John Marshall wrote a five-volume set on “The Life of George Washington”. The first volume covers America’s history of early European attempts to settle in the New World. The entire set is available from amazon.com for 99 cents, but each volume is available individually for free (here is the list).
Category Archives: American History
The duty of a wise people
George Washington captured my imagination and heart as a child, with his humility, his love for the land, his willingness to take on public duties when all he truly wanted to do was return to his farming at his home, Mount Vernon. In the darkest days of the Revolutionary War, his army in rags and struggling to survive a cold winter encamped at Valley Forge, PA from December 1778 to June 1779, General Washington, didn’t toss up his hands and say, “they don’t pay me enough to put up with this misery!” He didn’t pack up his gear and head south for the winter. He suffered right beside his troops and spent many hours writing letters (excellent site here), often pleading for funds to arm, feed and clothe his ragtag army. In those dark days, he still took the time to handle mundane and routine personal business matters, keep in touch with his wife and family, while dealing with some of the toughest challenges of leadership. He tackled starting an army from scratch, with no experts and limited military experience, he forged ahead, always placing the highest importance on principles over expediency. He paid attention to not only the big problems, but he made time to deal with the little problems too. George Washington didn’t wait for someone else to solve his problems.
He had learned early in life to think for himself. He didn’t have a fancy education or access to as many books as most ordinary public schools contain today. What he did have was character honed by the strength of his convictions. Early in life he copied out by hand (no cut and paste option back then) “rules” to live by that had been used by Jesuit tutors for generations, as Richard Brookhiser explains in his book, “Rules of Civility: The 110 Precepts That Guided Our First President in War and Peace” (here). What is so lacking today is what George Washington used to guide his life- a belief in ideals. There’s a quote that I had taped up from the time I was a teenager that helped guide me and to this day challenges me to never lose sight of the values I believe in, “Ideals are like stars; you will not succeed in touching them with your hands. but like the seafaring man on the deserts of waters; you choose them as your guides, and following them you will reach your destiny.” – Carl Schurz. George Washington helped me build my character, by setting an example worth following. Some Jesuit teachings helped him find his. Our children need to be taught to find some worthy ideals to emulate. George Washington believed so much in our American future that when he finally did return home, he changed the orientation of his home from east to west, believing America’s future lay, not in it’s English past, but in the uncharted America that lay westward. He inspired a fledgling nation then and he still inspires many of us today.
George Washington was so revered by the American people that, had he chosen to grasp those reins of power, he could easily have become America’s first “king”. He reluctantly took on the first executive task to try and unite a new nation, serving two terms and then peacefully handing over power to another President, with very different political views and the leader of a rival political party. Washington never joined a party, but his views aligned with the Federalist Party. In his farewell address (full text here), he warned of the dangers of factions and partisan politics. The entire speech runs well over 7,000 words and offers up memorable quotes on a wide range of issues vital to a free people committed to popular government and preserving our Republic. Every American should take the time to read this speech sometime. Here are a few paragraphs on the danger of factions and political parties:
“I have already intimated to you the danger of parties in the State, with particular reference to the founding of them on geographical discriminations. Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party generally.
This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature, having its root in the strongest passions of the human mind. It exists under different shapes in all governments, more or less stifled, controlled, or repressed; but, in those of the popular form, it is seen in its greatest rankness, and is truly their worst enemy.
The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty.
Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind (which nevertheless ought not to be entirely out of sight), the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it.
It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which finds a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions. Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another.
There is an opinion that parties in free countries are useful checks upon the administration of the government and serve to keep alive the spirit of liberty. This within certain limits is probably true; and in governments of a monarchical cast, patriotism may look with indulgence, if not with favor, upon the spirit of party. But in those of the popular character, in governments purely elective, it is a spirit not to be encouraged. From their natural tendency, it is certain there will always be enough of that spirit for every salutary purpose. And there being constant danger of excess, the effort ought to be by force of public opinion, to mitigate and assuage it. A fire not to be quenched, it demands a uniform vigilance to prevent its bursting into a flame, lest, instead of warming, it should consume.
It is important, likewise, that the habits of thinking in a free country should inspire caution in those entrusted with its administration, to confine themselves within their respective constitutional spheres, avoiding in the exercise of the powers of one department to encroach upon another. The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one, and thus to create, whatever the form of government, a real despotism. A just estimate of that love of power, and proneness to abuse it, which predominates in the human heart, is sufficient to satisfy us of the truth of this position. The necessity of reciprocal checks in the exercise of political power, by dividing and distributing it into different depositaries, and constituting each the guardian of the public weal against invasions by the others, has been evinced by experiments ancient and modern; some of them in our country and under our own eyes. To preserve them must be as necessary as to institute them. If, in the opinion of the people, the distribution or modification of the constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way which the Constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation; for though this, in one instance, may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed. The precedent must always greatly overbalance in permanent evil any partial or transient benefit, which the use can at any time yield.”
We should listen to his wise counsel whispering to us on the winds of time.
Filed under American Character, American History, Food for Thought, Politics
Here’s what I mean…….
This will be a short post following on my usual quotathon (yes, I coined a new word). Everybody knows we have a Liberty Bell,, but do you know the inscription that runs across the bell? It’s an Old Testament verse that reads:
“PROCLAIM LIBERTY THROUGHOUT ALL THE LAND UNTO ALL THE INHABITANTS THEREOF LEV. XXV X.”
To read more about my name (here). Have a nice day everyone!
Filed under American History
A few thoughts about the Lewis and Clark Expedition
Since this blog can be about whatever I want it to be, I’ve decided to toss in plenty of links to American history that I hope some of you will find interesting. A few months ago I came across this article (here) in the American Thinker. After you read it, you’ll see it fits in perfectly with Gladius Maximus’ theme in “Gimme A Knife“, except Lewis and Clark really did take the original survival sabbatical in the Rocky Mountains. In our cream puff culture, where roughing it consists of being without your cellphone at the ready, it might be a good reminder to take a moment and read just a few of their journal entries. A quick internet search will turn up many sites. I like this one (here) from the University of Nebraska, which has been put together nicely and contains the full text of the journals, plenty of images, and some multimedia options too. Here is the link to Lewis and Clark: The National Bicentennial Exhibition, another nicely put together site. Hopefully, most of us remember the purpose for their expedition, but for good measure I’ll toss in the link to a site I’ve liked for years” Our Documents: 100 Milestone Documents from the National Archives” (here) , to see the actual Louisiana Purchase Treaty (1803).
In recent decades so much hot air has been expended over how to teach history and just about every other subject. Truly discouraging battles continue to be waged over textbooks, where politically charged combatants wrestle over every single entry. The Texas textbook fights have garnered national media attention. With so much information available, it seems to me that instead of fighting over whether to include this or that historical figure and how many lines get devoted to each, the time might be better spent teaching kids how to explore history – it should be a journey, or an expedition into uncharted territory not a political mud-wrestling match. Just look at a few of the entries in the Lewis and Clark journals, where they charted maps and terrain features, they drew pictures of the flora and fauna, talked to the natives, they wrote as many detailed entries as their harsh conditions allowed. They did this so that they could come back and share it with others. This is what education should be – sharing knowledge.
I’ll digress into a personal story from my childhood, yep, tracking back to the mountains of rural PA again. I promise this will be a short detour. I grew up in a large family and I remember when my parents (like many others of that generation) bought a set of World Book Encyclopedias (which is now in my possession) and we thought how great it was to not have to wait until we went to school to look stuff up. Being the peculiar child I was, I embarked on trying to read my way through the entire set and I sure read through a large portion of it over the years. We didn’t have any nearby libraries, except the school libraries, but for many reports and guidance on where to search, I walked across the road to the parsonage of our church. Our pastor’s wife, odd as this may seem, but such is the melting pot that is America, was a lovely, wise Jewish lady from a well-to-do family in New York City. She told me many times about how she met our Protestant pastor and about her life in the city. She graduated from Teachers College Columbia University in the early 1920s. Naturally, which it has been my experience of pastors, my pastor and his wife loved to read and had a pretty amazing home library. Strange as this may seem to kids today, we had to actually physically read through magazines to search for information for papers and reports. We didn’t have search engines galore to type in a word and have almost everything you could ever want to know on that subject pop up in seconds. This wonderful woman would direct us to sources and she opened up her home library and her carefully preserved collection of magazines to us, time after time. She instilled in me the importance of a liberal arts education, which to her was a classical liberal education.
Certainly, I failed at learning some of the things she tried to teach me, like an appreciation of opera and learning to play the piano. However, the main thing I learned from her is education should be about lifting us up as a civilization, not about hurling the books back and forth at each other, as we argue over which items deserve to be wiped from the pages of history. Several years ago, I read Ron Chernow’s “Alexander Hamilton” (here), in which he explains Hamilton’s childhood in the Caribbean. As an illegitimate child, Hamilton probably was denied an Anglican education. He may have had tutors, but was likely mostly self-taught. One can only marvel at how one with so little opportunity or advantage in life contributed so much to our Constitution, our banking system and he even served in the Continental Army (here) as an officer under General George Washington. And in the next logical comparison, one can only marvel at how we, with so much, contribute so little to our families, our communities and posterity.
Since I’ve darted about a bit here, I’ll end here with a quote, which is in a notebook that I started as a teenager (yes, I still have it). Once again it is thanks to that wonderful Jewish lady, who loaned me her treasured copy of John Barlett’s, “Familiar Quotations” (here), that I began to value other people’s words and she suggested I start a notebook. I still jot down good quotes when I see them. Where we have at our disposal the means to provide the finest education in the world to our children, why can’t we find the resolve to work together and share it and pass it on to our kids, so that they may all say:
“Life is my college. May I graduate well and earn some honors” – Louisa May Alcott
Filed under American Character, American History, Education
Survival: The Mind-set
Reading Gladius Maximus’ excellent essay, “Gimme A Knife”, brought to the fore some thoughts on this subject of survival. Since getting hooked on my Kindle a few years back, I frequently download obscure free books on a range of topics(mostly history, but some literature and the occasional odd title that catches my fancy), in addition to the many I buy. To save you the inconvenience, I’ll add this off-topic comment: don’t download free public domain books from Barnes and Noble. The formatting is awful and each one starts with a message from Google, stating each book has been carefully scanned to preserve it. How each page ends up with many words containing symbols in lieu of letters, I know not, but save yourself the aggravation of reading this mess. Amazon’s public domain books far surpass Barnes and Noble’s.
Now, back to the topic, a few months ago, I read my amazon.com freebie, Willa Cather’s, My Antonia (available free here or here). This novel exemplifies the “put one’s hand to the plough” mentality that separates those who persevere and thrive and those who prefer to wallow in misery. The young male main character, Jim Burden, narrates the story of moving to early 20th century Nebraska to live with his grandparents, who were early homesteaders. Jim becomes fascinated with neighboring homesteaders, the Shimerdas, a family of Bohemian immigrants. Throughout the story, Jack’s grandmother exemplifies the indomitable American spirit and she’s a testament to planning not just to survive, but to live as comfortably as possible in an unforgiving environment. The Shimerdas, city-dwellers in their home country, fail to take responsibility for their own survival, necessitating good neighbors to prevent their demise. In one scene the grandmother packs a hamper to take to the Shimerdas, she offers this line:
‘Now, Jake,’ grandmother was saying, ‘if you can find that old rooster that got his comb froze, just give his neck a twist, and we’ll take him along. There’s no good reason why Mrs. Shimerda couldn’t have got hens from her neighbours last fall and had a hen-house going by now. I reckon she was confused and didn’t know where to begin. I’ve come strange to a new country myself, but I never forgot hens are a good thing to have, no matter what you don’t have.”
Despite the Shimerdas family’s hardships and suffering caused by their parents lack of survival skills, Antonia Shimerda and her siblings (thanks to neighbors and others in their rural Nebraska community), get on the path toward successfully homesteading and thriving in America.
I’ve noticed this dichotomy in how various regions of the country respond to natural disasters too. In the heartland, entire towns were swept away by flooding, yet you saw neighbors helping neighbors and I recall one reporter interviewing a young man, who was helping build a sandbag barricade. This young man, nonchalantly told the reporter that his family’s home had already been washed away one town upriver, so there was nothing they could do about that. He told the reporter they decided to come and try and help their neighbors save their homes. Yet, when natural disasters strike urban areas, the scene quickly turns into political posturing about the federal response, looting concerns, and a general spectacle of people who don’t seem well equipped to survive. To be clear this isn’t a racist comment, I’ve observed this in Long Island, New Orleans, LA, and other urban areas and I think the difference is in the sense of community that still flickers in rural America, that no longer burns in urban areas.
During Hurricane Katrina, GEN Russell Honore became one of the most prominent faces of Katrina. After Hurricane Katrina he wrote a book, aptly titled, “Survival: How A Culture Of Preparedness Can Save You And Your Family From Disasters” (here). I bought the book, thinking my husband might want to read it, because he worked for GEN Honore, earlier in their careers and my husband came home almost daily with stories (many very amusing).
When I read the first few pages, I decided to read the whole book. His book offers up many excellent remedies for improving our state and federal response to disasters, but the main take away he pushes to the forefront is that you are the main driver of you and your own family’s survival. He describes his rural upbringing working on his father’s farm and later working for pay for a neighboring dairy farmer , Grover Chustz. He describes Chustz as lacking formal education, but being highly creative, innovative and most of all striving to make sure everything on his farm was done well. Honore describes how Chustz taught him a fundamental lesson that carried him through a highly successful military career. Chustz pulled out a single wooden match and had Honore break it. Next, he pulled out two matches, put them together and had him break them, which proved harder to do. Then he pulled out four matches and Honore couldn’t break them. He explained to Honore that’s the power of a team. I believe that’s the challenge we face in America – rebuilding the power of the team. With the rise of the Tea party movement, the phrase, “Take Back America” took flight, but perhaps we ought to readjust that to rebuilding the American team.
Reality TV garbage, like Doomsday Preppers and the fixation on extreme survival skills, like Bear Grylls, marginalize the seriousness of learning practical steps to take to be prepared. In fact, stockpiling and building a fortress probably won’t increase your odds of survival anyway. The surest way to survive lies in building that team, where individual strengths and skills can lead to innovation, creative-brainstorming and more ideas on how to tackle our problems, even in the most dire situation. If you are stranded by rising water, calling Washington won’t help you, but calling your neighbors, who can pool resources sure might.
In a previous post, I mentioned federalism as the key to revitalizing America, in hopes of pulling back on some of the federal encroachment on states’ rights. And the vital building blocks to stronger states lies in rebuilding our sense of community. This isn’t about celebrity-driven national movements or the Glenn Beck type extravaganzas. It’s about concerned citizens within communities sharing concerns, ideas, pooling resources and taking charge of their own survival. Considering the fractured nature of not only American communities, but more importantly American families, this team-building effort can’t be done overnight. In fact, it could take years, but without it, we will keep making those 3 am calls to Washington and realize, no one is at home.
Filed under American Character, American History, Food for Thought
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