamilton and Aaron Burr on the riverside plain of Weehawken. (You know, down the street from where I live. Life is beautiful. There's an Alexander Hamilton Park right down the street from me. Love that.) Ellis approaches the duel with a forensic eye - there is still a mystery at the heart of what happened on that day.

Joseph Ellis closes his chapter on The Duel with these words:

Oliver Wendell Holmes once observed that "a great man represents a strategic point in the campaign of history, and part of his greatness consists of his being there." Both Burr and Hamilton thought of themselves as great men who happened to come of age at one of those strategic points in the campaign of history called the American revolutionary era. By the summer of 1804, history had pretty much passed them by. Burr had alienated Jefferson and the triumphant Republican party by his disloyalty as a vice president and had lost by a landslide in his bid to become a Federalist governor of New York. Hamilton had not held national office for nine years and the Federalist cause he had championed was well on its way to oblivion. Even in his home state of New York, the Federalists were, as John Quincy Adams put it, "a minority, and of that minority, only a minority were admirers and partisans of Mr. Hamilton." Neither man had much of a political future.

But by being there beneath the plains of Weehawken for their interview, they managed to make a dramatic final statement about the time of their time. Honor mattered because character mattered. And character mattered because the fate of the American experiment with republican government still required virtuous leaders to survive. Eventually, the United States might develop into a nation of laws and established institutions capable of surviving corrupt or incompetent public officials. But it was not there yet. It still required honorable and virtuous leaders to endure. Both Burr and Hamilton came to the interview because they wished to be regarded as part of such company.

And finally, here is an excerpt from Ron Chernow's magesterial biography of Alexander Hamilton:

Few figures in American history aroused such visceral love or loathing as Alexander Hamilton. To this day, he seems trapped in a crude historical cartoon that pits "Jeffersonian democracy" against "Hamiltonian aristocracy." For Jefferson and his followers, wedded to their vision of an agrarian Eden, Hamilton was the American Mephistopheles, the proponent of such devilish contrivances as banks, factories, and stock exchanges. They demonized him as a slavish pawn of the British Crown, a closet monarchist, a Machiavellian intriguer, a would-be Caesar. Noah Webster contended that Hamilton's "ambition, pride, and overbearing temper" had destined him "to be the evil genius of this country." Hamilton's powerful vision of American nationalism, with states subordinate to a strong central government and led by a vigorous executive branch, aroused fears of a reversion to royal British ways. His seeming solicitude for the rich caused critics to portray him as a snobbish tool of plutocrats who was contemptuous of the masses. For another group of naysayers, Hamilton's unswerving faith in a professional military converted him into a potential despot. "From the first to the last words he wrote," concluded historian Henry Adams, "I read always the same Napoleonic kind of adventuredom." Even some Hamilton admirers have been unsettled by a faint tincture of something foreign in this West Indian transplant; Woodrow Wilson grudgingly praised Hamilton as "a very great man, ut not a great American." Yet many distinguished commentators have echoed Eliza Hamilton's lament that justice has not been done to her Hamilton/ He has tended to lack the glittering multivolumed biographies that have burnished the fame of other founders. The British statesman Lord Bryce singled out Hamilton as the one founding father who had not received his due from posterity. In The American Commonwealth, he observed, "One cannot note the disappearance of this brilliant figure, to Europeans the most interesting in the early history of the Republic, without the remark that his countrymen seem to have never, either in his lifetime or afterwards, duly recognized is splendid gifts." During the robust era of Progressive Republicanism, marked by brawny nationalism and energetic government, Theodore Roosevelt took up the cudgels and declared Hamilton "the most brilliant American statesman who ever lived, possessing the loftiest and keenest intellect of his time." His White House successor, William Howard Taft, likewise embracedf Hamilton as "our greatest constructive statesman." In all probability, Alexander Hamilton is the foremost political figure in American history who never attained the presidency, yet he probably had a much deeper and more lasting impact than many who did.

Hamilton was the supreme double threat among the founding fathers, at once thinker and doer, sparkling theoretician and masterful executive. He and James Madison were the prime movers behind the summoning of the Constitutional Convention and the chief authors of that classic gloss on the national charter, The Federalist, which Hamilton supervised. As the first treasury secretary and principal architect of the new government, Hamilton took constitutional principles and infused them with expansive life, turning abstractions into institutional realities. He had a pragmatic mind that minted comprehensive programs. In contriving the smoothly running machinery of a modern nation-state - including a budget system, a funded debt, a tax system, a central bank, a customs service, and a coast guard - and justifying them in some of America's most influential state papers, he set a high-water mark for administrative competence that has never been equaled. If Jefferson provided the essential poetry of American political discourse, Hamilton established the prose of American statecraft. No other founder articulated such a clear and prescient vision of America's future political, military, and economic strength or crafted such ingenious mechanisms to bind the nationa together.

Hamilton's crowded years as treasury secretary scarcely exhaust the epic story of his short life, which was stuffed with high drama. From his illegitimate birth on Nevis to his bloody downfall in Weehawken, Hamilton's life was so tumultuous that only an audacious novelist could have dreamed it up. He embodied an enduring archetype: the obscure immigrant who comes to America, re-creates himself, and succeeds despite a lack of proper birth and breeding. The saga of his metamorphosis from an anguished clerk on St. Croix to the reigning presence in George Washington's cabinet offers both a gripping personal story and a panoramic view of the formative years of the republic. Except for Washington, nobody stood closer to the center of American politics from 1776 to 1800 or cropped up at more turning points. More than anyone else, the omnipresent Hamilton galvanized, inspired, and scandalized the newborn nation, serving as the flash point for pent-up conflicts of class, geography, race, religion, and ideology. His contemporaries often seemed defined by how they reacted to the political gauntlets that he threw down repeatedly with such defiant panache.

Hamilton was an exuberant genius who performed at a fiendish pace and must have produced the maximum number of words that a human being can scratch out in forty-nine years. If promiscuous with his political opinions, however, he was famously reticent about his private life, especially his squalid Caribbean boyhood. No other founder had to grapple with such shame and misery, and his early years have remained wrapped in more mystery than those of any other major American statesman. While not scanting his vibrant intellectual life, I have tried to gather anecdotal material that will bring this cerebral man to life as both a public and a private figure. Charming and impetuous, romantic and witty, dashing and headstrong, Hamilton offers the biographer an irresistible psychological study. For all his superlative mental gifts, he was afflicted with a touchy ego that made him querulous and fatally combative. He never outgrew the stigma of his illegitimacy, and his exquisite tact often gave way to egregious failures of judgment that left even his keenest admirers aghast. If capable of numerous close friendships, he also entered into titanic feuds with Jefferson, Madison, Adams, Monroe, and Burr.

The magnitude of Hamilton's feats as treasury secretary has overshadowed many other facets of his life: clerk, college student, youthful poet, essayist, artillery captain, wartime adjutant to Washington, battlefield hero, congressman, abolitionist, Bank of New York founder, state assemblyman, member of the Constitutional Convention and New York Ratifying Convention, orator, lawyer, polemicist, educator, patron saint of the New York Evening Post, foreign-policy theorist, and major general in the army. Boldly uncompromising, he served as catalyst for the emergence of the first political parties and as the intellectual fountainhead for one of them, the Federalists. He was a pivotal force in four consecutive presidential elections and defined much of America's political agenda during the Washington and Adams administrations, leaving copious commentary on virtually every salient issue of the day.

A complex man - to be studied, discussed, fought about, celebrated ... He is still relevant.

"And why can we not have an American bank?"

Excerpt from an enormous letter written by Alexander Hamilton to James Duane in the midst of the Revolutionary War. Hamilton is 25 years old, and years away from becoming Secretary of the Treasury. Years away from his formation-of-the-bank extravaganza. Yet he is already (of course) pondering the issues, grappling with the inefficiency of the current system. He wrote this letter in 1780 - 7 years before the Constitutional Convention - long before the convention was even thought of ... the Articles of Confederation were the law of the land ... but here in this letter Hamilton is already sensing that things need to change. The letter is incredible. It's quoted at length in various Hamilton biographies - but it sure is worth it to go and read the whole thing. When you think of the circumstances under which the letter was written - Hamilton, camped out in the middle of a war, working his ass off for Washington, handling all of Washington's correspondence as well - not to mention courting Elizabeth Schuyler - it is even more amazing. The intellectual energy of the man. Surely he had more than 24 hours in a day. And this letter to Duane (which went through many drafts) was written on the same day as a bunch of other letters ... this was not the ONLY thing he wrote that day. It's over 6000 words. Extraordinary. Oh, and the last 2 times I have posted on Founding Fathers, I have gotten snotty condescending responses from the usual suspects. Please. If you want to discuss this stuff, be civil, for God's sake. And also: give me some credit. I read. Don't assume I haven't read the books you have, and that's why my opinion is different than yours. I probably have read the books you have. I'm a serious student of this stuff. I don't understand the condescension. I've been at this blogging thing for years now, and I still have a couple regulars who pat-pat me on the head and treat me like a dimwit. I know. Poor boys. It's so upsetting that Sheila dares to have an opinion, and dares to speak like she knows what she's talking about. What is this world coming to. I may come to a different conclusion than you, based on my own reading and study. But does that mean I'm stupid and that's why you talk to me in such an insulting way? What kind of isolated world do you live in if that is your response to a different opinion? Just adjust your tone, boys. Or I won't play with you at all. Sorry for the rant. I do try to keep such tangents out of my writing, since I know that the writing suffers. You see other bloggers all the time engaging with their critics through whatever they write. You know, the people who start every sentence with: "I know that there are those who disagree ..." or "I don't care what you bozos think, but ..." It's a trap I have fallen into myself. I used to write about Joyce with a defensive manner - because I had had so many rude people be whiny bitches when I would post about him. But over the past year, I stopped that. And I am happy with the result. Because I am not writing for the critics. Some people are - and that's cool for them ... but I'm not. It's not that kind of blog. More and more, I am getting the audience I WANT ... but it just so happens that I've had snotty condescension happen when I've posted about Founding Fathers - not across the board, just enough to make me go: Oh for Christ's sake, why do you use that tone with me? It's not like I'm a raving idiot lunatic. I write about their ideas. I post excerpts. I read books. I know the sources, I read them all. Engage with me on that level, or don't engage at all!

Here's just one excerpt of the mammoth letter:

And why can we not have an American bank? Are our monied men less enlightened to their own interest or less enterprising in the pursuit? I believe the fault is in our government which does not exert itself to engage them in such a scheme. It is true, the individuals in America are not very rich, but this would not prevent their instituting a bank; it would only prevent its being done with such ample funds as in other countries. Have they not sufficient confidence in the government and in the issue of the cause? Let the Government endeavour to inspire that confidence, by adopting the measures I have recommended or others equivalent to them. Let it exert itself to procure a solid confederation, to establish a good plan of executive administration, to form a permanent military force, to obtain at all events a foreign loan. If these things were in a train of vigorous execution, it would give a new spring to our affairs; government would recover its respectability and individuals would renounce their diffidence.

The object I should propose to myself in the first instance from a bank would be an auxiliary mode of supplies; for which purpose contracts should be made between Government and the bank on terms liberal and advantageous to the latter. Everything should be done in the first instance to encourage the bank; after it gets well established it will take care of itself and government may make the best terms it can for itself....

A bank of this kind even in its commencement would answer the most valuable purposes to government and to the proprietors; in its progress the advantages will exceed calculation. It will promote commerce by furnishing a more extensive medium which we greatly want in our circumstances. I mean a more extensive valuable medium. We have an enormous nominal one at this time; but it is only a name.

In the present unsettled state of things in this country, we can hardly draw inferences from what has happened in others, otherwise I should be certain of the success of this scheme; but I think it has enough in its favour to be worthy of trial.

I have only skimmed the surface of the different subjects I have introduced. Should the plans recommended come into contemplation in earnest and you desire my further thoughts, I will endeavour to give them more form and particularity. I am persuaded a solid confederation a permanent army a reasonable prospect of subsisting it would give us treble consideration in Europe and produce a peace this winter.

If a Convention is called the minds of all the states and the people ought to be prepared to receive its determinations by sensible and popular writings, which should conform to the views of Congress. There are epochs in human affairs, when novelty even is useful. If a general opinion prevails that the old way is bad, whether true or false, and this obstructs or relaxes the operation of the public service, a change is necessary if it be but for the sake of change. This is exactly the case now. 'Tis an universal sentiment that our present system is a bad one, and that things do not go right on this account. The measure of a Convention would revive the hopes of the people and give a new direction to their passions, which may be improved in carrying points of substantial utility. The Eastern states have already pointed out this mode to Congress; they ought to take the hint and anticipate the others.

A phenom, this dude. "I have only skimmed the surface..." Ha! I grapple with his ideas myself, going this way, that - seeing his points, recoiling from others ... There's something about all of "these guys" that demand engagement. Just ENGAGE. Read their words and engage with them. See what comes up. See what you gravitate towards, and what you back off from. And also see how two things, two seemingly contradictory things, can be going on at the same time. That's why the primary sources of all of "these guys" - in the middle of a conflict - are so invaluable. It's a fight that goes on and on. The disagreement is built into the system. It's not perfect. But what it does do is ensure that the dialogue will continue. And I love these documents for that.

Happy birthday, Poor Richard

On this day in history, December 19, 1732, Benjamin Franklin's Poor Richard's Almanack was born - and the first issue published. Franklin included all the information that almanacs normally provide - sun rise, sun set, eclipses, weather predictions, yadda yadda. But it was also one of those small things (or - not so small - but let's just say that Richard's Almanack couldn't have done it on its own) that made the colonies feel more like a community. The colonies did things for themselves. They were under the crown, but that feeling of being separate from the crown started very early - and the almanac - with its listing of court dates, and town meetings, and church meetings, etc. - was part of that. It helped foster that. It helped spread information.

Benjamin Franklin wrote in his autobiography:

In 1732 I first published my almanac, under the name of Richard Saunders; it was continued by me about twenty-five years and commonly called "Poor Richard's Almanac". I endeavored to make it both entertaining and useful, and it accordingly came to be in such demand that I reaped considerable profit from it, vending annually near ten thousand. And observing that it was generally read, scarce any neighborhood in the province being without it, I considered it as a proper vehicle for conveying instruction among the common people, who bought scarcely any other books. I therefore filled all the little spaces that occurred between the remarkable days in the calendar with proverbial sentences, chiefly such as inculcated industry and frugality as the means of procuring wealth, and thereby securing virtue; it being more difficult for a man in want to act always honestly, as, to use here one of those proverbs, it is hard for an empty sack to stand upright.

These proverbs, which contained the wisdom of many ages and nations, I assembled and formed into a connected discourse prefixed to the almanac of 1757 as the harangue of a wise old man to the people attending an auction. The bringing all these scattered counsels thus into a focus enabled them to make greater impression. The piece, being universally approved, was copied in all the newspapers of the American continent, reprinted in Britain on a large sheet of paper to be stuck up in houses; two translations were made of it in France, and great numbers bought by the clergy and gentry to distribute gratis among their poor parishioners and tenants. In Pennsylvania, as it discouraged useless expense in foreign superfluities, some thought it had its share of influence in producing that growing plenty of money which was observable for several years after its publication.

I remember my grandmother, Mummy Gina, had a huge illustrated Richard's Almanack at her house that we loved to page through as kids . I can still see some of the illustrations in my mind. I remember very well the illustration for the proverb about visitors being like fish (they start to stink after a couple of days).

I love this website. Ha!!! Especially in light of the whole key on the kite thing.

Some of the proverbs from the almanac (he freely admitted that he did not invent many of these - they were passed down, or he would put his own humorous spin on them):

Keep your eyes wide open before marriage, half shut afterwards.

After three days men grow weary, of a wench, a guest, and weather rainy.

Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead.

Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.

Plough deep while sluggards sleep and you shall have corn to sell and to keep.

Have you something to do tomorrow? Do it today

There are no gains without pains.

The noblest question in the world is: What good may I do in it?

H.W. Brands writes, in his biography of Benjamin Franklin (The First American):

Gazette readers intrigued enough to buy the bound version (priced at three shillings sixpence per dozen, obviously intended for resale) or the broadsheet edition (two shillings sixpence the dozen) were introduced to Richard Sauncers, Philomath - a standard honorific for almanac-makers - by Saunders himself. "Courteous Reader, I might in this place attempt to gain thy favour by declaring that I write almanacks with no other view than the public good; but in this I should not be sincere, and men are nowadays too wise to be deceived in pretenses how specious soever." Like the printer Franklin apologizing for the advertisement that gave offense to certain customers, Saunders confessed to monetary motives. "The plain truth of the matter is, I am excessive poor, and my wife, good woman, is, I tell her, excessive proud. She cannot bear, she says, to sit spinning in her shift of tow while I do nothing but gaze at the stars, and has threatened to burn all my books and rattling-traps (as she calls my instruments) if I do not make some profitable use of them for the good of my family. The printer has offered me some considerable share of the profits, and I have thus begun to comply with my Dame's desire."

Hahahahahahaha

More from The First American:

As was apparent to the least attentive reader, Franklin thoroughly enjoyed adopting the guise of Richard Saunders. Where Franklin the businessman had to be circumspect careful not to offend, Saunders the almanacker could be outrageous - indeed, the more outrageous the better. Franklin as Franklin often had to hide his gifts to avoid inspiring envy; Franklin as Saunders could flaunt his wit, erudition, and general brilliance. In time - as his position in the community grew more secure - Franklin would no longer require Richard Saunders; till then the alter ego helped keep him sane.

Readers enjoyed Poor Richard as much as Franklin did. Copies were out the door by the single and the gross. In one year John Peter Zenger of New York (lately the defendant in a celebrated libel trial) took eighteen dozen in a batch, then another sixteen dozen. Louis Timothee (who now generally went by Lewis Timothy [more on him here) in South Carolina ordered twenty-five dozen; Thomas Fleet in Boston also took twenty-five dozen. James Franklin's widow, Ann, in Newport bought one thousand. These numbers hardly made Poor Richard the bestselling almanac in America; where Poor Richard sold an average of about ten thousand per year, Nathaniel Ames's Astronomical Diary sold five to six times as many. But Poor Richard had a unique persona, and it developed a loyal readership.

While readers may have come for the quarrels Franklin provoked, they stayed for the advice he dispensed - and the way he dispensed it. Every almanac offered pearls of wisdom on personal conduct and related matters of daily life; that the pearls had been retrieved from other oysters bothered no one except perhaps the owners of those other oysters, who in any event had no recourse in the absencew of applicable copyright law. The trick for writers like Franklin was to polish the pearls and set them distinctively; in this he had no peer. What came to be called "the sayings of Poor Richard" first surfaced as filler on the calendar pages of the almanac the limitations of space, together with Franklin's inherent economy, taught him to distill each message to its morsel. "Great talkers, little doers" broke no philosophical ground, but for pith it trumped nearly every alternative. "Hunger never saw bad bread"; "Light purse, heavy heart"; "Industry need not wish"; and "Gifts burst rocks" fell into the same category.

Sometimes succinctness yielded - slightly - to sauciness. "Neither a fortress nor a maidenhead will hold out long after they begin to parley." "Marry your son when you will but your daughter when you can." "Tell a miser he's rich, and a woman she's old, you'll get no money of one nor kindness of t'other." "Prythee isn't Miss Cloe's a comical case?/She lends out her tail, and she borrows her face." "The greatest monarch on the proudest throne is obliged to sit upon his own arse." "Force shits upon reason's back."

Poor Richard's Almanack is still in print today. Extraordinary.

Today In History: Dec. 16, 1773

On November 28, 1773, the Dartmouth sailed into port in Boston. It was full of tea. There had already been trouble in Philadelphia when the tea ship had tried to unload its cargo. A ship had been blown away from the port in New York by a storm. A confrontation was imminent.

Late November, early December, 1773, broadsides distributed throughout Boston:

Friends! Brethren! Countrymen! The worst of plagues, the detested TEA ... is now arrived in this harbor. The hour of destruction, or manly opposition to the machinations of tyranny, stares you in the face. Every friend to his country, to himself and posterity ... is now called upon