December 9: We Dare Not Speak Its Name

The Fugitive Slave Act (part of the Bummer December Reading Event) doesn't mention slavery. It mentions "fugitives," but they are "fugitives from service or labor" -- a phrase that could describe someone reading a sports blog at their desk. But we all know what it means.

It's pretty heinous, of course -- "In no trial or hearing under this act shall the testimony of such alleged fugitive be admitted in evidence," for example -- but then we knew that. But to me the interesting thing is the refusal to call a slave a slave. Maybe there's some legal reason they can't, but I suspect it's just another example of euphemism. It's pre-Orwellian, you could say. In fact I'm sure "advanced interrogation techniques" were used on these "fugitives from service".

It also (and here wikipedia is again invaluable) was an expansion on the War on Fugitives:

And be it further enacted, That any person who shall knowingly and willingly obstruct, hinder, or prevent such claimant...or shall harbor or conceal such fugitive, so as to prevent the discovery and arrest of such person, ... shall, for either of said offences, be subject to a fine not exceeding one thousand dollars, and imprisonment not exceeding six months.

In other words, even in the Northern states, you had to be on the side of the masters, or the persons in service or labor. The Northern states, apparently, did not like this. But the alternative was instability, and people will almost always choose a deteriorating stability over the unknown.

The Compromise of 1850 was the North's Munich, in a way; it just kicked the inevitable confrontation down the road. But (to be contrarian), maybe that's not so bad. There's something to be said for letting things disintegrate to the point where you have new people come in who have no interest in keeping the existing ways. Think Lincoln over Fillmore, or Roosevelt over Hoover, or Churchill over Chamberlain, or even, potentially, our own situation. Before that you'll try anything, even euphemism (or, to use a euphemism for eumphemism, "rebranding.")

October 15: America's First Quagmire

Vespucci, sort of. I imagine he went way over budget too.

Actually, it's Amerigo's first quagmire, but it's a lot less sexy a title. It's Chef Boyardee Presents Famous Italian Explorers Week, sponsored by The Olive Garden and powered by the wines of Ernest and Julio Gallo, and today's Prince Spaghetti reading (for, as my Masshole readers may know, Wednesday is Prince Spaghetti Day -- I don't know how many times I saw that commercial watching the Terry O'Reilly Bruins) is Vespucci's famous (and I guess disputed) letter detailing his discoveries in the New World.

About this reading I have two remarks. The first is that, apparently, one had to be much more cringey in writing to a Florentine noble than in a Spanish one, because there's pages of bootlicking before we get to the Indians. Bureaucrats out there, take note -- I recommend putting the following phrase on top of all your cover sheets to your boss:

...as fennel is customarily given atop of delicious viands to fit them for better digestion, so may you, for a relief from your so heavy occupations, order this letter of mine to be read: so that they may withdraw you somewhat from the continual anxiety and assiduous reflection upon public affairs: and if I shall be prolix, I crave pardon, my Magnificent Lord.

Stop being prolix about being prolix! Still, Amerigo (and why isn't "Amerigo" the name of a moving company?) knows himself -- the dude is way prolix. So, skipping all the way to the end, as though we were doing coverage, let's get to the second thing.

What's happening here is that Amerigo and crew have been tribe-hopping -- some tribes are friendly, some are naked, etc. etc., but they're seeing them all. Think retirees on a cruise, but with more potential for smallpox. Finally they hang out for about a month with some friendlies to repair boats and stuff, and now they're about to shove off:

...and (now) desiring to depart upon our voyage, they made complaint to us how at certain times of the year there came from over the sea to this their land, a race of people very cruel, and enemies of theirs: and (who) by means of treachery or of violence slew many of them, and ate them: and some they made captives, and carried them away to their houses, or country: and how they could scarcely contrive to defend themselves from them, making signs to us that (those) were an island-people and lived out in the sea about a hundred leagues away: and so piteously did they tell us this that we believed them: and we promised to avenge them of so much wrong..

So they go fight these guys! And, while they are not greeted as liberators, it turns out to be a cakewalk:

when the next day arrived, we beheld coming across the land a great number of people, with signals of battle, continually sounding horns, and various other instruments which they use in their wars: and all (of them) painted and feathered, so that it was a very strange sight to behold them: wherefore all the ships held council, and it was resolved that since this people desired hostility with us, we should proceed to encounter them and try by every means to make them friends: in case they would not have our friendship, that we should treat them as foes, and so many of them as we might be able to capture should all be our slaves: and having armed ourselves as best we could, we advanced towards the shore, and they sought not to hinder us from landing, I believe from fear of the cannons: and we jumped on land, 57 men in four squadrons, each one (consisting of) a captain and his company: and we came to blows with them.

No mention of the trying-to-make-friends gambit, I suspect it was bullshit all along. Let the liberation commence:

...and after a long battle (in which) many of them (were) slain, we put them to flight, and pursued them to a village, having made about 250 of them captives, and we burnt the village, and returned to our ships with victory and 250 prisoners, leaving many of them dead and wounded, and of ours there were no more than one killed and 22 wounded, who all escaped (i.e., recovered), God be thanked.

There you have it -- the first New World foreign adventurism. And it couldn't have been easier.

So where is the quagmire? It's right here:

...and we thereon made sail for Spain with 222 captive slaves: and reached the port of Calis (Cadiz) on the 15th day of October, 1498, where we were well received and sold our slaves.

And it was on that day, 510 years ago today, that America lost its innocence for the first of the about a million times it has claimed to have done so.

October 12: In Fourteen Hundred and Ninety-three

Columbus filed a report. It is like the famous Herman Mankiewicz telegram:

In 1926 Mankiewicz left a job as drama editor at The New Yorker magazine to write for Hollywood. Shortly after his arrival on the West Coast, he sent a telegram to journalist-friend Ben Hecht in New York: "Millions are to be grabbed out here and your only competition is idiots."

Compare and contrast with:

Hispaniola is a marvel. Its hills and mountains, fine plains and open country, are rich and fertile for planting and for pasturage, and for building towns and villages. The seaports there are incredibly fine, as also the magnificent rivers, most of which bear gold. ... They have no iron, nor steel, nor weapons, nor are they fit for them, because although they are well-made men of commanding stature, they appear extraordinarily timid. The only arms they have are sticks of cane, cut when in seed, with a sharpened stick at the end, and they are afraid to use these.

Did Hispaniola even have gold? If so, this is the first bullshit real-estate prospectus in our hemisphere -- so everything we needed for our civilization was there right at the start, including this, which makes me smile:

But our Redeemer has given victory to our most illustrious King and Queen, and to their Kingdoms rendered famous by this glorious event, at which all Christendom should rejoice...with fervent prayers for the high distinction that will accrue to them from turning so many peoples to our holy faith; and also from the temporal benefits that not only Spain but all Christian nations will obtain.

God made us our money!

I know there should be a certain amount of deploring over the European depredation that began with this letter, and I see it, but, being an American and all, I don't wish to wish myself other than what I am; and, without Columbus, there wouldn't be this picture from a Columbus Day parade:
That's America to me.

September 15: What a country!

What I saw when I crossed the Delaware.

I like politics myself, and I could pull out a thing or two from Washington's Farewell Address that accord with my way of thinking -- thereby making myself seem like Washington, even though he was taller. (I can imagine how Adams felt.)

But, before the tendentiousness, let's look at how worried Washington was about his young country. Everyone talks about how the Farewell Address lays out a foreign policy, but when you read it, you find it's front-loaded with a long argument about why it would be a bad idea to fly into a million little pieces:

The North, in an unrestrained intercourse with the South, protected by the equal Laws of a common government, finds, in the productions of the latter, great additional resources of maritime and commercial enterprise—and precious materials of manufacturing industry.—The South, in the same intercourse, benefiting by the agency of the North, sees its agriculture grow and its commerce expand....The East, in a like intercourse with the West, already finds, and in the progressive improvement of interior communications, by land and water, will more and more find, a valuable vent for the commodities which it brings from abroad, or manufactures at home...

It's in your own interest not to flirt with the French! You can't blame Washington, though -- he had only just gotten the British to leave the Great Lakes once and for all. His vision for the U.S. is that it should be the World's Biggest Switzerland:

If we remain one People, under an efficient government, the period is not far off, when we may defy material injury from external annoyance; when we may take such an attitude as will cause the neutrality we may at any time resolve upon to be scrupulously respected. When belligerent nations, under the impossibility of making acquisitions upon us, will not lightly hazard the giving us provocation when we may choose peace or war, as our interest, guided by our justice, shall counsel.

The benefit of this? It's all about the as-yet-uninvented Benjamins:

But even our commercial policy should hold an equal and impartial hand:—neither seeking nor granting exclusive favors or preferences;—consulting the natural course of things;—diffusing and diversifying by gentle means the streams of commerce, but forcing nothing;—establishing with Powers so disposed—in order to give trade a stable course, to define the rights of our Merchants, and to enable the Government to support them...

"To give trade a stable course," which it had not yet had yet, I guess; I find Washington to be full of anxiety that his vision for the country might come to pass, but won't -- if things go wrong. Washington was, certainly rightly, a man of anxiety. No wonder he made whiskey at Mount Vernon.

Another interesting point, much remarked on I'm sure, is this graf:

Of all the dispositions and habits, which lead to political prosperity, Religion, and Morality are indispensable supports.—In vain would that man claim the tribute of Patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of Men and Citizens.—The mere Politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them.—A volume could not trace all their connexions with private and public felicity.—Let it simply be asked where is security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths, which are the instruments of investigation in Courts of Justice? And let us with caution indulge the supposition, that morality can be maintained without religion...

We should be religious, not because it is true, but because it is useful. Without religion the property values will go down. That's a real Episcopalian for you! Not that I'm against it, mind you -- hot religion does seem incompatible with a state founded by a bunch of people who seem to have preferred the Romans to the Christians.

Now for the selective quotation!

Hence likewise they will avoid the necessity of those overgrown Military establishments, which, under any form of government, are inauspicious to liberty, and which are to be regarded as particularly hostile to Republican Liberty.

I couldn't agree more.

September 3: Happy Third of September!

Today is the day we officially signed the treaty declaring our independence from Great Britain! At my house we celebrate it just like millions of other Americans do -- I get dressed up like someone like 1783 (what you do is buy a 1776 costume and let it sit around for seven years), sit the kids down with li'l tankards of Hearty Early American Ale, and read to them the stirring words of this historic, immortal document:

It is agreed that the people of the United States shall continue to enjoy unmolested the right to take fish of every kind on the Grand Bank, and on all the other banks of Newfoundland; also in the Gulph of Saint Lawrence, and at all other places in the sea where the inhabitants of both countries used at any time heretofore to fish.

Was it for this that we suffered at Valley Forge? Yes, and not only that -- for we also won the right to dry fish on the uninhabited parts of Labrador as well. Basically you could call this the bureaucrats' Fourth of July, for all stirring sentiments must one day come down to practical matters of who gets to fish where. You campaign in poetry, as Mario Cuomo said, but you govern in prose.

Speaking of New Yorkers, John Jay is one of the co-authors of this treaty. I don't quite know enough early American history to complete the term

John Jay: Founding Fathers::X:Y.

Is he the Tommy Henrich of the Founding Fathers? The Dee Dee Ramone? Is he a serviceable gin-and-tonic on the bar menu of the birth of America? Help me out. Until then, remember the stirring conclusion of Article X:

The solemn ratifications of the present treaty, expedited in good and due form, shall be exchanged between the contracting parties, in the space of six months, or sooner if possible, to be computed from the day of the signature of the present treaty.

Be safe driving home, on holidays like today the cops crack down hard.

July 10: First white flight in North America

Don't let the plushness fool you -- Helga from "Hagar the Horrible" was capable of anything.

Wikipedia says that "Vinland" (discussed today in "American Historical Documents"), may not mean Wine-land at all, but Pasture-land. That's probably just as well, for based on my previous researches into Vikings -- which consist mostly of heavy metal album covers -- they are associated with mead, not wine. (Wine = classical music and Norah Jones. Beer = rock, cheap beer = rawk, and jazz = heroin, of course.)

But since Vinland is in Newfoundland, what's this reading doing in American Historical Documents? My paranoid anti-Catholicism sensors, projecting back on the WASPs of a century ago, tend to think that it's the good people of Harvard trying to make sure we know that America was not discovered by an Italian, and would all those people in the North End please be quiet? But I don't really believe that, it just amuses me to pretend to believe it (which is awful of me). This reading is supposed to be interesting because the first white baby to be born in the New World is in it. Well, I like white babies fine -- my wife and I got a couple a few years back, although I cruelly made her do the unloading -- but I can't help noting that this particular family got the hell out once they saw who their neighbors were. That's right, Skrellings:

The Skrellings advanced to the spot which Karlsefni had selected for the encounter; and a battle was fought there, in which great numbers of the band of the Skrellings were slain..... Then they fled helter skelter into the woods, and thus their intercourse came to an end. Karlsefni and his party remained there throughout the winter; but in the spring Karlsefni announces that he is not minded to remain there longer, but will return to Greenland.

I'm sure he mentioned that the schools were better in Greenland.

The reading then concludes with the lurid story of Freydis (Leif Ericson's sister), which proves -- as if it needed proving -- that there is no Eden so fair that snakes won't appear in it. Freydis has decided to leave Vinland, and has negotiated with one of the other settlers that they'll swap ships so she can leave. Now she goes home after having concluded this deal:

Therewith they parted; and she returned home and Finnbogi to his bed. She climbed up into bed, and awakened Thorvard with her cold feet; and he asked her why she was so cold and wet. She answered with great passion: “I have been to the brothers,” says she, “to try to buy their ship, for I wished to have a larger vessel; but they received my overtures so ill that they struck me and handled me very roughly; what time thou, poor wretch, wilt neither avenge my shame nor thy own; and I find, perforce, that I am no longer in Greenland. Moreover I shall part from thee unless thou wreakest vengeance for this.”

And now he could stand her taunts no longer, and ordered the men to rise at once and take their weapons; and this they yield. And they then proceeded directly to the house of the brothers, and entered it while the folk were asleep, and seized and bound them, and led each one out when he was bound; and, as they came out, Freydis caused each one to be slain. In this wise all of the men were put to death, and only the women were left; and these no one would kill. At this Freydis exclaimed, “Hand me an axe.” This was done; and she fell upon the five women, and left them dead. They returned home after this dreadful deed; and it was very evident that Freydis was well content with her work.

You can say one thing for these Vikings -- at least they're thorough.

July 4: To the hot dogs!

It's not exactly an obscure classic today. The introduction is well-known and needs no introduction (although the two phrases that ring happily to my ear are the clubbish-shounding "Prudence, indeed, will dictate..." and the conclusion before the list of grievances: "To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world." I like that, in this sentence, the listeners must be candid also, or they won't get the whole picture.

To be political for a second I will pull out two of Jefferson's et al. complaints:

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislature.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

One of my political complaints is the fact that a sizeable number of people don't want you to criticize the troops; this, to me, will tend to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power. (Slightly on-topic: in my career I've met a few M*A*S*H writers, all of whom had been in the military in one way or another, because of the draft when they were in college. I think it was much easier to make fun of the military when everyone had been in it, and, on the flip side, it's much easier for those who had no experience of it to feel excessively reverent.)

Such reverence also seems bound to happen when you have, in times of peace, a Standing Army; once you have a Standing Army, it seems inevitable that you will no longer have times of peace ( “What’s the point of having this superb military you’re always talking about, if we can’t use it?” -- Madeline Albright).

The Founders had experienced empires from the business end and knew what they were about. Prudence, indeed!

(photo via Uni Watch.)

July 3: Gettysburg and the Hawthorne Effect

You know what you don't get, in the age of e-mail? 90-page letters to your brother about what you've been up to. But then most of us have not been up to the battle of Gettysburg, and tucked into volume 43, American Historical Documents, we have account of it all by Frank Haskell, who was an aide-de-camp to one of the generals.

To give you the full the-past-is-another-country flavor, here's a taste:

Onward they moved—night and day were blended—over many a weary mile, through dust, and through mud, in the broiling sunshine, in the flooding rain, over steeps, through defiles, across rivers, over last year’s battle fields, where the skeletons of our dead brethren, by hundreds, lay bare and bleaching, weary, without sleep for days, tormented with the newspapers, and their rumors, that the enemy was in Philadelphia, in Baltimore, in all places where he was not, yet these men could still be relied upon, I believe, when the day of conflict should come. “Haec olim meminisse juvabit.” We did not then know this.

Nowadays, of course, we would be a little more colloquial and say, "It was a total haec olim meminisee juvabit situation." (The reference, I hardly need to say, is from The Aeneid, but you can see from the link that of course I had to Google it.)

Given the excerpt-licious prinicple of the DRG we are only directed to read until the end of the first day of the battle (which makes me wonder why it wasn't assigned to July 1, but that's a matter to take up with my imaginary anonymous clerk in a high collar who had to make the list a century ago). So the magnificence of Pickett's Charge, Shelby Foote, etc. is not covered. What is covered here, among other things, is Management Secrets of the Union Generals. The biggest emotional point in the excerpt involves a change at the top. The Union starts out marching against the Rebels under Hooker:

Then, I believe, the army in general, both officers and men, had no confidence in Hooker, in either his honesty or ability. Did they not charge him, personally, with the defeat at Chancellorsville? Were they not still burning with indignation against him for that disgrace? And now, again under his leadership, they were marching against the enemy! And they knew of nothing, short of the providence of God, that could, or would, remove him. For many reasons, during the marches prior to the battle, we were anxious, and at times heavy at heart.

But then, sunshine!

On the 28th...we breathed a full breath of joy, and of hope. The Providence of God had been with us—we ought not to have doubted it—General Meade commanded the Army of the Potomac. Not a favorable time, one would be apt to suppose, to change the General of a large army, on the eve of battle, the result of which might be to destroy the Government and country! But it should have been done long before. At all events, any change could not have been for the worse...From this moment my own mind was easy concerning results

Immediately I thought of the Hawthorne Effect -- the theory that any change in an organization's environment can produce short-term gains in productivity. Lincoln's Steinbrenerrian ways with his generals has turned up a Bob Lemon.

Another thing to note is that, even when you're leading people who know Virgil and write complicated sentences, simple handsomeness goes a long way:

Hancock is just the man for such an emergency as this. Upon horseback I think he was the most magnificent looking General in the whole Army of the Potomac at that time. With a large, well shaped person, always dressed with elegance, even upon that field of confusion, he would look as if he was “monarch of all he surveyed,” and few of his subjects would dare to question his right to command, or do aught else but to obey. His quick eye, in a flash, saw what was to be done, and his voice and his royal right hand at once commenced to do it.

As I have always suspected, existence is biased toward the tall, and now I have the Harvard Classics to prove it.

June 17: Idealism, Indians, and memos

Generally, I hate the word "interesting" -- it reminds me of the book reports I used to do in elementary school. ("'A Wrinkle In Time' is an interesting book. It features the interesting idea of spacetime travel, which it uses in interesting ways." Maybe I haven't progressed much, come to think of it.) But the "Brief Narrative of the Progress of the Gospel amongst the Indians in New England, in the Year 1670" has a variety of, uh, aspects of interest.

We might start with the historical aspect; it is, after all, in "American Historical Documents." John Eliot learned the native language (called Natick, Wikipedia says) in order to preach Jesus to them; he even organized the converts into "praying towns" near the Puritan settlements. The Introductory Note notes, "This pamphlet gives an interesting (! - ed) picture of the conditions of evangelisation among the natives at the end of the first generation of intercourse with the colonists," and really, when you think about it, the encounter between the Puritans and natives is a strange one. The Virginians were just in it for the money; it resembles the Europeans coming into Asia in centuries past. (Or the Mongols.) But here, among the Massachusetts tribes, we have a people who have had a megachurch dropped on them, and Eliot only wants to make it more mega:

Here [Natick] we have two Teachers, John Speen and Anthony; we have betwixt forty and fifty Communicants at the Lord’s Table, when they all appear, but now, some are dead, and some decriped with age; ...Sundry more are proposed, and in way of preparation to joyn unto the Church.

Eliot, with I guess some support from the higher-ups, is trying to get a beautiful rainbow coalition going, and you might say to yourself, well, it could have worked, except you know going in (from the Introduction) that, "The movement which was so vigorously started by Eliot was checked before his death by King Philip’s war, 1675–6." That war wiped out more than sundry of the Indians, and made the brotherhood-of-man jazz applicable to English only. NINA -- No Indians Need Apply.

So do all idealistic enterprises end in power politics.

Unless they end in paperwork, that is; because the second interesting aspect is the bureaucratic. The title is "Brief Narrative," but really it's a memo-slash-grant proposal. It starts with the implication that he screwed up his last presentation:

THAT brief Tract of the present state of the Indian-Work in my hand, which I did the last year on the sudden present you with when you call’d for such a thing; That falling short of its end, and you calling for a renewal thereof, with opportunity of more time, I shall begin...

And soon you realize that this is an update of how all the branch offices are doing ("Magunkukquok is another of our Praying-Towns at the remotest Westerly borders of Natick"), along with time-honored bitching from people in the field about money and personnel:

I find a blessing, when our Church of Natick doth send forth fit Persons unto some remoter places, to teach them the fear of the Lord. But we want maintenance for that Service; it is chargeable matter to send a Man from his Family: The Labourer is worthy of his Hire: We are determined to send forth some (if the Lord will, and that we live) this Autumn, sundry ways...We have Christ’s Example, his Promise, his Presence, his Spirit to assist; and I trust that the Lord will find a way for your encouragement.

Yeah, throw the mission statement back in their face, that'll work. And he does a little CYA for ordaining Indians:

...it is needed to add a word or two of Apology: I find it hopeless to expect English Officers in our Indian Churches; the work is full of hardship, hard labour, and chargeable also...An English young man raw in that language, coming to teach among our Christian-Indians, would be much to their loss; there be of themselves such as be more able, especially being advantaged that he speaketh his own language, and knoweth their manners.

And this kind of brings me to the last thing I found interesting, which is historiographical -- in other words, what is this doing in the Harvard Classics? I enjoy my cheap easy fun at Dr. Eliot's expense taking shots at their 1908-era prejudices, but really, to include this document of 17th century can-we-all-get-along seems kind of...progressive. (To say nothing of Dr. E's decision to include two Darwin volumes in the pre-Scopes era.) By our standards, of course, it's impossibly imperialistic to admire someone who wants to convert Indians, but by our standards it's OK to run our computers on coal.

Apr 30: Elitist!

What kind of a future does this man have in politics, when he talks in paragraph-long sentences:

I dwell on this prospect with every satisfaction, which an ardent love for my country can inspire; since there is no truth more thoroughly established, than that there exists in the economy and course of nature an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness, between duty and advantage, between the genuine maxims of an honest and magnanimous policy, and the solid rewards of public prosperity and felicity; since we ought to be no less persuaded that the propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right, which Heaven itself has ordained; and since the preservation of the sacred fire of liberty, and the destiny of the republican model of government, are justly considered as deeply, perhaps as finally staked on the experiment intrusted to the hands of the American people.

This is kind of boring even by the standards of eighteenth-century prose, but look at the syntax! Obviously Washington is not a guy you want to have a pewter tankard of hearty early-American ale with.

But then Washington doesn't want to have a beer with you either -- as this anecdote I Googled shows:

Gouverneur Morris entered, bowed, shook hands, laid his left hand on Washington’s shoulder, and said, “My dear General, I am very happy to see you look so well!” Washington withdrew his hand, stepped suddenly back, fixed his eye on Morris for several minutes with an angry frown, until the latter retreated abashed, and sought refuge in the crowd. The company looked on in silence. At the supper, which was provided by Hamilton, Morris said, “I have won the bet, but paid dearly for it, and nothing could induce me to repeat it."

The other interesting thing about this little address (which was delivered on this date 229 years ago), is that it's larded with references to God. Actually, not to God. The word "God" isn't in this speech. He's just "the Almighty," and I hope I will be forgiven if I say that Washington's conception of this Being (who he also calls a "Parent"), looks a little like...Super-Washington:

...who rules over the universe, who presides in the councils of nations, and whose providential aids can supply every human defect, that his benediction ...may enable every instrument employed in its administration to execute with success the functions allotted to his charge.

Another jawbreaker sentence! Does this guy never learn!

NOTE: You can actually see a copy of the address in Michael Gerson's Washington's own handwriting here.

Apr 10: The First American Real-Estate Deal

A short post today because our document is not very long. Or fascinating, for that matter.

Other countries arise out of the mists, or the steppes, or begin suckling on a she-wolf, but American began with a prospectus. Or so one might infer from today's Harvard Classic, which is a grant from King James I (or "the I and VI" to be pedantic, as I was taught to be in college) to the Virginia colonists. It's a sweet deal for all concerned, but especially for the King, who doesn't seem to be putting up anything, but gets to wet his beak anyway:

...YIELDING therefore, to Us, our Heirs and Successors, the fifth Part only of all the same Gold and Silver, and the fifteenth Part of all the same Copper, so to be gotten or had, as is aforesaid, without any other Manner or Profit or Account, to be given or yielded to Us, our Heirs, or Successors, for or in Respect of the same...

It's good to be the king!

Reading legalese isn't a talent of mine, but what I can't see in this document is the whole taxation/representation issue, as is discussed ad sleepyam in "John Adams." I guess it didn't really occur to either party (as I recall, revenue-raising in 1606 was kind of a haphazard enterprise even for the king) -- so, even though our colonies began in legalese, the lesson is that we should have had even more of it. Happily, that dream is being realized today.

Feb 18: Legalese

As if the compilers of the DRG back in 1908 had mystical knowledge that someday there would be a Presidents' Day that wasn't Washington's Birthday, and that we would have extra time on this day to read sentences like:

It is further agreed between the two contracting parties, that in case any of the islands mentioned in any of the preceding articles, which were in the possession of one of the parties prior to the commencement of the present war between the two countries, should, by the decision of any of the boards of commissioners aforesaid, or of the sovereign or State so referred to, as in the four next preceding articles contained, fall within the dominions of the other party, all grants of land made previous to the commencement of the war, by the party having had such possession, shall be as valid as if such island or islands had, by such decision or decisions, been adjudged to be within the dominions of the party having had such possession.

Cue up the Lee Greenwood! We're reading the Treaty of Ghent! You know, the one that ended the War of 1812! There aren't enough exclamation points in the world to make this exciting!

If you're expecting to refresh your vague memories as to why they fought the War of 1812 (covered here), prepare to be disappointed -- it's basically a treaty of border disputes. In fact, there are two examples of the treaty-maker's art that all might admire here:

1. Kick the problem down the road. All the territorial disputes (such as, Where does Nova Scotia begin?) are referred to commissioners. If they can't agree, a "friendly sovereign or State" will decide. Which one? You're not going to catch them naming that person now.

2. The road to peace is paved with good intentions.. Here's Article X, in full:

Whereas the traffic in slaves is irreconcilable with the principles of humanity and justice, and whereas both His Majesty and the United States are desirous of continuing their efforts to promote its entire abolition, it is hereby agreed that both the contracting parties shall use their best endeavours to accomplish so desirable an object.

I can only imagine that the Americans must've really wanted the war ended even to agree to this language. The political climate I'm used to does not allow useless meaningless language that's opposed to our institutions. Maybe the Americans got confused because one of the British negotiators was the "Admiral of the White," and they thought that was a racial, as opposed to a naval, distinction.

Feb 12 (Observed): Lincoln

True greatness in blogging consists of being unafraid to have an opinion on something that everyone else has an opinion on, too. And so it is with yesterday's reading on Lincoln. What makes Lincoln great? Everyone has an opinon. Here are some points from the readings (Gettysburg Address, 1863 Proclamation of Amnesty, the letter to Mrs. Bixby) that inform my view of the wonderfulness of Lincoln:

First of all, of course, he is a very great stylist. Example (from the letter to Mrs. Bixby, the woman who lost five sons):

I feel how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming.

This is also the "so great a sacrifice on the altar of freedom" letter, but honestly, anyone could have written that. It sounds like Reagan. But "beguile"! The whole idea of doing anything other than grieving is a lie! Notice also that Lincoln doesn't take the time to give himself credit for his honesty; the word does the work for him, he doesn't need more words to point out that a word just did it.

In fact, it's interesting that a lawyer, and a good one, would wind up being called Honest Abe, and I think it's because he's so good a lawyer (and so confident in his work) that he doesn't need to sugarcoat anything. In fact, one of his tactics is always the "I'm just a simple country lawyer" gambit. Here it is at the end of the proclmation of amnesty (which was his proposal for setting up provisional Union-friendly governments in Confederate states):

"and, while the mode presented is the best the Executive can suggest, with his present impressions, it must not be understood that no other possible mode would be acceptable."

With that tactic it shows off how breahtaking he is in his concepts -- Gettysburg dedicates us, of course, and my favorite passage from the second inaugural:

Of we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war, as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall, we discern therein, any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him?

That's enough for today. It's not even his birthday.

Jan 14: The First Step Toward Independence

More political science…in honor of the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut, adopted this day in 1639. I kind of romanticize it in my head – a bunch of lonely Englishmen, becoming Americans, enduring long, cold, dark nights, with nothing to pass the time but to establish "the first written constitution as a permanent limitation on governmental power, known in history." Here's how the Harvard Classics does it: “It is the work of the Connecticut Yankee.” Sounds like a description that was written close to closing time.

I was going to read it online, but when I saw that the printed text uses the old spelling, whereas the online version doesn’t, I crawled down to the bottom shelf and got the printed text. What better to add to this project of meaningless affectation than a reading with added meaningless affectation?

Okay, bam, Vol 43, pp. 60-65. This is a great volume, by the way (“American Historical Documents”). Think of how many people had a volume containing the text of the annexation of Hawaii without knowing it!

Oh, I see the point of cleaning up the spelling: “…vppon the River of Conectecotte and the Lands thereunto adoiyneing”. My son, who is a terrible speller, would be very reassured…but seriously, who is supposed to read this? I studied 16th century history in college, and I kind of like the random spellings, but wouldn’t it be a little off-putting?

Or maybe it’s supposed to be fascinating and a little inaccessible and magical. It’s not that hard to read (“doe therefore assotiate and conioyne our selues to be as one Publike State or Comonwelth”), and it makes you feel like an adept.

Otherwise? It’s just bylaws – one of those documents where it doesn’t seem significant unless you’re told why it is (in this case, I guess), because it limits terms of office – and, oddly enough for a seventeenth century New England state, has very little God in it, much less God than you would find on a presidential debate on NBC.

And finally, as to the title -- having been forced to study English Puritanism I find the Reading Guide's title over-determined. Isn't it really more of a step towards Cromwell's Commonwealth than a nation formed with a bunch of dissolute Virginians?