CIVIL WAR's ORIGINS - JOHN BROWN

[Part of Constituting America’s 90 Day Study - Days that Shaped America]

On the evening of Oct. 16, 1859, John Brown and his raiders unleashed 36 hours of terror on the federal armory in Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia).

Brown's raid marked a cataclysmic moment of change for America and the world. It ranks up there with Sept. 11, the Dec. 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, and the shots fired on Lexington Common and Concord Bridge during the momentous day of April 19, 1775. Each of these days marked a point when there was no turning back. Contributing events may have been prologue, but once these fateful days took place, America was forever changed.

Americans at the time knew that the raid was not the isolated work of a madman. Brown was the well financed and supported "point of the lance" for the abolition movement.

He was a major figure among the leading abolitionists and intellectuals of the time. This included Gerrit Smith, the second wealthiest man in America and business partner of Cornelius Vanderbilt. Among other ventures, Smith was a patron of Oberlin College, where Brown's father served as a trustee. Thus was born a 20-year friendship.

Through Smith, Brown moved among America's elite, conversing with Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, journalists, religious leaders and politicians.

Early on, Brown deeply believed that the only way to end slavery was through armed rebellion. His vision was to create a southern portal for the Underground Railway in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

The plan was to raise a small force and attack the armory in Harpers Ferry. There Brown would obtain additional weapons and then move into the Blue Ridge to establish his mountain sanctuary for escaping slaves.

Brown anticipated having escaped slaves swell his rebellious ranks and protect his sanctuary. He planned to acquire hundreds of metal tipped pikes as the weapon of choice.

The idea of openly rebelling against slavery was an extreme position in the 1850s. Abolitionist leaders felt slavery would either become economically obsolete or had faith that their editorials would shame the federal government to end the practice.

For years Brown remained the lone radical voice in the elite salons of New York and Boston. He looked destined to remain on the fringes of the anti-slavery movement when a series of events shook the activists' trust in working within the system and shifted sentiment toward Brown's solution.

The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 forced local public officials in free states to help recover escaped slaves. The federally sanctioned intrusion of slavery into the North began tipping the scales in favor of Brown's agenda.

The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 destroyed decades of carefully crafted compromises that limited slavery’s westward expansion.  The Act ignited a regional civil war as pro-slavery and anti-slavery settlers fought each other prior to a referendum on the state’s status – slave or free.  Smith enlisted the help of several of the more active abolitionists to underwrite Brown's guerilla war against slavery in Kansas in 1856-57. This group, including some of America’s leading intellectuals, went on to become the Secret Six, who pledged to help Brown with his raid.

The Supreme Court's Dred Scott decision in 1857, and its striking down of Wisconsin's opposition to the Fugitive Slave Act in March 1859, set the Secret Six and Brown on their collision course with Harpers Ferry.

Today, Harpers Ferry is a scenic town of 300 people, but in 1859 it was one of the largest industrial complexes south of the Mason Dixon Line. The Federal Armory and Rifle Works were global centers of industrial innovation and invention. The mass production of interchangeable parts, the foundation of the modern industrial era, was perfected along the banks of the Potomac and Shenandoah Rivers.

Brown moved into the Harpers Ferry area on July 3, 1859, establishing his base at the Kennedy Farm a few miles north in Maryland. The broader abolitionist movement remained divided about an armed struggle. During August 19-21, 1859, a unique debate occurred. At a quarry outside Chambersburg, Pa., Frederick Douglass and Brown spent hours debating whether anyone had a moral obligation to take up arms against slavery. Douglass refused to join Brown but remained silent about the raid. Douglass’ aide, Shields Green, was so moved by Brown’s argument, he joined Brown on the raid, was captured, tried, and executed.

The American Civil War began the moment Brown and his men walked across the B&O railroad bridge and entered Harpers Ferry late on the evening of Oct. 16, 1859. Brown's raiders secured the bridges and the armories as planned. Hostages were collected from surrounding plantations, including Col. Lewis W. Washington, great grandnephew of George Washington. A wagon filled with “slave pikes” was brought into town.  Brown planned to arm freed slaves with the pikes assuming they had little experience with firearms. 

As Brown and his small force waited for additional raiders with wagons to remove the federal weapons, local militia units arrived and blocked their escape. Militia soldiers and armed townspeople methodically killed Brown’s raiders, who were arrayed throughout the industrial complexes. 

Eventually, the surviving raiders and their hostages retreated into the Armory’s Fire Engine House for their last stand.  Robert E. Lee and a detachment of U.S. Marines from Washington, DC arrived on Oct. 18.  The Marines stormed the Engine House, killing or capturing Brown and his remaining men, and freeing the hostages.  The raid was over.

Brown survived the raid. His trial became a national sensation as he chose to save his cause instead of himself. Brown rejected an insanity plea in favor of placing slavery on trial. His testimony, and subsequent newspaper interviews while awaiting execution on Dec. 2, 1859, created a fundamental emotional and political divide across America that made civil war inevitable.

Fearing that abolitionists were planning additional raids or slave revolts, communities across the South formed their own militias and readied for war. There was no going back to pre-October America.

Edmund Ruffin, one of Virginia's most vocal pro-slavery and pro-secession leaders, acquired several of Brown's "slave pikes." He sent them to the governors of slave-holding states, each labeled "Sample of the favors designed for us by our Northern Brethren."  Many of the slave pikes were publicly displayed in southern state capitols, further inflaming regional emotions. 

On April 12, 1861, Ruffin lit the fuse on the first cannon fired at Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina.  The real fuse had been lit months earlier by Brown at Harpers Ferry.

HAMILTON - AMERICA's FIRST CAPITALIST

[Part of Constituting America’s 90 Day Study - Days that Shaped America]

Alexander Hamilton was America’s first Chief Operations Officer (COO).

Along with James Madison, Hamilton crafted the best operating system ever devised in human history.  The U.S. Constitution provided a framework for sharing power and resolving differences.  Madison and Hamilton provided details for operationalizing the Constitution with their Federal Papers essays.  These Papers remain integral to interpreting the original intent for court cases to this day.

America was blessed with George Washington, the most indispensable person in our nation’s history. However, Washington needed to augment his phenomenal leadership skills with Hamilton’s management acumen.  During the American Revolution, Hamilton translated Washington’s military strategy into clear and concise orders to his commanders.  Now as President, Washington needed Hamilton to translate the Founders’ vision, and his policies, into reality.

With Jefferson still conducting diplomacy in Europe, Hamilton became not just the first Treasury Secretary, but effectively functioned as Washington’s “prime minister”.  Decisions and documents, down to minute detail, flowed from Hamilton’s pen, creating the Executive Branch. 

Hamilton’s love of administrative detail was matched by his devotion to commerce.

He was the only “modern man” among the Founders.  Hamilton grew-up outside the American colonies and had a full appreciation of how nations interacted.  As an accounting clerk for various trading companies in the West Indies, Hamilton developed a deep understanding for the inner workings of international trade and finance.  His was America’s first “capitalist”.  The systems and institutions he put in place laid the foundation for America becoming the greatest economic power in the world.

Hamilton greatest achievement was managing the onerous debts arising from the Revolutionary War.  Each state incurred debt as their individual state militias needed to be paid for back wages.  Both national and state level soldiers were paid in bonds or “IOUs”.  After the war many cash-strapped soldiers sold these bonds/“IOUs” to speculators for a fraction of their worth.  Countless suppliers of their armed forces sued for nonpayment.  The paper currency issued during the war was “not worth a Continental” and legions of war veterans, farmers, merchants, and craftsman (like blacksmiths, barrel makers, and carpenters) demanded payment, declaring Continental script were “IOUs”.

The total debt was $79 million: $54 million owed by the national government and $25 million owed by the states.  Hamilton saw repayment of this debt as a strategic and moral imperative: “States, like individuals, who observe their engagements are respected and trusted, while the reverse is the fate of those who pursue an opposite conduct.”

Without a debt repayment strategy, the IOUs and lawsuits would continue to cripple America’s economy with unbridled speculation and uncertainty. Trust in the Federal government’s ability to meet its obligations had to be restored.  Something had to be done.  Hamilton declared, “In nothing are appearances of greater moment than in whatever regards credit.”

Repayment of debts would allow America to enter into international agreements and borrow funds for investing in business ventures and stimulate economic growth.  Hamilton observed that the American economy was stagnating from a limited money supply, deflation of land values, and no liquid capital. He also was concerned that if America was seen as financially broke and politically fragmented, foreign governments may lure individual states with separate debt financing arrangements. 

The solution was to consolidate all public debt and set aside some of the steady federal revenue to service interest and payoff the principal.  These were revolutionary and futuristic concepts in 1790.

It was his conviction that, “an assumption of the debts of particular states by the union and a like provision for them as for those of the union will be a measure of sound policy and substantial justice.”

Hamilton determined that consolidating all the Revolutionary War debt would accomplish several things.  [1] It would bring order from chaos with one large debt instead of thousands of smaller ones.  [2] It would simplify the management and repayment of the debt. [3] It would establish loyalty among the creditors and bond/IOU holders who would promote the stability and success of the federal government to assure their claims were paid. 

Another aspect of Hamilton’s solution was that the U.S. Constitution gave the federal government the exclusive right to collect import duties.  The Federal Government assuming state debt would prevent states from trying to return to the Article of Confederation when states levied duties on interstate commerce.  Hamilton wanted to unify America and forge a national economy.

The critical element in assuming all debt was to have a unified America attract foreign investment through issuing federal government bonds.  Such bonded debt would create investment partners who would forge trade relationships that allowed the U.S. Government to raise the necessary revenue to meet its debt obligations.  Hamilton sought to create a web of economic loyalties and relationships that bound everyone to supporting everyone’s economic wellbeing.  In doing so, Hamilton would establish America as a major player in the modern international financial system.

Hamilton’s vision and how to implement it, was at the core of his fifty-one-page “Report on Public Credit” to the Congress.  It was his hope that Congress would pass the necessary legislation to authorize implementation of this integrated plan.  Any editions or subtractions would ruin his delicate balance between the various economic interests.  Hamilton worried, “Credit is the entire thing. Every part of it has the nicest sympathy with every other part.  Wound one limb and the whole tree shrinks and decays.”

Many in Congress rejected the plan as confusing and overly complex.  Some saw it as too much like the way England financed its wars.  Other declared it a bailout for speculators.  Even Madison refuted it.  As the assumption plan related to spending, its first test was in the House of Representatives.

The House debate was a sensation.  Packed galleries watched Madison rail against the plan as a “betrayal of the American Revolution”.  Hamilton, a member of the Executive Branch, mustered his votes behind the scenes. On April 12, 1790, the House defeated the debt assumption plan: 29 ayes to 31 nays.

The death of debt assumption found resurrection in the future location of the nation’s capital.  Hamilton and northerners wanted the capital to remain in New York or return to Philadelphia.  Southerners wanted in in the South and located outside an existing urban area.  Jefferson saw this as a struggle between his vision of an agrarian nation versus the grime of industry.  Madison and Henry Lee had purchased land along the Potomac River in the hopes that Jefferson would prevail.

All sides wanted a final decision on the future of the Nation’s Capital, and symbolically the character of the nation.  To break the stalemate, the key players, Jefferson, Hamilton, Madison, and several others gathered for dinner on June 20, 1790, at Jefferson’s townhouse in New York City. 

After much food, libations, and discussion a deal was struck.  The Nation’s Capital would be along the banks of the Potomac between Georgetown in Maryland and Alexandria in Virginia.  In exchange for Hamilton convincing northerners to support this location, Jefferson and Madison would support passage of Hamilton’s Debt Assumption plan.

On July 10, 1790 the House passed the Residence Act moving the temporary Capital back to Philadelphia and designating a ten-square mile area along the Potomac as the permanent Capital.  The House then passed the Assumption bill on July 26.  The Senate approved the plan on August 4, 1790.

Senator Daniel Webster placed Hamilton’s achievement into historical perspective. 

“The fabled birth of Minerva from the brain of Jove was hardly more sudden or perfect than the financial system of the United States as it burst forth from the conception of Alexander Hamilton.”

HILL TOP REALITIES

SWaN Investors have done a masterful job orchestrating an “echo chamber” of positive media.  Countless Letters to the Editor purportedly from Harpers Ferry “residents”, news releases, and unsubstantiated assertions, have flooded local media.

SWaN’s goal is to stampede four of the seven voting Members of the Harpers Ferry Town Council to ignore, bend, and invent rules in order to give the out-of-state billionaires everything they desire as quickly as possible.

Facts and laws must drive the decision that will shape the next century of Harpers Ferry. 

The first reality check is to remember that the Hill Top Hotel was fully operational the day SWaN bought it.  Tour groups filled its rooms, hungry customers lined up for Hill Top’s famous fried chicken and buffet, and community groups regularly met there. 

The second reality check is to remember that it was SWaN, no one else, who closed the Hill Top Hotel. They asserted that Hill Top must be completely torn down.  To validate their assertion, SWaN allowed Hill Top to become derelict.  No repairs occurred, windows were broken, and water seeped in, collapsing the hotel’s front facade.  Those saddened by Hill Top’s current state of disrepair should remember who is responsible.

The third reality check is that the Town of Harpers Ferry owns the roads and undeveloped paper streets that SWaN so desperately craves.  These streets were laid out by War Department engineers under President George Washington.  They were officially documented in the 1869 War Department plat.  These streets are not “fake”.  They contribute to the integrity of Harpers Ferry’s Historic District, which was established by the Department of Interior in 1976.  Harpers Ferry’s Town Ordinances do not allow for the sale or transfer of these streets to anyone. The 2016 Ordinance amendment was only intended for disposing of Personal Property. No street has ever been given, sold, or ceded to anyone since 1790.  No amount of undocumented assertions changes this.

The fourth reality check is SWaN’s heavy-handed efforts to control public access to the Promontory.  Armed thugs brandishing guns have accosted members of the community when they are on paved portions of East Ridge and Columbia Streets.  In one instance, Harpers Ferry police had to order a SWaN thug to “stand down” and retreat to actual SWaN property.  SWaN refuses to release its “Security and Safety” Policy that will dictate when the community can access the Promontory.  Their secret policy could all but eliminate access. 

SWaN’s proposed land swap of their nearly vertical property for all the adjoining paper streets would bankrupt Harpers Ferry.  Accessing the Promontory using a massive zig-zagging wooden stairway would generate lawsuits and costs for making the 45% incline comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act.  No-one in a wheel chair, on crutches, or infirm may be able to enjoy one of our region’s greatest vistas.

The fifth reality check is that the number of Harpers Ferry visitors has increased since Hill Top Hotel closed in March 2008.  That year 260,000 visitors entered the Park.  In 2017, there were 342,534 Park visitors, an increase of 31.7 percent.  Since Hill Top closed, Harpers Ferry has been listed as one of America’s top tourist destinations in countless travel magazines and websites.  Harpers Ferry is certainly not a dying ghost town portrayed by SWaN’s acolytes.

The final reality check is about the true nature of SWaN and its proponents.  None of those appearing at Town meetings, or writing as “residents”, were involved, in any way, with the thirty preservation initiatives, since 1988, that saved the historic and scenic resources of the Harpers Ferry area from being destroyed. None of SWaN’s “community” proponents helped with the 50^th Anniversary of the Park, the Centennial of the Second Niagara Movement, or any of the Sesquicentennial commemorations of the John Brown Raid or the area’s Civil War battles. 

No one from SWaN even had the decency to attend the funeral of Bill Stanhagen, the person who sold Hill Top to SWaN.

These are the realities of the Hill Top project, and its supporters. 

Hopefully, they will be aired during the March 9 Town Workshop on the Concept Plan.

Scot Faulkner is President of Friends of Harpers Ferry National Historical Park and co-chaired the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Park.

INVITATION ONLY

Also published on https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/invitation-only-scot-faulkner?trk=prof-post

How can the new Republican Congress signal that they are the co-equal branch of government? How can Republicans avoid being out maneuvered by President Obama?


It’s time to NOT invite President Obama to give his State of the Union Address before Congress. This is a clear and simple way Republicans can, in one master stroke, register their opposition to Obama’s Executive Orders and realign the balance between the Legislative and Executive Branches.
There is no official reason for the speech. There is not even a requirement for it to be annual. Article II, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution only requires the President to “from time to time give to the Congress information of the State of the Union”.


There is also no requirement that Congress grant the President the use of their Chamber for this ritualized infomercial.


On January 16, 2014, Rep. Eric Cantor sponsored H.Con.Res.75 authorizing “That the two Houses of Congress assemble in the Hall of the House of Representatives on Tuesday, January 28, 2014, at 9 p.m., for the purpose of receiving such communication as the President of the United States shall be pleased to make to them.” What if, in January 2015, no one sponsored a Concurrent Resolution or voted for it?


Republicans would prove that the Congress is a co-equal branch, not subservient to the President. They would not become a pack of trained seals clapping at dozens of cheap applause lines. They would not be the stage set for Obama's grandstanding to the nation and helping the media continue their “Obama is on the rebound” narrative.

They would also avoid being put in multiple political binds as the President introduces controversial people, daring the Republicans not to applaud. This may include Michael Brown’s and Eric Garner’s parents sitting next to the First Lady. Obama might even introduce Al Sharpton or some newly pardoned illegal aliens from his VIP delegation in the Chamber’s balcony.


Not inviting the President also brings the State of the Union back to its traditional position in American government.


President George Washington delivered the first State of the Union speech in person before a Joint Session of Congress on January 8, 1790. Since then, there have been 223 opportunities for Presidents to deliver their report. Presidents have delivered their report as a speech before a Joint Session of Congress only 98 times (44%). The other 125 times were through written communication.
George Washington and John Adams delivered their State of the Union reports as speeches, but Thomas Jefferson was more comfortable with the written word. For 113 years, no other President delivered a State of the Union speech until Democrat Woodrow Wilson on December 2, 1913. President Warren Harding continued this new practice as did Calvin Coolidge, once.


For ten years, Congress did not have to arrange a Joint Session for the State of the Union Address. Then Democrat Franklin Roosevelt asked for the forum in 1934. In 1946, President Harry Truman opted out of a formal speech because, during the previous nine months, he had spoken to five Joint Sessions of Congress relating to the end of World War II. In 1956, President Eisenhower opted out of the speech because he was still recovering from his September 24, 1955 heart attack.


No one really missed the Presidential vanity hour. Twenty six Presidents, including two of America’s greatest Presidential orators, Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt, choose not to speak to the Congress. Congress still operated. Legislative business continued.


Presidents issue a detailed Budget Message a few weeks after the State of the Union Report. This is a more tangible and actionable communication of the Administration’s priorities. Far more budget initiatives become reality than the dozens of empty promises made in a State of the Union address.
Congressional Republicans have an historic opportunity to reinvent government in the 21st Century.


They can start by ending this annual narcissistic charade, which promotes the image of a dominant Executive Branch. Let the President speak from the Oval Office - that would more than meet the Constitutional requirement.


[Scot Faulkner served as Chief Administrative Officer of the U.S. House of Representatives and on President Reagan’s White House Staff]

REBOOT THE STATE OF THE UNION

Published on http://hnn.us/article/154543 

It is time to rethink the State of the Union Address.

On January 28, Americans will once again endure the pointless spectacle of yet another State of the Union Address.  The President will enter the chamber like a reigning monarch with all branches of government in polite attendance.  Many promises will be made, of which few will be kept.  Many cheap applause lines will be given so that everyone in the Chamber, except the Supreme Court Justices, will rise in ovation.  An array of symbolic guests will be seated next to the First Lady and be used as props at key junctures in the speech. 

Whether Republican or Democrat, Presidents use the State of the Union address to annually reboot their agenda.  It is a huge waste of time for everyone involved.  It creates the visage of an imperial President holding the co-equal branches of government hostage to the vanity of one person.  The only people longing for this annual rite are the pundits who get to spend a week speculating on the speech and another week analyzing it.  It is the Super Bowl for politicians.  The only difference is the cheerleading occurs afterward in Statuary Hall and the pre-game tailgate parties are held at expensive clubs and restaurants.

Why is there a State of the Union speech?

There is no official reason for the speech. There is not even a requirement for it to be annual. Article II, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution only requires the President to make a report:

He shall from time to time give to the Congress information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient.

It is also not required that Congress grant the President the use of their Chamber for a ritualized infomercial. Both the Senate and the House of Representatives must formally vote on a Joint Resolution to convene a Joint Session of Congress. At any time, one or both Chambers could bring an end to this tedium by simply refusing to approve the resolution.

President George Washington delivered the first State of the Union speech in person before a Joint Session of Congress on January 8, 1790.  Since then, there have been 223 opportunities for Presidents to deliver their report.  Presidents have delivered their report as a speech before a Joint Session of Congress only 98 times.  The other 125 times were through written communication.

George Washington and John Adams delivered their State of the Union reports as speeches, but Thomas Jefferson let his written word suffice.  For 113 years, no other President delivered a State of the Union speech until Woodrow Wilson on December 2, 1913.  President Warren Harding continued this new practice as did Calvin Coolidge, once.

For ten years, Congress did not have to arrange a Joint Session for the State of the Union Address.  Then Franklin Roosevelt asked for the forum in 1934. In 1946, President Harry Truman opted out of a formal speech because, during the previous nine months, there had been five Joint Sessions of Congress relating to the end of World War II.  In 1956, President Eisenhower opted out of a speech because he was still recovering from his September 24, 1955 heart attack.

America seems to have survived the absence of Presidential vanity 125 times.  Congress still operated.  Legislative business continued.  The President issues a detailed Budget Message a few weeks after the speech, which is a far more tangible communication of the Administration’s priorities. So why, in the 21^st Century, must we put up with this annual charade, which everyone knows is totally meaningless?  A simple reading of the President’s Budget executive summary from the Oval Office would more than meet the Constitutional requirement. The last memorable line from a State of the Union Address was President George W. Bush’s description of an “Axis of Evil” on January 29, 2002.  That did not end well.

Since Bush’s 2002 flourish viewership of State of the Union Addresses has plummeted.  In 2003, 62 million watched.  By 2013, only 33.4 million viewed the festivities.  Even if you factor in alternative viewing modes offered by digital media, the audience has substantially declined.  It seems that most Americans, unlike politicians and pundits, are tuning out this outdated and superficial display of Washington excess. Imagine any State of the Union address without the pomp and pageantry and without countless interruptions for orchestrated applause.  The words would be even more empty and meaningless than they are already.  

Thomas Paine's "Common Sense" Turning Rebellion into Revolution

Published as part of Constituting America's "constitution reader" series

in cooperation with Hillsdale College.

http://constitutionreader.com/reader.engz?doc=constitution&chapter=OEBPS%2FText%2Fch16.xhtml&shr=1

http://www.constitutingamerica.org/blog/blog/2013/03/10/common-sense-1-thomas-paine-1737-1809-reprinted-from-the-u-s-constitution-a-reader-published-by-hillsdale-college/

http://www.constitutingamerica.org/blog/blog/2013/03/10/monday-march-11-2013-essay-16-common-sense-thomas-paine-guest-essayist-scot-faulkner-co-founder-george-washington-institute-of-living-ethics-she/

Monday, March 11, 2013 – Essay #16 – Common Sense – Thomas Paine – Guest Essayist – Scot Faulkner, Co-Founder, George Washington Institute of Living Ethics, Shepherd University

As 1776 began, America’s rebellion against British colonial rule was not yet a revolution. Less than half the projected number of volunteers had enlisted in the Continental army with desertions mounting. George Washington was entrenched, but stalemated in Cambridge outside of Boston. The British Commander, General John Burgoyne, mocked the situation by writing and producing the satirical play, “The Blockade”, which portrayed Washington as an incompetent flailing a rusty sword. Then something amazing happened.

“Common Sense” was published on January 9, 1776. It remains one of the most indispensable documents of America’s founding. In forty-eight pages, Thomas Paine accomplished three things fundamental to America. He is the first to publically assert the only possible outcome of the rebellion is independence from Great Britain. He makes the case for American independence understandable and accessible to everyone. He lays the ground work for the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution.

Paine is both the most unlikely and likely person to accomplish this pivotal Trifecta. He was born in rural England on January 29, 1737, the son of a Quaker father and an Anglican mother. This religious diversity formed a key part of his early writings on religious freedom. His career was a mixture of failed business ventures, failed marriages, and minor positions in British Excise (tax) offices. This mix of mundane activities masked the brilliant mind of an outstanding observer, thinker, and communicator.

In the summer of 1772, Paine wrote his first political article, The Case of the Officers of Excise, a twenty-one page brief for better pay and working conditions among Excise Officers. The work had little impact on Parliament, but did bring him to the attention of political thinkers in London, and ultimately to being introduced to Benjamin Franklin in September 1774. Franklin recommended that Paine immigrate to Pennsylvania and commence a publishing career. Thomas Paine arrived in Philadelphia on November 30, 1774 and became editor of the Pennsylvania Magazine in January 1775.

Editing the magazine gave Paine two major opportunities. He honed his writing skills for appealing to a mass audience and he befriended those opposing British colonial rule, including Benjamin Rush, an active member of the Sons of Liberty. After open rebellion erupted in April 1775, Rush was concerned that, “When the subject of American independence began to be agitated in conversation, I observed the public mind to be loaded with an immense mass of prejudice and error relative to it”. He urged Paine to make the case for American independence understandable to common people.

Common Sense was just that. Paine laid out methodical and easily understood reasons for American independence in plain terms. Up until Common Sense those opposed to British rule did so only in lengthy philosophical letters circulated among intellectual elites.

Common Sense ushered in a new style of political writing, devoid of Latin phrases and complex concepts. Historian Scott Liell asserts in Thomas Paine, Common Sense, and the Turning Point to Independence: "[B]y including all of the colonists in the discussion that would determine their future, Common Sense became not just a critical step in the journey toward American independence but also an important artifact in the foundation of American democracy.”

Paine’s simple prose promoted the premise that the rebellion was not about subjects wronged by their monarch, but a separate and independent people being oppressed by a foreign power:

"Europe, and not England, is the parent country of America. This new world hath been the asylum for the persecuted lovers of civil and religious liberty from every part of Europe. Hither they have fled, not from the tender embraces of the mother, but from the cruelty of the monster; and it is so far true of England, that the same tyranny which drove the first emigrants from home, pursues their descendants still."

Common Sense was an instant bestseller. It sold as many as 120,000 copies in the first three months, 500,000 in twelve months, going through twenty-five editions in the first year alone. This amazingly wide distribution was among a free population of only 2 million Americans.

Originally published anonymously as “Written by an Englishman”, word soon spread that Paine was the author. His authorship known, Paine publically declared that all proceeds would go to the purchase of woolen mittens for Continental soldiers. General Washington ordered Paine’s pamphlet distributed among all his troops. Within the year, Paine became an aide-de-camp to Nathanael Greene, one of Washington’s top field commanders.

Common Sense was not only read by the masses, it was read to them. In countless taverns and local gatherings Paine’s case for American independence and for a unique American form of government was heard even by common folk who had never learned to read.

The masses heard and embraced the concept that, “A government of our own is our natural right”. They also heard and understood the foundations of America: Government as a “necessary evil” formed and maintained by the will of the governed - “in America THE LAW IS KING. For as in absolute governments the King is law, so in free countries the law ought to be King”; and the need for an engaged electorate, “this frequent interchange will establish a common interest with every part of the community, they will mutually and naturally support each other, and on this, (not on the unmeaning name of king,) depends the strength of government, and the happiness of the governed.”

While the Declaration of Independence became the philosophical core of our Revolution, Common Sense initiated and broadened the public debate about independence, building the public commitment necessary to make our Revolution possible.

Honoring America's True Leaders

[Guest Contributor - Richard Dreyfuss]

By popularizing “Presidents Day” in the 1980s to effectively combine the birthdays of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, Americans lost both great men—and reduced them, tragically, to the same acclaim given to, say, Franklin Pierce and Warren G. Harding.

This shouldn’t come as a surprise: It reflects our tendency these days to shy away from claims about American greatness and exceptionalism, in favor of what otherwise are laudable American virtues like egalitarianism and equality. But not every president is equal.

It didn’t used to be this way. When I was young enough to receive American Heritage magazine in hardback, I read an essay that compared Washington and Lincoln, polar opposites, as our two greatest Presidents. Washington was great, it argued, because he set the boundaries and established the rituals of the presidency that are followed to this time. And Lincoln was great because he stretched the Constitution as far as he dared.

My respect for Washington was born in that moment; before that he’d seemed pretty dull. I was already deeply bound by affection and the drama of Lincoln’s life; his mind, temperament, and skill at law and politics were already known to me. He was, I thought then and think now, the only president who could have been as successful as Dickens had he chosen to pursue literary glory instead of a political life.

The same can’t be said of John Tyler, James Buchanan, and other small men who pursued personal or regional interests over our nation. Yet we have falsely raised them to the stature of the first president and the awe of the 16th. President’s day made the office the standard—not the performance of greatness within that office. We must bring back Lincoln’s Birthday so we can celebrate Liberty and the end of slavery, which made the world sit up and take note that here was a country unlike any other. We must bring back Washington’s Birthday to honor a man who set the bar for civilized and noble behavior. Both men epitomized singular shape and size, and gave us the gift of appreciating individual genius.

These days schools tend to teach our young out of a sense of grudging obligation, not in order to celebrate America’s rare victory of Light over Darkness. We sometimes say how exceptional we are, but classes in history and civics refuse to explain how or why.

Our country was born by ripping into shreds the curses of caste and class that had been the world’s lot forever. We realized a revolutionary doctrine that the ruler and the ruled could be one thing, that those who come from aristocratic bloodlines should have the same starting point as those who born to the most common.

Let’s trash Presidents Day. Give us George and Abraham, examples of how our democratic system endows common citizens with great power. Our children deserve that lesson—not just talk about American exceptionalism, but proof.