Archive for category: Featured

Every year the 4th of July gives Americans the chance to think about our roots and hopefully show a little gratitude for the sacrifices that a lot of people made for us. Unfortunately gratitude is not a common virtue among a large segment of our ill-informed fellow citizens who do not even know who fought in the revolutionary war, the civil war, or World Wars I and II.

Instead this year we are witnessing citizens who are inflamed about racial tension and are willing to disregard our entire history of progress to satisfy their sophomoric notions of history. In their eyes, the founding fathers where evil slave owners, not worthy of our admiration or gratitude.

We can only ask them to consider the thousands of our compatriots who followed those founding fathers and became the soldiers who delivered victories that resulted in the preservation of that same Liberty we all share.

Baltimore Independent Cadets

On December 3, 1774 the Baltimore Committee of Observation and 59 Baltimore citizens formed the Baltimore Independent Cadets and elected Mordecai Gist to be their Captain.  They adopted the following bylaws, which explain their purpose.

“We, the Baltimore Independent Cadets, deeply impressed with a sense of the unhappy condition our suffering brethren of Boston–of the alarming conduct of General Gage–and the oppressive unconstitutional acts of Parliament to deprive us of liberty, and enforce slavery on his Majesty’s loyal liege subjects of America in general; for the better security of our lives, liberties, and property, under such alarming circumstances, think it highly advisable and necessary that we form ourselves into a body or company, in order to learn military discipline, and to act in defiance of our country, agreeable to the Resolves of the Continental Congress.  And first, as dutiful subjects t King George the 3rd, our Royal Sovereign, we acknowledge all due allegiance, freedom and liberty of the Constitution.  Secondly, we resolve after a company of sixty men shall have voluntarily subscribed their names to this paper, that public notice thereof shall be given, and a meeting called to elect the officers of said company, under whose command we desire to be let, and will strictly adhere to, under all the sacred ties of honor, and the love and justice due to ourselves and country; and in case of any emergency we will be ready to march to the assistance of our sister colonies, at the discretion and direction of our commanding officer so elected, and that in the space of forty-eight hours notice from said officer.  Thirdly, we agree and firmly resolve to procure at our own expense, a uniform suit of clothes, (Regal.) Scarlet, turned up with buff, and trimmed with yellow metal, or gold buttons, white stockings, and black cloth half boots; likewise, a good gun with cartouche pouch, a pair of pistols, belt and cutlass, with four pounds of powder and sixteen of lead, which shall be ready to equip ourselves with, on the shortest notice.  And if default shall be found in either of us, contrary to the true intent and meaning of this engagement, we desire, and submit ourselves to a trial by court martial, whom we hereby fully authorize and empower to determine punishments, adequate to the crimes that may be committed, but not to extend to corporal punishment.  Given under our hands, this third day of December, in the year of our Lord, one thousand seven hundred and seventy-four.”

The Baltimore Independent Cadets, were absorbed into William Smallwood’s Maryland Battalion (or Regiment) and into seven attached independent companies on January 14, 1776.  Compared to the rag-tag Colonial soldiers, the Cadets were elegant in their uniforms and rifles with bayonets. The contrast earned them the name Macaronis, similar to our word “dandy” now. It was used pejoratively referring to solders who excelled in appearance, discipline, and ultimately in performance on the battlefield.

In July, 1776, the Battalion was assigned to the main Continental Army and formally adopted into the Continental Army in August.  Later that month, the first and largest battle of the Revolution was fought on the west end of Long Island and is variously called the Battle of Long Island or the Battle of Brooklyn.

Old Stone House

Vechte-Cortelyou House
John L. Pierrepont / Public domain

An Old Stone House was a central feature of the Battle of Brooklyn. The British General Cornwallis occupied the house as his headquarters. At the time of the historic battle, the British greatly outnumbered Washington’s army so he ordered their retreat.  Brigadier General William Alexander Stirling fought on for several hours not realizing that he was being outflanked by the British.

When he saw he was surrounded, Stirling ordered his men to retreat also, but they were essentially cut off. A few escaped though a swamp but many were killed or captured.

Stirling and Major Mordecai Gist took a contingent of  approximately 270 men from the Maryland Regiment and repeatedly attacked the British defending the house in order to open a breach in the British lines and enable Washington and the rest of the Army to escape. After sustaining heavy losses, Major Gist and nine soldiers escaped. Stirling was captured and later released in a prisoner exchange for a British loyalist,  Montfort Browne.

Reading an abbreviated account of the battle leaves out a lot of important facts. Why were the Marylanders left to sacrifice themselves? And why is an obscure figure like Montfort Browne worth mentioning?

Maryland 400

The Maryland First Battalion consisted of  728 soldiers in 1776.  They were among the best trained and armed. In those days, riflemen relied on bayonets for fast and close combat. Most of the Continental Army had no bayonets.  The Maryland Battalion had bayonets and had drilled in their use. During the Battle of Brooklyn the Battalion sustained heavy causalities. By the time Washington ordered the retreat, the Battalion had dwindled to around 400 soldiers. That is the number that has been reported in histories of the battle and eventually accepted as a convenient round number to romantically compare to the three hundred Spartans who battled the invading Persian Army at the Battle of Thermopylae.

Gist and Stirling led their troops into British fire, each time sustaining devastating casualties.  Stepping over their fallen comrades, they continued to press on. Washington is reported to have exclaimed, ” “My God, what brave men I must this day lose!”

Those who sacrificed themselves whether wittingly or out of desperation to escape themselves allowed Washington to escape with his army. The entire revolution could have ended at the Battle of Brooklyn.

For a closer look at where the idea of the Maryland 400 came from click HERE.

256 Maryland Soldiers

After the battle for Brooklyn, it was believed that the British or Hessian troops dug a long trench and buried the fallen Maryland soldiers. For many years residents thought the graves were beneath a concrete parking lot around 9th Street and 3rd Avenue in Brooklyn, NY. The Department of Education even installed a plaque at the location.

For over 100 years after the battle, the land where the battle was fought remained farmland.  Farmers reported digging up human bones occasionally as they tilled the land.

The Vechte-Cortelyou House was a sturdy structure designed to withstand attacks from native Americans. It changed hands several times after the war but it was razed and burned in 1897.  A later reconstruction by the city used some of the stones from the original building and now it serves as a Department of Park’s and Recreation museum and comfort station.

The location of the grave of the 256 Maryland soldiers remained controversial until 2017 when the city hired the architectural contracting firm AKRF to excavate the parking lot. Nothing was found except the remains of a pit (outhouse). No bones or other artifacts were found.

Montfort Browne

The story of Montfort Browne is instructive.  We think of ourselves as Americans. And when we think of the founding fathers and George Washington in particular, we think of the United States. But when the Revolution against England started, there were no United States; there were 13 colonies. Each colony was committed to the revolution to varying degrees and the citizens of the colonies saw themselves as citizens of each colony, not of a larger nation. Almost everybody was a loyal subject of King George III until they took the terrifying step to declare their allegiance to the  traitors, whom we call now call patriots.

What we now think of as the American Revolution was in fact a civil war. And the greater war, after France and Spain joined to help “our side,” was in fact a global war.  It became a rematch of the Seven Years’ War (1756–63) when France and Spain suffered defeat and loss of territory at the hands of the British. Our revered hero, General George Washington was a militia colonel who was sent to fight the French in the Ohio valley. He was defeated by the French and forced to sign a declaration in French that that was used as propaganda by the French to exacerbate hostilities between France and Britain, eventually leading to the Seven Years’ War.

King George did not view his war in the colonies as a war against a foreign enemy; it was an uprising among his loyal subjects. And indeed most of the colonists remained loyal in the beginning. Estimates are as high a 65% were loyal, 35% were sympathetic to the revolution, but only 10% were willing to die for their beliefs. Benjamin Franklin’s own son remained loyal to the British Crown and in 1782, he went into exile in Britain.

Montfort Brown was also a loyal subject of the crown, a British Army officer, Tory, land speculator in west Florida, and governor of the Bahamas from 1774 to 1780.  In March of 1776 he had the misfortune of being take prisoner  along with 12 other high ranking Bahamian officials and taken to Maryland by the American fleet. In those days of gentlemanly warfare among generals and high ranking officials, Browne and perhaps some of his cohorts were a perfect swap for the recently captured American general, Brigadier General William Alexander Stirling. Upon his release, Stirling was promoted to Major General.

By returning Stirling to the battlefield, the revolution gained back a general officer ranked variously as number 3 or number 4 after Washington himself.

Thomas Paine

When Thomas Paine published his ideas that culminated in the multiple versions of “Common Sense,”  most colonists identified as British. Even those whose ancestors came from other countries like the Dutch who settled New York were fluent in English.   The Foundation for Economic Education estimates that approximately 80% of men and 50% of women in New England were literate by 1776.”  The high literacy rate may have directly contributed to the revolution considering the success of “Common Sense.”

Published anonymously on January 10, 1776, it is amazing that the ideas in Common Sense were ratified in the language of the Declaration of Independence just six month later on July 4, 1776. In this excerpt, Paine makes the case that the Colonists are European Protestants and the New World is the Cradle of Liberty.

“But Britain is the parent country, say some. Then the more shame upon her conduct. Even brutes do not devour their young, nor savages make war upon their families; wherefore the assertion, if true, turns to her reproach; but it happens not to be true, or only partly so, and the phrase parent or mother country hath been jesuitically adopted by the king and his parasites, with a low papistical design of gaining an unfair bias on the credulous weakness of our minds. 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 have they 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. ”

Tyrannical American Government?

There is a large segment of American society, particularly on the political Left, who enlist Paine’s rhetoric to bolster their own grievances.

“…our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer.”– Thomas Paine, Common Sense 1776

The Big Easy Magazine website proclaims itself as Unapologetically Progressive. Uniquely New Orleans. The writer boldly proclaims:

The current state of civil unrest must be viewed in the context of a tyrannical American government. When a group of people are being oppressed, American history has shown, that violence, riots, and revolution are predictable outcomes.
Asad El Malik,  June 1st 2020

We cannot argue with the publication’s core values: Kindness Compassion Equality Love Justice Inclusiveness, however contradictory they may seem to violence, riots, and revolution. We do however strongly disagree with the premise of a tyrannical American Government.

Many of the grievances in the Big Easy story deal with local conditions, police departments under local control, not a tyrannical American government.  Such hyperbole is uninformed by history, fact, and reason. The Constitution guarantees citizens’ right to petition the government for redress of grievances. Of course the easiest way to change things is to vote for qualified leaders in the first place, instead of the perpetually corrupt local governments that “furnish the means by which (they) suffer.”

Further Reading

The Black Lives Matter movement identified real injustice, both in current events and in the recent past. It appears that some of the violence accompanying protests was motivated by outside forces that have alternative agendas. Sadly this detracts from the message that seeks to correct racial injustice. It also takes away from the tremendous progress that has been made particularly since the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Rayford W. Logan argues that 1901 was the low point of black Americans’ status in society. His book, “The Negro in American Life and Thought: The Nadir, 1877–1901,” was published in 1954 and is now a collectors item. It was republished and expanded as “The Betrayal Of The Negro: From Rutherford B. Hayes To Woodrow Wilson,” in 1997.

A worse past is no justification for dismissing current problems. However, learning about the past helps us understand that real progress has been made and many brave people accomplished it by quietly writing books or being active politically. Change can be made without violence, riots, and revolution.

Occasionally we run across interesting articles that we would like to pass on.  On further refection we realize that what interests one person may not excite another.  But this time we will make an exception because we are very interested in Jefferson, and so should you.

Barton Family Funeral Service is a family run funeral service in Kirkland Washington, which happens to be almost ground zero for the coronavirus pandemic in the United States.  The press reported that some of the early deaths from coronavirus occurred at the Life Care Center in Kirkland. So out of curiosity, we started to search on coronavirus in Kirkland WA and we ran into the Barton web site. Assuming that obituaries would be the place to look, we encountered an interesting chain of pages that ended in the Obituary of Thomas Jefferson, almost 200 years late. (Date of death: July 4, 1826)

Chain of Pages

The chain of pages that led us to the obituary involved showing people how to upload pictures to put in an online obituary.

• https://bartonfuneral.com/how-to-submit-an-obituary/
  This page describes how to submit an obituary to Barton Family Funeral Service
• https://bartonfuneral.com/how-to-submit-a-photo-if-you-dont-have-a-scanner/
  Many people do not have scanners,  This page shows how a smartphone can make an excellent image of a photograph that can be emailed directly from the smartphone.
• https://bartonfuneral.com/2008/07/02/thomas_jefferson/
  This page isn’t written like a real obituary but it is an interesting commentary. The previous link refers to it as a commentary in the last link on the page but as an obituary at the halfway point in the page.

The second of the above three links had links to information about Jefferson, and since he is one of our favorite founding fathers, we followed the link to the last page, which was the obituary.  We called Barton Family Funeral Service.  They were a bit surprised we found the page. It has been on their site for a long time and no one has commented on it before.

Permission Granted

We asked permission to post the article in its entirety and they were more than please to let us do so, asking only that we include their credits and copyright. So here is the Obituary of Thomas Jefferson 200 years late. It has the advantage of historical perspective to make an important point.  As stated in their article about the American Revolutionary War against England, “Their revolution was to be free from England. Ending slavery would have required another revolution and would have been the death of the union, as it almost was in 1861-1965.”

Obituary of Thomas Jefferson 200 Years Late.

Many people have been complaining that shutting down businesses and quarantining people are unconstitutional.

Doesn’t the Constitution guarantee people freedom of assembly?  Limiting how many people can be in a bar or at a wedding ceremony smacks of heavy handed government denying us of our rights, doesn’t it?

No, actually the policies that local and state governments are taking during the coronavirus pandemic are in line with powers that are reserved to the States and to the People by the Constitution. You are free to limit who goes into your home; city leaders can take emergency measures to limit who goes into the city or who goes out in public places; the states have similar powers.

Actions by state and local authorities in emergencies are broad and easily enforced by local police power. There is no immediate Federal authority that will gallop in to preserve what some consider their precious first amendment rights. Or their second amendment rights for that matter. Sure, these amendments are fully incorporated to the states. If somebody thinks the mayor or governor is being too tough on them, they have recourse to the courts.

Spreading sovereign power across levels of government to cities and states is what distinguishes our constitutional republic from countries that rule from the top down. Doing so is the ultimate protection of our individual liberties. At times it may appear cumbersome but any perceived inefficiencies help us avoid the efficiencies of a dictatorship.

States’ Rights Issue

It’s interesting to watch the President and his advisors try to implement a national policy to contain the coronavirus pandemic. Advocates of unlimited federal power complain that Trump should force the states to follow a national plan. They say he should have acted sooner. To them, deferring to the governors is evading his responsibility.

To his credit, the President has stated that it’s not the federal government’s responsibility to do everything, especially what the states have the authority to do for themselves.  He is praising governors for doing their jobs.

Complaints are a continuation of the great Left-Right divide that is plaguing our body politic. Unfortunately this puts the Constitution in jeopardy as people call for nationalization of key segments of the economy.  Single payer national healthcare and other socialist schemes of the Left ignore the Constitutional principles that have allowed our economy to be strong.  As attractive as some of these proposals are to a large number of Americans, they clearly exceed the power of the federal government granted to it by the Constitution.

Tenth Amendment

The Tenth Amendment was included in the Bill of Rights to define the balance of power between  federal and state governments It says that the federal government has only powers specifically granted by the Constitution. These powers include the power to declare war, to collect taxes, to regulate foreign and to some degree interstate trade, among other enumerated powers.

Commerce Clause

The Constitution includes sections that seem to favor strong states’ rights, while others like the Commerce Clause have been used to claw back authority to the Federal Government. It grants Congress the power “to regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes.”

Over time it has allowed the federal government to grow into a massive enterprise that creates money and dominates the world economy. It bribes the states with grants of money. Local and state entities are lulled into believing that they must follow every dictate of the Federal government if they want the money.

The Texas Example

The constitutions of the various states often mirror the U.S. Constitution by incorporating the enumerated rights of the people and the states. Here we will discuss Texas as an example. Check the constitution and laws in your own state to see if your governor and local officials are acting constitutionally.

During  hurricane Katrina that hit New Orleans in 2005, a local authority tried to disarm the people. New Orleans police superintendent Edwin Compass called for blanket confiscation all firearms:  “Only law enforcement are allowed to have weapons,”  It was of course unconstitutional on both the state and federal level but there is little time to argue or go to court during an emergency. Actual instances of gun confiscation were fortunately limited and mostly carried out by inexperienced or out-of-state voluntary personnel.

That did not happen in Texas.  After Katrina, then Governor Rick Perry pushed for a bill,  S.B. 112, that was intended to protect the right to bear arms during a catastrophe. While the idea was noble, the bill unfortunately died in committee, not an uncommon fate in a state where “if it ain’t broke(n), don’t fix it” prevails.

Over the years Texas has enacted many laws to protect the people and their agricultural crops and livestock, including numerous laws and regulations that include emergency measures such as quarantine.

What about the coronavirus emergency?  Can the state and cities enforce quarantines or isolation?  What is the difference between quarantine and isolation?

Texas Home Rule Amendment to State Constitution

In 1912  Texas voters adopted the Home Rule Amendment to the state constitution and the legislature followed in the regular session in 1913 with the necessary enabling act.

A home-rule municipality may adopt rules to protect the health of persons in the municipality, including quarantine rules to protect the residents against communicable disease.  The following are a few of the current enabling statutes.

Texas Health and Safety Code §§ 122.005, 122.006

Sec. 122.005. POWERS OF TYPE A GENERAL-LAW MUNICIPALITY.

(a) The governing body of a Type A general-law municipality may take any action necessary or expedient to promote health or suppress disease, including actions to:(1) prevent the introduction of a communicable disease into the municipality, including stopping, detaining, and examining a person coming from a place that is infected or believed to be infected with a communicable disease; (2) establish, maintain, and regulate hospitals in the municipality or in any area within five miles of the municipal limits; or in any area within five miles of the municipal limits; or  (3) abate any nuisance that is or may become injurious to the public health.

(b) The governing body of a Type A general-law municipality may adopt rules: (1) necessary or expedient to promote health or suppress disease; or (2) to prevent the introduction of a communicable disease into the municipality, including quarantine rules, and may enforce those rules in the municipality and in any area within 10 miles of the municipality.

(c) The governing body of a Type A general-law municipality may fine a person who fails or refuses to observe the orders and rules of the health authority.

Texas Health and Safety Code § 81.085 (h)

Penalties. A person commits an offense if the person knowingly fails or refuses to obey a rule, order or instruction of the department or an order or instruction of a health authority issued under a department rule and published during an area quarantine under this section. An offense under this subsection is a felony of the third degree. (Underline Ours)

Of course it is up to the local authorities to decide if they will charge and prosecute offenses, and it is up to a court to decide innocence or guilt.  A felony, even a third degree felony is a serious matter.

Texas Health and Safety Code § 81.083 (individual); § 81.084 (property); § 81.085 ( Area Quarantine; Criminal Penalty)

Texas Response during Spanish Flu

Texas had thought through the pandemic thing in advance of the worldwide flu pandemic of 1918 by enacting Home Rule for cities, although the above statutes are the product of on-going revision and rendering into plain English since the 1960’s.

Today Texas has a population of almost 30 million people. The governor has responded logically and firmly during the coronavirus pandemic. In 1918, then Governor William P. Hobby was dealing with many problems including WW I, the flu epidemic, raids on the border with Mexico, just to name a few. During WW I, one-third of deaths in the US military was due to the Spanish flu, not being killed in battle.

When the Home Rule amendment was passed in 1912, the total population spread across a huge area stood at about four million. In 1910, San Antonio and Dallas were near 100,000 in population; Houston and Fort Worth were well over 50,000; and only 40 other cities in the state had more than 5,000 people. Laws regarding quarantine where highly focused on preventing diseases affecting agricultural produces like cotton but there were also strong provisions given to state health authorities to prevent the spread of disease within the human population.

There was no question that the state had authority to shut things down.

Art. 4419. [4528] (1913)
General duties and powers.-The State Board of Health shall have general supervision and control of all matters pertaining to the health of citizens of this State, as provided herein. It shall make a study of the causes and prevention of infection of contagious diseases affecting the lives of citizens within this State and except as otherwise provided in this chapter shall have direction and control of all matters of quarantine regulations and enforcement and shall have full power and authority to prevent the entrance of such diseases from points without the State, and shall have direction and control over sanitary and quarantine measures for dealing with all diseases within the State and to suppress same and prevent their spread. The president of the board shall have charge of and superintend the administration of all matters pertaining to State quarantine. [Id. Acts 1913, p. 147.]Art. 4420. [4536]

Epidemics are Part of Human History

Understanding the decentralized nature of our Republic and how emergencies can be managed locally are necessary to understand how various communities can react differently, sometimes to their advantage, but also to their detriment.  A lot depends on local leadership at the time.  Over the years local communities and states have managed many different diseases, most of which are forgotten except to students of history:

• 1633-1634: Smallpox from European settlers – Native Americans were devastated.  In 1796 Edward Jenner developed a crude vaccine from cow pox . The Latin word for cow is vacca, and cowpox is vaccinia.  Jenner called his procedure vaccination. Now only old people have the smooth little scar on their arms from the immunization that was subsequently refined from vaccinia.
• 1793: Yellow fever from the Caribbean.
• 1832-1866: Cholera – in successive waves between 1832 and 1866.
• 1858: Scarlet fever also came in waves until penicillin was developed.
• 1906-1907: Typhoid Fever – like coronavirus there were healthy carriers.
• 1918: “Spanish flu”- The 1918 Pandemic (H1N1 virus) during WW I is a lesson on how not to treat a pandemic.
• 1921-1925: Diphtheria epidemic. Now mothers only know the name because children get their DPT shot.
• 1916-1955: Polio – every summer for many years until Jonas Salk and Albert Sabin became national heroes.
• 1981-1991: another measles outbreak prompting doctors to recommend a second immunization.
• 2010, 2014: Pertussis again, whooping cough -time to take immunization seriously. Part of the DPT shot.
• 1980s to present: HIV/AIDS. Good drugs are available for treatment but there is no real cure.
• Every year: seasonal flu – sometimes severe. 2009: flu pandemic in the United States was a novel strain of the Influenza A/H1N1 virus.

History

An excellent historical review by Sean McConnell published in the Galveston County Daily News shows similarities between the largely voluntary coronavirus shutdown and measures that were taken in 1918 in Galveston Texas to slow down the spread of flu. Today’s effort is vastly more effective. We are not sending infected soldier off to war on transport ships.  We have doctors who know more than doctors knew in 1918.  There are hospitals with respirators.  Antibiotics, and a host of other drugs help manage concurrent morbidities like bacterial infections.

Responsibility

Our Constitutional form of government, a Representative Federal Republic, has left the power to deal with such problems with the people, municipalities, and states.  It is a mistake to expect the Federal government to do any more than assist with whatever limited Constitutional authority it has.

The fiscal stimulus is probably appropriate. One can forever argue about taxes and debt, single payer healthcare, and the myriad of demands made by people looking to the Federal Government for salvation. Salvation is in the hands of the people, as is their ruin if they if they are too lazy or stupid to accept personal responsibility for their existence on the planet.

The Federal Government has legitimate powers of quarantine within its limited mandate. It can quarantine immigrants and goods entering the country.  It may quarantine soldiers in military service. Section 361 of the Public Health Service Act (42 U.S. Code § 264) allows the executive branch to take measures to prevent the entry and spread of communicable diseases from foreign countries into the United States and between states. The President can stop airplanes flying in from China and his opponents are free to say he is racist for doing so and for calling the SARS-CoV-2 virus the “Chinese Virus.”