Dear Readers:
Through the study of history we gain perspective on how current events are spawned, shaped and sometimes saddled by the influence of past moments of strife, evolution, and scientific discovery.
The decisions and actions of George, Tom, Ben, Alexander, John, John, and James, otherwise thought of as our Founding Fathers, were risky and life threatening, yet influenced greatly by past writers, philosophers and statesmen, such as Aristotle, Cicero, Horace, Ovid, Marcus Aurelius, John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, Baron de Montesquieu, and Immanuel Kant. They created a Republic through their belief that laws should be the final authority, not men. They admired the government of the Iroquois, and most were Deists. A Deist is “someone who believes in a single god who created the world but does not act to influence events.” (Cambridge Dictionary) And the dudes didn’t attend church regularly either. They may have purchased pews in Christ Church, but the consistent Sunday sermon attendees were the ladies.
Wandering the leafy streets of Philly, trying not to stumble over the cobblestone, walking in and out of buildings, the same structures where Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Adams, et al, spent long, hot months debating, arguing and finally compromising over the creation of a new nation, one wonders . . .
Did George Washington cut the cheese?
I have no doubt that he and all our forefathers did. They burped. They spit, and just like us, they put on one sock before the other. They were human.
Although the advancement of technology, especially post-war to the present – that’s post-Civil War – continues to accelerate at an astonishing rate, human nature and our actions really don’t change much as the centuries march forward. Politics in the United States has always fomented public denigrations of one’s political foes. Fortunately, we don’t erect gallows anymore and make a public head-lopping a fun family outing in the town square. Our foes, adversaries and those we just don’t agree with or care for are more likely to get a verbal slice of the guillotine than a public execution, although there were those attempts, some successful some not, in 1835, 1865, 1881, 1901, 1912, 1933, 1935, 1950, 1963, 1968, 1972, 1975, 1981, 2024, to name a few. . .
We are who we are – human. And we all have the right to exist in the United States and on this planet. We the People are entitled to enjoy life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
As is the case, time dehumanizes the individual; history mythologizes them. We hold our Founding Fathers to a standard of human behavior that, frankly, is not realistic. They owned slaves. Some sired children by them. They conspired against each other, mostly politically, but there was that moment at Weehawken between a Federalist and Republican. It ended badly for the Federalist. . .
Our country was created by “ordinary men [and women] doing extraordinary things.” Perhaps, then, instead of looking to an individual or an ideology to be a savior, we seek out the ordinary who, with the consent of the people, may just do something extraordinary.
History shows us the path our nation navigated to get to 2024. In hindsight, what will that path look like in 2124?
In the words of Maya Angelou, “If you don’t know where you’ve come from, you don’t know where you’re going. I have respect for the past, but I’m a person of the moment. I’m here, and I do my best to be completely centered at the place I’m at, then I go forward to the next place.”
May we do the same – go forward, together, to the next place. . .
KSM
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