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Part X of XIII

“… Happy Constitution Day Yank.”
“Smudge Day Johnny.”
“Yupper.”
“Tell the story again, about how George had the founders put a smudge on the Constitution.”
“I thought you might ask Gus.”
“Oh?”
“Yes.”
“So you have something prepared?”
“Let me present, Constitution Day 1787.”
“Let’s go Reb.”
“Nowhere to go Yank, as we can story-tell right here.”
“Okay.”
“Conjure and imagine, if you will, the interior of …

INDEPENDENCE HALL, PHILADELPHIA PA – DAY 17 SEP 1787

GEORGE WASHINGTON (55) is chairing the Constitutional Convention and it is the last day, signing day, 17 September 1787. The hall is full of founders, such as ALEXANDER HAMILTON (30), JAMES MADISON (36), and BENJAMIN FRANKLIN (81); they are all gathered to conclude the convention and begin their journeys home. The (almost) completed Constitution is read aloud as well as a speech written by Franklin. WE HEAR the MURMUR of restive and attentive voices as NATHANIAL GORHAM (49), someone known to all in the room, rises to speak; he is a Massachusetts delegate, Chairman of the Whole during the convention, and Washington acknowledges him from the podium.

WASHINGTON
I see Nathanial, the honorable Mr. Gorham, would like to speak.

GORHAM
Gentlemen, if it is not too late, I would like that the clause declaring, 'the number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every forty Thousand,' be reconsidered.

WASHINGTON
You mean the representation clause.

GORHAM
Yes, and since it produced so much discussion, perhaps we should reconsider it.

WASHINGTON
Your proposal?

GORHAM
For a greater representation of the people, I propose we strike out 'forty' Thousand and insert 'thirty' Thousand.

HAMILTON
Agreed!

FRANKLIN
Yes!

Madison nods agreement.

WASHINGTON
(pauses) 
Although my situation has hitherto restrained me from offering sentiments on questions before the convention, and perhaps ought to now –

LAUGHTER. 

I can’t forbear expressing my wish that the change proposed might take place.

HAMILTON
Say more.

WASHINGTON
It is much desired that the objections to the plan recommended might be as few as possible, and the smallness of the proportion of Representatives was considered by many members of the Convention, an insufficient security for the rights and interests of the people.

FRANKLIN
Yes.

WASHINGTON
The representation ratio had always seemed to me to be the exceptionable part of the plan, and late as the present moment was for admitting amendments, I believe it of so much consequence that it would give much satisfaction to see it adopted.

The founders then vote and the change is unanimously accepted. Madison and a clerk make the edit to the Constitution by altering the word 'forty' into 'thirty,' and in doing so leave a smudge.”

“Thanks for The Story of Smudge Day Johnny.”
“You’re welcome.”
“What’s the word on the usurpers and the surrender?”
“Merrick Garland.”
“Who’s that?”
“The Attorney General for We the People.”
“Word is?”
“We’ve asked for support.”
“I like it.”
“Also, there’s some news about Sarah.”
“Berry?”
“Right, …”

Next Up: 1 October and part XI of the series Johnny Reb and Gus Yank Berryvillin’: Sarah.

Posted by Bryan W. Brickner

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On 17 September 1787, everyone in the room knew the meaning of Article 1, Section 2, Clause 3: “The Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand, but each State shall have at Least one Representative.”
 
Alexander Hamilton knew.
 
Dude named Benjamin Franklin knew.
 
James Madison, he knew.
 
George Washington knew, as the “thirty” was a wish of his.
 
The founders, all 39 of them, knew what they were signing on that September day.
 
Three dissenters knew too, as they withheld their signatures because of what they didn’t want to sign.
 
The Constitution was then sent to and ratified by all 13 independent states, so they all knew.
 
What did they know?
 
They knew that “We the People” was a constitutionally created way, one recreated every ten years.
 
They also knew that along that way there would be webs.
 
Webs are things that snare.
 
To avoid webs, stay on the way, the We the People way.
 
Happy Constitution Day All!
 
 
*Next Up: A 2020 political theory update on 10 October, Locke, Madison and Dahl.
 
Posted by Bryan W. Brickner

​Winter series part 5 of 13
 
 
 




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Kali
 
“… He was also George’s brother.”
“Seems funny Reb.”
“What?”
“George having brothers,” clarified Gus, “that just sounds odd.”
“They got along Yank.”
“Yeah ~ like how?”
“Fishing.”
“Thought the slaves would do that.”
“George and Sam liked to go fishing.”
“So if Sam was out by Winchester,” Gus pondered, “George was too.”
“He was: it’s where he got his start.”
“Young George starting out … just-like you and me Johnny.”
“Sort of.”
“Washington always seems a bit unreal.”
“True.”
“It’s hard to imagine him young and doubtful and not …”

“Not George.”
“Right,” Gus continued, “his life, his existence, it depended on so many others.”
​“Absolutely.”
“And cannon.”
“Knowledge?”
“Boomers Johnny.”
“Like Ticonderoga.”
“Henry Knox,” gushed Gus, “he was a ‘76er.”
“Knox helped George and the rebellion a lot.”
“He got those cannon moved from New York to Boston.”
“Cannon again.”
“Whatcha mean?”
“Oh,” offered Reb, “that’s what the British were looking for when they headed for Lexington and Concord.”
“They were looking for rebel cannon.”
“Yes.”
“Then they were going to round up the free speakers.”
“Yes again.”
“Rebel thoughts ‘eh Johnny?”
“A new consciousness Yank.”
“One with no King.”
“So said Paine.”
“Who said ‘Join, or Die’ Reb?”
“Ben …”

“Ben Franklin?”
“That’s a snake Gus.”
“Where?”
“Ben Franklin.”
“Why you slandering Ben Johnny?”
“No slander Gus; it was Franklin who coined the phrase ‘Join or Die’ and he used a snake to symbolize the colonies.”
“Okay.”
“There was also the idea that if you cut up the snake, another piece would grow back.”
“Folk belief.”
“Hydra too.”
“Never heard of him.”
“A she Gus: a snake-like monster Hercules fought.”
“You know lots Reb.”
“Thanks Gus.”
“Shall we stretch our Nowhere limbs?”
“Let’s …”

*Next Up: The Union 2016 winter series continues Saturday 6 February with part 6, John Locke and Gus’ Name.

Posted by Bryan W. Brickner

War Cry Heal Union: The series (2 of 10)

I came upon today’s story by happenstance ~ much like the citizens who fought and died there.

In 2011 I visited Marietta Georgia and its National Cemetery. Most of the federal soldiers interned there are from 1864 and Sherman’s campaign to capture Atlanta; many fought in the Kennesaw Mountain battle and, specifically, at Cheatham Hill, also known as “Dead Angle,” and the map indicated a monument to Illinois ~ my home state.

The above photo’s perspective is from the top of Cheatham Hill; on the morning of battle, 27 June 1864, this would have been the Tennessee/Confederate line (the sun is to the northwest ~ an afternoon photo). The Federals were in the forest background with the hill to their front. They were mostly citizen-soldiers from Illinois, Indiana and Ohio in infantry regiments; they would soon rush across that field and up the hill to assault the Tennesseans.

What are a citizen-soldier’s sentiments at such moments? Prayer for sure … and probably shouts of ~ “There’s Hell boys!” or “Here comes Hell boys!” ~ depending on one’s perspective.

At 9:00 a.m. Federal skirmishers and a human wave of blue moved out of the forest and up the hill to assault the Confederate breastworks …

Because we can, let’s pause the assault for a moment and give some thought to the carnage that is about to take place; let’s even ponder such things as: why are citizens from Illinois, Indiana and Ohio assaulting Tennesseans on a Georgia hilltop? Or, more clearly, what part of our Constitution failed: Madison’s theory of representing We the People according to our numbers or the lack thereof?

Since we just paused war for a moment, we might as well keep going and call in a couple of founding spirits ~ Benjamin Franklin (anti-slaver) and James Madison (slaver) ~ for an imagined-yet-real constitutional dialogue:

Ben Franklin: James, they didn’t use the blueprint and representing We the People at the ratio of one Representative for every thirty Thousand.

James Madison: I know Benjamin ~ they got caught-up in slavery and the three-fifths clause.

Franklin: By 1860, the last Census before the Civil War, the representation ratio had risen to 119,000 citizens per Representative [Brickner: Article the First page 100]. Obviously, that is un-representation and not our design for We the people of the United States Republic.

Madison: I know ~ it’s Plato’s Republic …

Franklin: … Which doesn’t work.

Madison: They’ll learn ~ we had too as well.

Yes, We the People still hold the Unrepresented “not yet” card. It’s the Constitution’s Article 1 Section 2 Clause 3: “The Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand, but each State shall have at Least one Representative.”

Okay, back to the assault. If the Illinois, Indiana and Ohio citizens have to charge (orders you know) and the Tennesseans, under the command of Benjamin Franklin Cheatham and Patrick R. Cleburne, have to obey orders and hold the line … you can see what’s about to happen. There’s no room for maneuver ~ nowhere to go. The Illinois citizens want the hill so they can take Atlanta (only 20 miles away) and go back home; the Tennesseans want the hill to save Atlanta and go back to a home.

So the assault happens … now the photo looks different; suddenly it’s a nice picture of a citizen-killing zone. Soldiers often say similar things ~ how peaceful Nature can be and feel … and then Hell breaks out.

On 27 June 1914, the 50th anniversary of the battle, the Illinois Monument was dedicated on Cheatham Hill; it’s on the spot where 15 Illinois Infantry Regiments fought and dug in: they couldn’t dislodge the Tennesseans and they couldn’t retreat down the hill without suffering terrible casualties; “Dig-in” was the command and dig they did. The Battle of Kennesaw Mountain 150th Anniversary group recently highlighted a 100 year-old article from The Marietta Journal and Courier written in preparation for the monument’s unveiling a century ago; the events at Dead Angle are honored:

“Cheatham’s Hill was one of the memorable battles of the war. The Federals and Confederates faced each other there for six days and six nights, their lines being so close that the soldiers were in ordinary speaking distance. They fought from the 27th of June to the 3rd of July, 1864 and on the last day the Confederates withdrew because of a flank movement. It was well they did so, as the Federals had constructed a tunnel far into the hill, had placed explosives under the Confederate position and intended to touch off the mine on the 4th of July.”

The tunnel is still visible today … and war continues its flanking movement.

The day after the monument's dedication, 28 June 1914, the heir to the Austrian throne is assassinated by an “unrepresented” subject of the empire (an anarchist); this singular event, seemingly a world away from Marietta and Cheatham Hill, would lead the European Empires into World War I ~ a war that would soon touch Georgia and all the other states in the Union.

Perhaps stated in terms of We the People of Europe, WW I (like our Civil War) was caused by a failure to represent ~ account for ~ The Unrepresented.

We’ll pick-up there tomorrow with Empires Crumble and Others Build, part 3 in the War Cry Heal Union series.

Video:
Cheatham Hill

Bryan W. Brickner
Ew Publishing

There’s no Blue Ox in John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress (1678), though there does seem to be about everything else.

The book is an English Christian classic for its allegorical portrayal of a pilgrim’s pilgrimage. In Bunyan’s tale, “Christian” is both a metaphor (one who accepts Jesus as Christ) and the name of the Pilgrim who takes a life changing journey from the City of Destruction to Mount Zion and the Celestial City. Christian’s trip reads like Alice in Wonderland dosed with Voltaire’s Candide and highway-tested with Zarathustra-like problem solving. For example, after seeing the cross, dropping his burden and watching it fall into the mouth of a sepulchre (burial pit), Christian meets three Shining Ones (angels) who bless him with gifts; he then breaks into song:

Who’s this? the Pilgrim. How! ‘tis very true,
Old things are passed away, all’s become new.
Strange! He’s another man, upon my word.
They be fine feathers that make a fine bird.

Then Christian gave three leaps for joy, and went on, singing:

Thus far did I come laden with my sin;
Nor could aught ease the grief that I was in
Till I came hither: What a place is this!
Must here be the beginning of my bliss?
Must here the burden fall from off my back?
Must here the strings that bound it to me crack?
Blest cross! blest sepulchre! blest rather be
The Man that there was put to shame for me![i]

John Bunyan (1628-1688) was a “tinker” by trade (he fixed pots and pans and traveled Gypsy-like) and an earthy-type of preacher (imagine a swearing Puritan). He was jailed twelve years for preaching Protestantism (basically, he wanted to preach his way – the way he felt the Good Lord); they would have let him out if only he’d stop the preaching – but he kept saying he’d preach his word of God as soon as he was out the prison gates. Bunyan began The Pilgrim’s Progress while jailed (he wrote lots of books) and the Quakers helped secure his unconditional release through petition to the English Crown.

How famous was John Bunyan? Ben Franklin wrote in his Autobiography (1791) that The Pilgrim’s Progress was the second most popular book in colonial America (Bible first); he also said, as a noted book collector, that Bunyan’s works were his first complete collection.

Obviously, Bunyan and the Protestants didn’t invent the Pilgrim: there have been and will be Jewish pilgrims, Catholic pilgrims and even Nothing-in-Particular pilgrims. In the US though, our founding and what we celebrate on Thanksgiving Day are rooted in a Protestant-Puritan Pilgrim Age.

This problem, that there are no Protestants on the US Supreme Court (the last one was in 2010, Justice John Paul Stevens), is not a religious problem; Article VI of the US Constitution is clear on that question, as it states: “but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.” No, this is about representation and twelve words in Article I of the US Constitution: “The Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand.” Unambiguously, this is not religious: it’s representational and about representing We the People in Congress according to our birthright – George Washington’s number, 30,000.

The US Congress sets the number of justices on the Court and a constitutional House of 10,000 Representatives would certainly add judges; to wit, as things are, five judges decide the fate of a law for a nation of over 300 million citizens: that’s one justice for every 60 million people.

Here’s a just bid: add a nine before the nine to make it 99.

Yeah, 99 Supremes instead of nine. That alone would add Protestants (51% of Americans according to Pew Research), Nothing-in-Particulars (12%), Mormons (1.7%), Atheists (1.6%), Buddhists (0.7%), and Muslims (0.6%) to the six Catholics (24%) and three Jewish (1.7%) justices on the Court. While we are on the topic, let’s think of adding citizens like a truck driver judge (approximately 0.5%), you know, people familiar with life on the road, journeying like a pilgrim across this land of ours – yeah that sounds supreme as well.

In The Pilgrim’s Progress, after encountering the Shining Ones, Christian’s dreamscape takes him to three men in iron fetters – Simple, Sloth and Presumption – reminding all of us in the 21st century (and perhaps even this weekend) that maybe things haven’t changed that much.

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone ~ Peace Up!
Bryan W. Brickner

[i] John Bunyan, The Pilgrim’s Progress (New York: Washington Square Press [1678] 1961), 37.