Rome On The Caspian

The most eastern Roman inscription ever found:
In the late first century AD, the centurion Lucius Julius Maximus of the Twelfth 'Thunderbolt' Legion carved this inscription into a rock near what is today Baku, Azerbaijan. Lucius and his Legio XII Fulminata had apparently been… pic.twitter.com/eZ9v0gNMkA

— Gareth Harney (@OptimoPrincipi) July 25, 2023

 

Albania (not the current country on the Adriatic, but an ancient nation on the southwest shore of the Caspian Sea) was a client state of Rome, off and on, for many centuries, from Pompey's expedition in 65 BC to the reign of the Emperor Heraclius in the first half of the seventh century AD.

The inscription reads:

'(In the reign of) Emperor Domitian Caesar Augustus Germanicus, Lucius Julius Maximus, centurion of the Legio XII Fulminata (carved this).'

The reference is to Domitian who was emperor from 81-96 AD.

It is possible that the town of Ramana, a little north of Baku and just a few miles from the Caspian, may have been founded by the Roman legions and derives its name from Romana.  It was noted in 1903 that older inhabitants referred to the place as Romani.

Legio XII Fulimata was created by Julius Caesar in 58 BC as part of his campaign to conquer Gaul.  It was transferred to the East around 40 BC where it participated in Marc Antony's campaigns against the Parthians.  The legion was defeated at the outbreak of the First Jewish-Roman War in 66 AD at Beth Horon, near Jerusalem.  It served the rest of its existence on the Eastern Frontier where the last mention of the unit is around 400 AD, stationed at Melitene, in modern Turkey, along the Euphrates River.

On the map below, Baku and Ramana are on the peninsula on the eastern side of Albania.

Though this is the easternmost Roman inscription found, Roman soldiers involuntarily found themselves further east.  Thousands of Roman captives from Crassus' army at Carrhae in 53 BC and those surrendered along with the Emperor Valerian in 260 AD, were transported much further east by the Parthians and later the Sassanians to work on construction projects.  It is also possible some served in garrisons on the far east frontiers in Central Asia and there are tales (and controversial archaeological and genetic findings) of Roman soldiers ending up within the empire of China, protecting towns in the deserts of what is now Xinjiang.

It Ain't Necessarily So

Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong have fun deconstructing this Gershwin tune from Porgy & Bess.

Oppenheimer

Christopher Nolan makes long, beautifully produced, and convoluted movies.  Oppenheimer is no exception.  Sometimes that works better (The Dark Knight, Dunkirk) than other times (Inception, The Dark Knight Rises) and, sometimes, well and not so well at the same time (Interstellar).  Oppenheimer falls in the last category, though it is still worth seeing.

The acting is uniformly excellent, particularly Cillian Murphy as the title character, and Robert Downey Jr as Lewis Strauss.  The cinematography and imagining, both visually and in the screenplay, is outstanding.  Many of the set piece scenes are incredibly well done - I found myself very tense in the lead up to the Trinity test, even though I knew how it turned out.  Nolan does a fine job portraying the complexities of Oppenheimer's character and the perplexity of his behavior.  But the movie is just too long and the tacked on story of Lewis Strauss' revenge and destruction of Oppenheimer's career in the 1950s makes the movie drag at the end.(1) It's a bridge too far. Because it is all jammed into one movie, the last part also does a disservice to Strauss, a difficult, but interesting, figure in his own right and who, like Oppenheimer, served his country well.  It appears the studio recognized this problem, as the film's trailer pays no attention to what is a significant element in the movie.

Some specific comments:

I enjoyed the movie's portrayal of General Leslie Groves (Matt Damon) and his relationship with Oppenheimer.  Most film depictions, as well as book and documentaries, have provided a negative picture of Groves, portraying him as a block headed, manipulative, military martinet.  Oppenheimer shows him as tough, but also perceptive, sympathetic, and with the sense to know when to not blindly follow the rule book.  It also depicts him defending Oppenheimer during the secret 1954 Atomic Energy Commission hearing that resulted in the scientist's security clearance being revoked.  In fact, Nolan could have cut the film in such as way as to create a two hour, 80s style odd-couple buddy movie about the pair.

The movie is a reminder of the remarkable job that Groves and Oppenheimer did for this country.  Although much of the work of the Manhattan Project went on at other sites, like Hanford and Oak Ridge, the work of designing and assembling the bomb was at Los Alamos.  There was very little in Oppenheimer's pre-war work and personality indicating his suitability for the task of project manager, coordinating and corralling physicists and other scientists unused to operating in such an environment, yet Groves recognized his potential and working together they succeeded.

Nolan does a terrific job showing Oppenheimer's desire for fame and recognition and how it intertwined and conflicted with his desire to also portray himself as a morally driven person with all his agonizing over the development of the bomb and later opposition to the development of thermonuclear weapons.  There is a memorable scene during the 1954 security clearance hearing where he is forced to confront the inconsistencies in his policy views and actions, as well as how his own careless actions damaged his position in those hearings. (2) 

The contradictions are also seen in the scientist's only meeting with President Truman (played by Gary Oldman, whom I didn't recognize until the credits), who becomes exasperated with Oppenheimer's indulgent moral martyrdom (declaring he has blood on his hands), declaring that it was he, not the scientist, who had to make the decision whether to use the bomb.  The film accurately shows Truman's direction to an aide after the meeting that he never wanted to have another meeting with Oppenheimer.

The movie shows the Los Alamos scientists debating whether, in the wake of Germany's surrender and what they believed was the imminent surrender of Japan, if they should petition against the use of the bomb.  Oppenheimer opposes this, stating that it is only if the bomb is used and people see its destructive power, will future use be deterred.  If created, but not used, it would not have the same deterrent factor.  With the conclusion of the Cold War and now 32 years further one without the use of nuclear weapons, might Oppenheimer have been correct in his analysis?

Oppenheimer would be a good choice of a movie to screen in an academic course because of the discussions it would prompt.  That is, if we are still allowed to have such discussions in academia.

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(1) And the third and final section of the movie leaves the impression that the Senate's 1959 rejection of Strauss' nomination to become Secretary of State was due to his treatment of Oppenheimer though, in reality, it was only a secondary reason for the Senate action.  The real reason is that Strauss alienated a lot of people in his AEC role and withheld information from Congress.

(2) For a more complete analysis of the background to the security clearance hearing read this piece by Harvey Klehr and John Earl Haynes.  I'm very familiar with the work of Klehr and Haynes, who are the leading authorities regarding Soviet espionage in the United States during the 1930s and 40s.  They've done groundbreaking work on this topic, illuminating our knowledge while eloquently opposing the more extreme theories in which FDR and Harry Hopkins were supposedly Soviet agents.  Their conclusion:

Knowing what we know now, America’s public interest would have been best served if Oppenheimer had been able to continue in his role as a consultant to the government on various atomic projects. The evidence by the mid-1940s was that he had left his earlier Communist allegiance behind and was anything but a party sympathizer. But one of the major contributing factors to his loss of security access was his own unwillingness to provide a candid and honest account of his earlier Communist ties and why he had put them aside. If he continued to lie about such matters, how could he now be trusted? 

None of this detracts from the greatest achievement of Oppenheimer’s life and one of the great scientific and engineering achievements in human history. It does, however, complicate the morality-play version of his life. Unquestionably, the hearing that denied the renewal of his security clearance (and that is portrayed so powerfully throughout the movie) was stacked against him. His archnemesis, Lewis Strauss (played by Robert Downey Jr.), orchestrated a dishonest and biased attack, deprived Oppenheimer and his lawyer the opportunity to see key evidence, and distorted some of his views and behavior. But Oppenheimer’s lack of candor made him a contributor to his own destruction. That truly makes the story of his life a Greek tragedy. As good a movie as it is, Oppenheimer would have been richer still if it had plumbed these deep waters.

Myth Making

Regarding the manufactured controversy over the Florida public school curriculum on African-American history there were a couple of points that I haven't seen addressed.

As to the substance of the criticism, it is nonsense.  For more detail read Charles Cooke's recent pieces, Kamala Harris Is Brazenly Lying About Florida's Slavery Curriculum and The War On Context Comes For Florida's History Curriculum. 

By the way, this is the AP African American History reference to the same subject that caused the current controversy.

The comeback to this has been that the sentence in the new Florida curriculum uses the word "benefited" and does not say "Once free".  I think anyone should be open to whether the wording in the sentence in the Florida curriculum could be improved upon, and I noticed a few other things I might have approached differently, but that is not what this controversy is about.  Those who raised it want the public to believe the curriculum is intended for students to come away with the belief that slavery was a positive good.  This is nonsense, as Cooke demonstrates in his article exhaustively going through the curriculum.  No one is going to come out of the Florida curriculum thinking that slavery, racism, and segregation were good things, and I'm confident that those pushing this nonsense don't actually believe it either.

The concept of agency is important here.  In the hands of progressives and the New Racists it is a malleable concept, deployed when useful in advancing their agenda, and denied when not helpful to that end.  I discussed this in a 2017 post:

The first is the concept of agency, which in the social sciences refers to the capacity of individuals to act independently and to make their own free choices, a concept that becomes particularly tricky in Progressive terms as it can be turned on and off as best aligns with Progressive political theory.  One example is that of African-Americans.  During the recent decades many historians of the Civil War and Reconstruction have rightfully emphasized the agency of slaves and of recently freed slaves.  Prior to this period, slaves had primarily been portrayed as passive recipients of freedom.  Modern historians have emphasized the actions many slaves took to achieve their freedom and fought as soldiers in support of the Federal cause, though like many such revisions some historians have now gone too far in ignoring non-black actions in this regard.  However, at the same time, in a Ta-Naheisi Coates' world of white privilege and Black Lives Matter we are assured by academics that African-Americans in the 21st century have far more circumscribed agency than slaves in the 1860s, a bizarre and ahistorical take on reality.

In the case of the AP and Florida curriculum's the intent is to portray slaves as not just passive victims.  It is not about justifying slavery, it is about how individuals gained skills that, at the time, and later, could be used to their benefit.  It was their triumph against those who degraded and enslaved them.  I referenced one of those individuals, Robert Smalls, in the post, The Petition:

One of those who met the president [Lincoln] was Robert Smalls, a young man who escaped slavery by seizing a Confederate warship in Charleston Harbor and sailing it out to the blockading Union fleet.  Smalls eventually became the first black commander in the Union navy and, after the war, served five terms in Congress as a South Carolina representative.  His incredible saga is told in Be Free or Die by Cate Lineberry. 

Smalls was able to pull off his remarkable and daring feat because of the experience he'd gain working on the docks and on ships in Charleston Harbor.

And, as Cooke notes in his War on Context article, historian David Hackett Fisher's recent book, African Founders: How Enslaved People Expanded American Ideals, could be subject to the same criticism.

The 1619 Project crowd loves agency when it fits their needs.  As economist Phil Magness points out, Ed Baptist, a leader in the progressive New History of Capitalism movement and consultant to the 1619 Project, wrote this on the subject:

In Chesapeake and Carolinas, enslaved men rose in status by learning trades.  They might be blacksmiths or coopers, teamsters or house servants.  Women could become servants, cooks, or weavers.  Such skills could gain one respite from incessant field labor, or even give hired out slaves the possibility of keeping some of the earnings.

The Museum Management Program of the United States Park Service has an online Teaching With Museum Collections Lessons Plan on "From Slavery to Freedom: Different Journeys to Liberty", which includes:

Lesson Two - A House Slave: Acquiring Skills

Students analyze objects to determine what skills a house slave needed to complete assigned tasks.  Students explore the potential marketability of these skills.  This lesson also introduces students into 19th century foodways.

No one thinks Baptist or the National Park Service take the position that slavery was a net benefit.  This whole mess is a created controversy.

The most important aspect of this controversy is not what it pretends to be about, but rather what it is really about.  On one level, it is pure politics, an attack by Democrats and opponents of Ron DeSantis, who they desperately do not want to win the Republican presidential nomination, preferring Donald Trump who they believe is easily beatable and know, even if he were to win, would be ineffectual.

On the political side it is just another of a long list of manufactured nonsense, amplified by the media.  Most notably, just two years ago we were told that Florida had passed a law banning teaching about slavery!  Now we find out that no, they are teaching about slavery, but the real issue is one sentence in that curriculum.  Of course, we are being told this by the same people who told us two years ago that slavery couldn't be taught in Florida classrooms.  They aren't even embarrassed by this, they act like it never happened and they expect their audience to fall for another load of garbage.  Remember, the "Don't Say Gay" law, which didn't actually include that language and was not about gay people?  Same deal.  And we had Jim Crow 2.0, and the Jim Crow Filibuster - it's most notable recent deployment by Senate Democrats to block a vote on a 2021 Republican resolution urging the Biden Administration to block the Nordstream 2 pipeline.  The list goes on and on.  What they've discovered is there is no price to pay for doing this over and over again.  The media and institutions just move on from old invented narratives to new invented narratives, without any need for reflection. 

But this is about more than just presidential politics.  This is about who controls our history.  Those attacking the Florida curriculum reject the legitimacy of the American founding. The history they insist upon is a flattened tale of good and evil, lacking any nuance and rejecting the actual complexity and context of human history.  It is an approach that avoids any context that interferes with its narrative, and is intended to disable students ability to think for themselves (for a presidential example of this technique read Rhetorical Tricks: It's Always About America).  It is the 1619 Project and New York Times version they wish to impose - that this country was immorally founded on the basis of slavery and is irredeemable until it is reformed in such as way as to reject the liberal assumptions of its founding, assumptions that for many remain valid today.   Those assumptions include a mixture of legal and cultural aspects from rule of law, due process and equal rights, a sense of fairness and how we should treat people as individuals.  The New Racists reject all of those proposition because they see them as a guise for the perpetuation of white supremacy (a term that includes Jews(1)).  It is especially odd to see the charge led by Kamala Harris; whose high caste Brahmin mother voluntarily came to America; whose high caste mixed race Jamaican father voluntarily came to America; who found it to her advantage with her mixed race heritage to attend an HBCU; and who got her political start under the tutelage (heh) of the most powerful politician in the most populous state in this country, a politician who happened to be black.  How could all that happen in this racist hellhole?

Who would have predicted that the 21st century would see a revival of the views of John C Calhoun and of King Cotton theory (2) and that it would come at the hands of progressives and the New Racists (including the Biden Administration, see Xi And Biden Agree On America ), as I pointed out in Are The Parties Over?, back in December 2020.

(UPDATE 8/20) At this link you can find the entire 216 page 2023 Florida Academic Standards for Social Studies.  You can find the relevant material on slavery, reconstruction, and civil rights on the first 21 pages.  Those claiming these standards provide a positive view of slavery are simply lying.  This is not a matter of interpretation - they are lying.  And moving beyond the period of slavery, here are some excerpts from the Jim Crow era:

SS.912.AA.3.4 Evaluate the relationship of various ethnic groups to African Americans’
access to rights, privileges and liberties in the United States.
Benchmark Clarifications:
Clarification 1: Instruction includes landmark United States Supreme Court Cases affecting African
Americans (e.g., the Slaughter House cases, Yick Wo v. Hopkins, Plessy v. Ferguson).
Clarification 2: Instruction includes the influence of white and black political leaders who fought on
behalf of African Americans in state and national legislatures and courts.
Clarification 3: Instruction includes how organizations, individuals, legislation and literature contributed
to the movement for equal rights in the United States (e.g., Sojourner Truth, Frederick Douglass, Carter
G. Woodson, Henry Beard Delany, Emma Beard Delaney, Hiram Rhodes Revels).
Clarification 4: Instruction includes how whites who supported Reconstruction policies for freed blacks
after the Civil War (white southerners being called scalawags and white northerners being called
carpetbaggers) were targeted

SS.912.AA.3.6
Describe the emergence, growth, destruction and rebuilding of black
communities during Reconstruction and beyond.
Benchmark Clarifications:
Clarification 1: Instruction includes the ramifications of prejudice, racism and stereotyping on
individual freedoms (e.g., the Civil Rights Cases, Black Codes, Jim Crow Laws, lynchings, Columbian
Exposition of 1893).
Clarification 2: Instruction includes acts of violence perpetrated against and by African Americans but
is not limited to 1906 Atlanta Race Riot, 1919 Washington, D.C. Race Riot, 1920 Ocoee Massacre, 1921
Tulsa Massacre and the 1923 Rosewood Massacre.
Clarification 3: Instruction includes communities such as: Lincolnville (FL), Tullahassee (OK),
Eatonville (FL).

SS.912.AA.3.9
Examine the various factors that led to and the consequences of the Great
Migration.
Benchmark Clarifications:
Clarification 1: Instruction includes the push and pull factors of the Great Migration. (e.g., race riots,
socio-economic factors, political rights, how African Americans suffered infringement of rights through
racial oppression, segregation, discrimination).
Clarification 2: Instruction includes the Great Migration and its influence on American culture (e.g.,
political realignment and dealignment).
Clarification 3: Instruction includes how the transition from rural to urban led to opportunities and
challenges. (e.g., Emmett J. Scott: Letters of Negro Migrants, Jacob Lawrence: The Migration of the
Negro, red-lining, 1935 Harlem Race Riot, broad increase in economic competition)

I guess this really sums up the benefits of slavery and racism quite well!  (Sarcasm alert)   For how ridiculous the assault on the Florida guidelines is read An Academic Footnote for Florida's Slavery Curriculum.

What the groups behind this smear campaign are advocating for is the teaching of history along the lines discussed below and of which I wrote about it 2020:

George Packer is a writer for many prestigious liberal publications including The New Yorker and the New York Times Magazine and a standard issue progressive so his October 2019 piece in The Atlantic, When The Culture War Comes For The Kids, must have startled some of his regular readers.  Living in New York City, Packer and his wife fell into the educational pressure cooker regarding their children but ultimately forsook private school for public education in city schools.

My wife and I are products of public schools. Whatever torments they inflicted on our younger selves, we believed in them. We wanted our kids to learn in classrooms that resembled the city where we lived. We didn’t want them to grow up entirely inside our bubble—mostly white, highly and expensively educated—where 4-year-olds who hear 21,000 words a day acquire the unearned confidence of insular advantage and feel, even unconsciously, that they’re better than other people’s kids.

He sees what is wrong with the focus on identity:

In politics, identity is an appeal to authority—the moral authority of the oppressed: I am what I am, which explains my view and makes it the truth. The politics of identity starts out with the universal principles of equality, dignity, and freedom, but in practice it becomes an end in itself—often a dead end, a trap from which there’s no easy escape and maybe no desire for escape. Instead of equality, it sets up a new hierarchy that inverts the old, discredited one—a new moral caste system that ranks people by the oppression of their group identity. It makes race, which is a dubious and sinister social construct, an essence that defines individuals regardless of agency or circumstance—as when Representative Ayanna Pressley said, “We don’t need any more brown faces that don’t want to be a brown voice; we don’t need black faces that don’t want to be a black voice.”

At times the new progressivism, for all its up-to-the-minuteness, carries a whiff of the 17th century, with heresy hunts and denunciations of sin and displays of self-mortification. The atmosphere of mental constriction in progressive milieus, the self-censorship and fear of public shaming, the intolerance of dissent—these are qualities of an illiberal politics.

It took me a long time to see that the new progressivism didn’t just carry my own politics further than I liked. It was actually hostile to principles without which I don’t believe democracy can survive. Liberals are always slow to realize that there can be friendly, idealistic people who have little use for liberal values.

Packer regrets the civics is no longer taught:

By age 10 [his son] had studied the civilizations of ancient China, Africa, the early Dutch in New Amsterdam, and the Mayans. He learned about the genocide of Native Americans and slavery. But he was never taught about the founding of the republic.” 

And he understands that what is going on is indoctrination, not education.

The fifth-grade share, our son’s last, was different. That year’s curriculum included the Holocaust, Reconstruction, and Jim Crow. The focus was on “upstanders”—individuals who had refused to be bystanders to evil and had raised their voices. It was an education in activism, and with no grounding in civics, activism just meant speaking out. At the year-end share, the fifth graders presented dioramas on all the hard issues of the moment—sexual harassment, LGBTQ rights, gun violence. Our son made a plastic-bag factory whose smokestack spouted endangered animals. Compared with previous years, the writing was minimal and the students, when questioned, had little to say. They hadn’t been encouraged to research their topics, make intellectual discoveries, answer potential counterarguments. The dioramas consisted of cardboard, clay, and slogans.

De Blasio’s schools chancellor, Richard Carranza, has answered critics of the diversity initiative by calling them out for racism and refusing to let them “silence” him. As part of the initiative, Carranza has mandated anti-bias training for every employee of the school system, at a cost of $23 million. One training slide was titled “White Supremacy Culture.” It included “Perfectionism,” “Individualism,” “Objectivity,” and “Worship of the Written Word” among the white-supremacist values that need to be disrupted. In the name of exposing racial bias, the training created its own kind.

Finally, Packer's son revolted against this mockery of an education:

“Isn’t school for learning math and science and reading,” he asked us one day, “not for teachers to tell us what to think about society?” 

This is what the Democratic Party and the teachers unions are pushing as to how American history should be taught.  I know what I prefer.  I know which alternative is divisive and which is not.

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(1)  For White Nationalists who believe white is the epitome of good, Jews cannot therefore be white.  For the New Racists, the very fact that Jews have seen disproportionate success in America proves they are racists and white.  It's why the new ethnic studies curriculum in places like California and Seattle, designed to encourage suspicion, fear, and resentment between races and ethnic groups, treat Jews as privileged and white.  When I was growing up my parents, liberal Democrats and proponents of civil rights laws and who, by their personal example showed me how to treat people fairly, often told me, with pride, that America was the best country in the world for Jews, citing how it provided us an opportunity to succeed.  Today, their statements are taken as confirmation Jews are racist white supremacists.

(2) The King Cotton thesis, held by proponents of slavery, was that cotton was such an important economic engine for the United States and the world, that it could be used as leverage against the free states, and failing that, would cause England and France to support secession.  It's also behind the faulty calculation in the 1619 Project that cotton was half of the U.S. GDP (in reality it was 6-8%, the same as railroads), and ignores that while cotton made some plantation owners rich, it was an impediment to growth in the South, as well as for the United States as a whole.

Wake Up!

 A little toe tapper from the Dropkick Murphys to start off your day.

After the sonic assault, take time to listen to the lyrics.  I'll get you started:

She had excuses and she just used them
She was the victim of unspeakable abuses
Her husband was violent, malicious and distant
Her kids now belong to the state of Massachusetts

Counting Points

In the summer of 1945, the United States military was faced with two imperatives.  A war weary American people wanted its soldiers to start coming home after Germany's surrender in May 1945 and many soldiers in the Pacific Theater would be needed for the planned invasion of Japan, while additional soldiers from the European Theater would be required to be transferred to the Pacific.

To accommodate both needs, the Army came up with the point system described in this article from the National WW2 Museum (and from which the photos in this post are taken). Servicemen got credit for:

Months served

Months overseas

Combat credit (Purple hearts/valor awards/campaigns)

Dependent children (up to 3)

Here's a sample card showing how the calculation worked:

It required 85 points before a serviceman was eligible to be sent home.  The system led to a lot of grousing by soldiers who didn't qualify (mostly because of not having dependent children).

There was an additional factor that summer, for the soldiers being sent from Europe to the Pacific - the knowledge that the landings in Japan would be bloody, with a high likelihood they'd be killed or wounded.

It was also a big worry for those already in the Pacific.  The Marines had their own system for rotation which required participating in three amphibious landings before you could be sent back to the states.  For those like Eugene Sledge, who'd made it through the bloodbaths on Peleliu and Okinawa unscathed physically, it meant having to test their luck a third time on Kyushu or Honshu.

With Japan's surrender in August, the Army reduced the points required for returning to the States, and by the end of the year more than four million soldiers had been discharged.

I'll also point out that with the discussion around the recent release of Oppenheimer (which we plan to see in the next week or so), there is a possibility that the invasion of Japan might not have occurred even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped and Japan not surrendered in August 1945.  For more on the grim alternative American end strategy, read Downfall: Ending the War with Japan).

I'd Like To Listen To That Conversation

Frank Thomas, Eddie Murray, Cal Ripken Jr, Larry Walker, Jim Thome, Dave Winfield, Ken Griffey Jr, Fred McGriff and Chipper Jones. Powerhouse table 💪.

Via Frank Thomas pic.twitter.com/1CrI4hXCH3

— BaseballHistoryNut (@nut_history) July 24, 2023

At this year's Hall of Fame induction event in Cooperstown, New York.  Crime Dog (McGriff) and Chipper were this year's player inductees.  Larry Walker, with 383 dingers, has the fewest home runs of anyone at the table.  No pitchers allowed!

The earliest Hall of Fame member to attend this year's event was Juan Marichal (Class of '83), another of those items that makes me feel old (how did Juan suddenly become 85?).  The oldest living player inductee is Willie Mays (Class of '79), now 92.  87 year old Sandy Koufax (Class of '72) is the living player with the earliest induction date and has been a living member of the Hall longer than any player in its history.

Midnight Run

One of my favorite films, an action pic with comedy and a heart.  It was DeNiro's first attempt at comedy and he is terrific.  Unfortunately, in his subsequent comic ventures he's hamming it up and trying too hard.  Charles Grodin is magnificent, particularly for a guy whose face is immobile except for his eyes.  One of the best supporting casts ever: John Ashton, Yaphet Kotto, Dennis Farina, Joe Pantoliano, and Philip Baker Hall (aka Bookman on Seinfeld).

What prompted this was reading Hannah Long's appreciation of the movie, 

And you'll learn about the Litmus Configuration!

A Broken Brain?

I’m increasingly convinced winning the Cold War broke America’s brain and ushered in a license for elites and masses to be completely irresponsible.

- Mark Safranski (1) 

History repeats the same conceits

The glib replies, the same defeats

 

- Elvis Costello, "Beyond Belief"

 

With the end of the Cold War and collapse of the Soviet Union, the lingering background fear of nuclear annihilation that had existed for my entire life dissipated and I felt relief for my children and thought it possible we might now enter the "broad, sunlit uplands" that Winston Churchill spoke of in 1940.(2)  I forgot that history just keeps rolling along.  And though it was memorable and inspiring rhetoric, Churchill proved wrong, for even with triumph in WW2, we were plunged in its aftermath into the Cold War.  By 1955, in his last great public speech, he was referring to "the hideous epoch in which we have to dwell".

 

The policy and cultural missteps since the end of the Cold War are numerous.  To some degree, this always happens, it is human nature, but I think Safranski's reference to irresponsibility is important; we simply became less serious, less vigilant.  On foreign policy we took some wrong lessons from the way the Cold War turned out, with the consequences we now face.  More importantly, what I had completely misunderestimated was the extent to which American society would deteriorate and lead us to today's crisis, which is much more serious than any external threat.

Rome's final triumph over Carthage in 146 BC, the moment when it became the dominant power in the Mediterranean world, has often been cited, by both ancient and modern historians, as the pivotal event that resulted in the downfall of the Roman Republic, as it unleashed domestic turmoil that had been suppressed for many decades, turmoil that the Republic failed to temper and solve. It will be a Herculean task to right our course, and the scale and type of actions required, even if successful, create their own set of risks and will result in a country different than the one I grew up in.

But history does move in unexpected ways, both good and bad.  The collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War without a major war was not foreseen or predicted in the 1970s, least of all by the academic and government experts on the subject.  And remember that Churchill, right after his reference to the hideous epoch in the 1955 speech went on to give us good counsel, "Meanwhile, never flinch, never weary, never despair."

-----------------------------------

(1)  No, I don't know who he is; just ran across his observation.

(2)  From the "Finest Hour" speech, June 18, 1940

What General Weygand called the Battle of France is over. I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilization. Upon it depends our own British life, and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this Island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, “This was their finest hour.”

The Way You Look Tonight

 Thank you, Mr Bennett.  We saw him perform this live in 2009 at the taping of a TV show.  Bill Charlap also accompanied him and it's the same arrangement.

Meadow

After one of her paintings won acclaim at the 1884 Paris Salon, demand grew for Anna Billing's work.  I enjoy the perspective and feel of this.

Anna Billing (1849-1927): 'Meadow,' 1885. #Sweden pic.twitter.com/MkwFg7JcV7

— Darrell Epp (@DarrellEpp) July 3, 2023

And Another Thing

 Couldn't have said it better myself.  And no better day to say it.

Parliament. Yet another thing we did better than England. pic.twitter.com/ufUyxkF665

— Super 70s Sports (@Super70sSports) July 4, 2023

You want proof?  I've got proof.  And Bootsy Collins is the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

America The Beautiful

And it does not get any more beautiful than when arranged and sung by Ray Charles.  He makes the brilliant choice to start with its seldom heard third verse.

O beautiful for heroes proved

In liberating strife

Who more than self their country loved

And mercy more than life!

America! America!

May God thy gold refine

Till all success be nobleness

And every gain divine

Originally written as a poem by Katherine Lee Bates in 1893 and put to music by Samuel Ward in 1910.  Charles is performing on the Dick Cavett Show in 1972.

A Picnic On The Lawn

Several hundred people (some reports refer to thousands) turned out for the picnic on the lawn.  A platform had been erected for speakers, around which were arrayed rows of benches, well filled for most of the event.

Meanwhile groups reposed under every tree or walked to and fro along the shaded paths.  From the thick-leaved branches of the trees were suspended swings, of which all, both old and young, made abundant use.  Every contrivance which could add to the pleasure of the time was brought into energetic requisition, and altogether no celebration of the day presented a greater appearance of enjoyment and success.

A brass band played, while elsewhere on the lawn a choir sang, and tables were loaded with refreshments.

Sounds like fun, but there were also several unusual aspects to this picnic.

It was a fund-raiser for a Catholic congregation.

It was on the lawn of the White House.

It was July 4, 1864.

The Catholic congregation consisted of free blacks.

No one could remember an occasion when the White House grounds had been used for a private fund-raiser.

How did this come about?

Starting in early 1862, President Abraham Lincoln began receiving black citizens at the White House, and the pace of such receptions steadily increased over the remainder of his life.  These events are now documented in two recent books, A House Built By Slaves: African American Visitors to the Lincoln White House by Jonathan W White, and The Black Man's President: Abraham Lincoln, African Americans, & the Pursuit of Racial Equality by Michael Burlingam, about which I wrote in The Petition.

As word of the President's fair treatment of black delegations spread, more became emboldened to seek audiences with Lincoln.  On June 27, 1864 such a delegation met with the President.  A congregation of black Catholics had been meeting in the basement of St Matthews Church in the District, although they were denied access to its chapel.  The congregation needed to raise funds to build its own chapel and a school for children.  To this end a committee of three, led by cabinet maker Gabriel Coakley, entered the White House for its meeting. 

The committee had inquired of Commissioner of Public Buildings Benjamin French and discovered the White House grounds could only be used with permission of the President.  They asked Lincoln for permission to hold a fund raising event on the 4th and he gave them verbal approval.  When French issued the permit, Coakley presented it to the president on June 30 who signed it, "I assent/A Lincoln".

The picnic was a great success, raising $1,200 for the congregation.  The Philadelphia Inquirer reported of the day:

The entire colored population of Washington was out to-day with flags, music, &c, celebrating the Fourth by pic-nics, parades, &c.  A very large pic-nic was held by them in the public square between the White House and War Department.  They had colored bands, and colored speakers, and conducted themselves in a very orderly manner.

Not all publications were so complimentary.  Democratic papers in particular denounced the event.  From the Washington Constitutional Union:

The grounds, held by all patriots as something set apart and sacred, because invested with a national character, were prostituted and disgraced by the erection of stands for negro merchants to vend fruits and cakes and drinks to negro customers.

The paper went on to complain "these were negroes who did these things with the high approval and warm commendation of our president".

Not to be outdone, later that month the superintendent of the Third Colored Baptist Sabbath School asked for permission to conduct a fund-raising event described as a "demonstration of the appreciation of the colored people of the much-desired and highly appreciated privileges they are permitted to enjoy since the freeing of the slaves and abolishing of the black laws of the District of Columbia".  Permission was granted and the event held on August 4.

A Day On Tour With General Lafayette

On the morning of April 29, 1825, William Clark, Edward Coles, and Thomas Hart Benton came aboard the steamboat Natchez at the small village of Carondelet, Missouri to accompany the Marquis de Lafayette, known to Americans as General Lafayette, to St Louis. 

William Clark was the Clark of the Lewis & Clark Expedition of 1804 to 1806, which had explored the newly acquired Louisiana Territory, crossed the Rockies, reaching the Pacific Ocean in what later became Oregon.  Upon his return, President Jefferson appointed Clark as the first Superintendent of Indian Affairs, a role which he held until his death in 1838.  The explorer also served as Territorial Governor of Missouri from 1813 until it was admitted as a state in 1820.

Elected as U.S. Senator from the new state of Missouri in 1821, a seat he held until 1851, Benton served as an aide to General Andrew Jackson in the War of 1812.  Benton and Jackson had wild temperaments, getting into a fight at a hotel in Nashville in 1813 which ended when Benton's brother shot Jackson in the arm, after Thomas Hart unsuccessfully tried to shoot the general.  Reconciling a decade later, Benton became a fervent political supporter of Jackson.

Though a slaveowner, Benton opposed the Compromise of 1850, believing it too favorable to the slave states, and provoking a notorious incident on the floor of the Senate which I've previously written about (see Senator Foote Draws His Pistol).  As a result, the state legislature refused to reappoint him to the senate.

Edward Coles was Governor of Illinois.  Born to a slave-holding family in Virginia, Coles became opposed to slavery at a young age.  Upon inheriting twelve slaves from his father's estate, Coles planned to emancipate them but found that changes to Virginia law made that difficult.  Instead he took the slaves  to Kentucky.  Being from a well-connected Virginia family, President Madison asked him to serve as his private secretary, a role he performed from 1810 to 1815.  During that time he also made a visit to the New England states and played a role in reopening communications between former presidents Adams and Jefferson, leading to their remarkable correspondence which continued until both died on July 4, 1826.  Coles also corresponded with Jefferson, urging him to publicly oppose slavery.(1)

In 1818, Coles purchased land in the Illinois Territory, and led the successful opposition to a proposal to allow slavery in the new state constitution.  The following year, Coles transported his slaves to Illinois, gave them their freedom, purchasing 160 acres of land for each freed family.  Elected governor in 1822, Coles once again led the successful opposition to a proposal to amend the state constitution to allow slavery.  Defeated for reelection in 1826, Coles left the state, moving to Philadelphia.  He still advocated for the end of slavery, urging the Virginia legislature to end slavery after Nat Turner's rebellion, and while on a visit to James and Dolly Madison, responding to the former president who asked for advice on the best way to free his slaves.

Coles lived to see the end of slavery, dying in 1868, but suffering the divisions of the Civil War.  One of his sons served in the Union Army but another, who had returned to live in Virginia and became a slaveowner, fought and died for the Confederacy.

For Lafayette, a fierce opponent of slavery, meeting Coles must have been refreshing, as the only discordant note in his tour was to observe that slavery still existed in parts of the country he loved.

The Natchez weighed anchor and started moving downriver the six or seven miles to St Louis.  Auguste Levasseur, Lafayette's secretary and author of Lafayette in America in 1824 and 1825: Or, Journal of a Voyage to the United States (1829) reports:

But if we were struck with the diversity of languages in which General Lafayette was saluted, we were not less so by the unity of sentiment which they manifested.  The shore was covered by the whole population, who mingled their cries of joy with the roar of the cannon of our two vessels.  The moment the general stepped on shore, the mayor, Dr Lane, presented himself at the head of the municipal authorities, and greeted him with an address.  As the general concluded his reply to the mayor, an elegant calash drawn by four horses approached the shore, to conduct him to the city, through all the streets of which he was drawn in the midst of acclamations of the people.

Taken to a house to prepare for his reception which was open to all citizens "without distinction", the general received visitors including William Hamilton, son of Alexander, Lafayette's dear friend from the days of the War for Independence.  Lafayette, Hamilton, and John Laurens were all aides to George Washington.

The general was taken by his hosts on a carriage ride to visit the ancient Indian mounds along the Mississippi River.  Lavasseur remarks that such mounds, also found Indiana and Ohio, indicated "that this world which we call new, was the seat of civilization, perhaps long anterior to the continent of Europe".

Returning to town they visited an enormous collection of "Indian curiosities" at William Clark's home, including specimens of clothing, arms, and utensils for fishing, hunting and war by the tribes of the Missouri and Mississippi valleys.  Presenting some of the materials obtained during their great Western expedition, the author writes that Lewis & Clark "concluded that there formerly existed, near the pole, a communication between Asia and America".

Moving on to a banquet in honor of the general, Levasseur reports:

In this company, that which touched General Lafayette most was the prevailing unanimity among the guest, who, though they did not all speak one language, agreed, perfectly in respect to the excellence of those republican institutions under which it was their happiness to live.

Next it was on to a ball featuring "the most numerous and brilliant company assembled, as we were informed, that had ever been seen upon the western shore of the Mississippi".  As midnight drew near, Lafayette, his son George, and Lavasseur returned to the Natchez for a few hours rest, before they embarked at dawn on the next leg of their journey.

All in all, it was just another day on Lafayette's extraordinary 13 month tour of America, of which you can also read about in Lafayette's Tour, Meaning Well, and Calculated For The Good Of The Citizens.

I've now finished reading Lavasseur's account of that journey, which provides much insight into how Americans thought of themselves and their country, fifty years into the Great Experiment.  The book was also written with the French political situation in mind.  The 1820s were the time of the Bourbon Restoration, and Charles X, who ascended to the throne in 1824, was determined to revert France back to an absolute monarchy, anathema to Lafayette who supported a constitutional monarchy on the model of Great Britain.  The Bourbons would have liked to arrest Lafayette because of his opposition but he proved to popular a figure to take direct action against.  Lavasseur's book can be read as contrasting the American republican system, popular with all classes of citizens, with the repression in the existing French system.  It is likely that Lavasseur, at some points, exaggerates the success and popularity of the American system to heighten the contrast with France.

The most striking contrast occurs after Lafayette's return to France.  In America, his visits to every city and town were marked by joyous and peaceful celebrations.  On arriving in Rouen, while he was hosted at a dinner by a local merchant a crowd gathered outside to salute him.  The local army detachment and gendarmes, worried about the crowd and the political opposition, arrived on the scene, opened fire, severely wounding several in the peaceful crowd and arresting others.  Lavasseur writes of the incident:

This atrocious conduct of the magistrates and their servile instruments afflicted us the more, from having a few days previous enjoyed the free expression of the feeling and enthusiasm of the American people, and which in spite of ourselves forced a comparison that was far from being favorable to our own country.

In 1830, Charles X attempted to complete the steps towards an absolute monarchy, provoking a revolt in Paris, in which Lafayette took over command of the National Guard, helping oust the monarch, and supporting Louis Philippe in the establishment of a constitutional monarchy.

The Marquis died on May 20, 1834 and was buried in a Paris cemetery.  His son sprinkled soil from Bunker Hill over the grave site.  President Andrew Jackson ordered that Lafayette be given the same funeral honors as George Washington.  Flags were flown at half-mast for 35 days, the chambers of Congress were draped in black and the country was asked to dress in black for 30 days.  Former president John Quincy Adams delivered a three hour eulogy in Congress.

More to come on Lafayette's Tour . . .

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(1) Excerpts from Coles letter to Jefferson of July 31, 1814:

I will not enter on the right which man has to enslave his Brother man, nor upon the moral and political effects of Slavery on individuals or on Society; because these things are better understood by you than by me. My object is to entreat and beseech you to exert your knowledge and influence, in devising, and getting into operation, some plan for the gradual emancipation of Slavery.

In the calm of this retirement you might, most beneficially to society, and with much addition to your own fame, avail yourself of that love and confidence to put into complete practice those hallowed principles contained in that renowned Declaration, of which you were the immortal author, and on which we bottomed our right to resist oppression, and establish our freedom and independence.  

Permit me then, my dear Sir, again to intreat you to exert your great powers of mind and influence, and to employ some of your present leisure, in devising a mode to liberate one half of our Fellowbeings from an ignominious bondage to the other; either by making an immediate attempt to put in train a plan to commence this goodly work, or to leave human Nature the invaluable Testament—which you are so capable of doing—how best to establish its rights: So that the weight of your opinion may be on the side of emancipation when that question shall be agitated, and that it will be sooner or later is most certain—That it may be soon is my most ardent prayer—that it will be rests with you. 

Excerpts from Jefferson's response to Coles, August 25, 1814.  Coles must have been encouraged by the opening sentences:

Your favour of July 31, was duly received, and was read with peculiar pleasure. The sentiments breathed through the whole do honor to both the head and heart of the writer. Mine on the subject of slavery of negroes have long since been in possession of the public, and time has only served to give them stronger root. The love of justice and the love of country plead equally the cause of these people, and it is a moral reproach to us that they should have pleaded it so long in vain, and should have produced not a single effort, nay I fear not much serious willingness to relieve them & ourselves from our present condition of moral & political reprobation. 

Only to have his hopes dashed.  After a recitation of his youthful efforts to oppose slavery, Jefferson opines as to his confidence in its ultimate abolition, but declines to play any further public role: 

Yet the hour of emancipation is advancing, in the march of time. It will come; and whether brought on by the generous energy of our own minds; or by the bloody process of St Domingo, excited and conducted by the power of our present enemy, if once stationed permanently within our Country, and offering asylum & arms to the oppressed, is a leaf of our history not yet turned over. As to the method by which this difficult work is to be effected, if permitted to be done by ourselves, I have seen no proposition so expedient on the whole, as that as emancipation of those born after a given day, and of their education and expatriation after a given age.

I am sensible of the partialities with which you have looked towards me as the person who should undertake this salutary but arduous work. But this, my dear sir, is like bidding old Priam to buckle the armour of Hector "trementibus aequo humeris et inutile ferruncingi." No, I have overlived the generation with which mutual labors & perils begat mutual confidence and influence. This enterprise is for the young; for those who can follow it up, and bear it through to its consummation. It shall have all my prayers, & these are the only weapons of an old man.

He then discourages Cole from going through with his plans to free his slaves:

My opinion has ever been that, until more can be done for them, we should endeavor, with those whom fortune has thrown on our hands, to feed and clothe them well, protect them from all ill usage, require such reasonable labor only as is performed voluntarily by freemen, & be led by no repugnancies to abdicate them, and our duties to them.

You Need An Editor

. . . or, even better, multiple editors like John Adams and Ben Franklin.  The Continental Congress voted to declare independence on July 2, 1776 (which Adams mistakenly believed would become the great day of celebration) and then signed the edited version of the Declaration on July 4.

From Chicago Boyz:

How the Declaration of Independence evolved from its first draft by Thomas Jefferson (blue) to the revised draft by the Committee of Five (John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Robert Livingston, and Roger Sherman (red) to the final changes made by the Continental Congress as a committee of the whole (bold black) (source):

 

A Declaration of the Representatives of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, in General Congress assembled. In Congress, July 4,1776. The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen United States of America.

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for a People to advance from that Subordination, in which they have hitherto remained, one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the Ppowers of the Eearth the equal and independant Station the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent Rrespect to the opinions of Mmankind requires that they should declare the Ccauses which impel them to the Change separation.
 
We hold these truths to be self–evident, that all men are created equal and independant, that from that equal creation they derive rights inherent and inalienable, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, among which that among these are the Preservation of Life, and Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. tThat to secure these Ends rights, Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the Cconsent of the governed; t.—That whenever any Form of gGovernment shall become becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Rright of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Ffoundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient Ccauses; and accordingly all Eexperience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to Ssuffer, while Eevils are Ssufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of Aabuses and Uusurpations, begun at a distinguish’d Period and, pursuing invariably the same oObject, evinces a Ddesign to reduce them under absolute Power dDespotism, it is their Rright, it is their Dduty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. Such has been the patient Ssufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the Nnecessity which constrains them to expunge alter their former systems of government. The history of his present Majesty, the present king of Great Britain is a history of unremitting repeated injuries and usurpations, among which no one Fact stands Single or Solitary to contradict the uniform tenor of the rest, all of which have having in direct object the Eestablishment of an absolute Ttyranny over these Sstates. To prove this let Ffacts be Ssubmitted to a candid Wworld., for the Truth of which We pledge a Faith, as yet unsullied by falsehood.
 
He has refused his assent to laws the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
 
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and, when so suspended, he has neglected utterly to attend to them.
 
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accomodation of large Ddistricts of Ppeople unless those Ppeople would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a Rright inestimable to them, and formidable to Ttyrants only.
 
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public rRecords, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
 
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly and continually,for opposing with manly Ffirmness his Iinvasions on the Rrights of the Ppeople;
 
He has refused, for a long Space of Ttime after such Ddissolutions to cause others to be elected, whereby the lLegislative Ppowers, incapable of aAnnihilation have returned to the People at large for their Eexercise, the sState remaining, in the mean Ttime meantime, exposed to all the Ddangers of Iinvasion from without, and Convulsions within.
 
He has endeavoured to prevent the Ppopulation of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for nNaturalization of fForeigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their Mmigrations hither, and raising the Cconditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
 
He has suffered obstructed the Administration of Justice totally to cease in some of these Colonies, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.
 
He has made our Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the Ttenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their Ssalaries.
 
He has created a Mmultitude of nNew oOffices by a Self-assumed Power, and sent hither swarms of oOfficers to harass our Ppeople, and eat out their Ssubstance.
 
He has kept among us, in Ttimes of Ppeace, Standing Armies and Ships of War without the cConsent of our legislatures..
 
He has affected to render the mMilitary independent of and Superiour superior to the cCivil Ppower.
 
He has combined with others to subject us to a Jjurisdiction foreign to our Cconstitution, and unacknowledged by our Llaws; giving his Assent to their pretended Acts of pretended Legislation:
 
fFor quartering large Bbodies of armed Ttroops among us:
 
fFor protecting them, by a Mmock Tryal Ttrial from Ppunishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
 
fFor cutting off our Ttrade with all Pparts of the Wworld;
 
fFor imposing Taxes on as without our Consent—fFor depriving Uus in many cases of the Bbenefits of Trial by Jjury;
 
fFor transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
 
fFor abolishing the free sSystem of English Llaws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an aArbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these cColonies:
 
fFor taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable lLaws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Government:
 
fFor suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with Ppower to legislate for us in all Ccases whatsoever.
 
He has abdicated Government here withdrawing his Governors, and by declaring us out of his Allegiance and pProtection, and waging war against us.
 
He has plundered our Sseas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the Lives of our Ppeople.
 
He is at this Ttime transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to complete compleat the Wworks of death, Ddesolation, andTtyranny, already begun with Ccircumstances of Ccruelty and Pperfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized Nnation.
 
He has excited domestic insurrection among us, and has endeavoured to bring on the Iinhabitants of our Ffrontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known Rrule of Wwarfare is an undistinguished Ddestruction of all Aages, Ssexes, and Cconditionsof existence.
 
He has incited treasonable Insurrections of our Fellow Citizens, with the allurement of Forfeiture and Confiscation of our Property.
 
He has constrained others our fellow citizens taken cCaptive on the high sSeas, to bear arms against their cCountry, to become the executioners of their friends and bBrethren, or to fall themselves by their hHands:
 
He has waged cruel War against human Nature itself, violating its most sacred Rights of Life and Liberty in the Persons of a distant People who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into Slavery in another Hemisphere, or to incur miserable Death, in their Transportation thither. This piratical Warfare, the opprobrium of infidel Powers, is the Warfare of the Christian King of Great Britain.
 
He has prostituted his Negative for Suppressing every legislative Attempt to prohibit or to restrain an execrable Commerce, determined to keep open a Market where Men should be bought and sold, and that this assemblage of Horrors might want no Fact of distinguished Die.
 
He is now exciting those very People to rise in Arms among us, and to purchase their Liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the People upon whom he also obtruded them: thus paying off, former Crimes committed against the Liberties of one People, with Crimes which he urges them to commit against the Lives of another.
 
In every stage of these oOppressions wWe have pPetitioned for rRedress, in the most humble tTerms: oOur repeated Petitions have been answered by repeated Iinjury.
 
A Prince whose Ccharacter is thus marked by every Aact which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the Rruler of a People who mean to be free people. future ages will scarce believe, that the Hardiness of one Man, adventured, within the Short Compass of twelve years only, on so many Acts of Tyranny, without a Mask, over a People, fostered and fixed in the Principles of Liberty.
 
Nor have wWe been wanting in Aattentions to our British Bbrethren. We have warned them from Ttime to Ttime of attempts of by their Llegislature to extend a an unwarranted Jjurisdiction over these our States us. We have reminded them of the Ccircumstances of our Eemigration and Ssettlement here no one of which could warrant so strange a Pretension. That these were effected at the expense of our own Blood and Treasure, unassisted by the Wealth or the Strength of Great Britain; that in constituting indeed, our Several Forms of Government, we had adopted one common King, thereby laying a Foundation for Perpetual League and Amity with them; but that Submission to their Parliament, was no Part of our Constitution, nor ever in Idea, if History may be credited; and wWe have appealed to their Nature, native Jjustice and Mmagnanimity and we have conjured them by as well as to the Tties of our common Kkindred to disavow these usurpations which were likely to would inevitably interrupt our Correspondence and Connection connection and correspondance. They too have been deaf to the Vvoice of Jjustice and of Cconsanguinity. and when occasions have been given them by the regular Course of their Laws of removing from their Councils, the Disturbers of our Harmony, they have by their free Election, re-established them in Power. At this very Time too, they are permitting their Chief Magistrate to send over not only soldiers of our common Blood, but Scotch and foreign Mercenaries, to invade and deluge us in Blood. These Facts have given the last Stab to agonizing affection, and manly Spirit bids us to renounce forever these unfeeling Brethren. We must endeavour to forget our former Love for them, and to hold them, as we hold the rest of Mankind, enemies in War, in Peace Friends. We might have been a free and a great People together but a Communication of Grandeur and of Freedom it seems is below their Dignity. Be it so, since they will have it: The Road to Happiness and to Glory is open to us too; we will climb it, apart from them We must therefore and acquiesce in the Nnecessity which denounces our eternal Sseparation and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
 
We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress aAssembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by the Authority of the good People of these States Colonies, reject and renounce all Allegiance and Subjection to the Kings of Great Britain, and all others, who may hereafter claim by, through, or under them; We utterly dissolve and break off, all political Connection which may have heretofore subsisted between us and the People or Parliament of Great Britain, and finally we do assert solemnly publish and declare, that these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be fFree and iIndependent States; that they are Absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as fFree and iIndependent States, they shall hereafter have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which independent States may of Right do. —And for the Ssupport of this Declaration, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our Sacred Honour Honor.