Swans in Fog

At Lake Swartswood, New Jersey.

Buttermilk Falls

Buttermilk Falls, NJ.

Catherine

Catherine Maria McGrath, the daughter of James McGrath and Kathleen McGrath (nee Brennan) was born in London, England on December 6, 1955 and died in Stillwater, NJ on January 13, 2015.  She was brilliant, beautiful and loved by all who knew her.

During the week between Christmas and New Year of 2014, Catherine received a holiday visit from one of her closest (I won't say oldest!) friends, who now lives on the West Coast, and her friend's family, including her husband and elementary school-age sons, whom I will call "Sam" and "Max."

Sam, now in Sixth Grade, recently wrote a memoir of that week and Catherine, which I reproduce without edit, because it needs none.

Nobody Likes Death 

One day I came home from school and my dad said, ”Be gentle with your mother she has had a rough day,” but I really wanted to know what was going on… 

Earlier that year, I was so excited because I got to go to visit my mom’s best friend, Catherine at her farmhouse in New Jersey. Catherine’s husband’s name was Bob. She was the nicest person I’ve ever met. 

Catherine got stage four breast cancer when she was younger and almost died then, but she got lucky. My mom said, “Don’t be surprised if she doesn’t have as much hair as last time. She is very ill.” 

“Will anything else be different about her?” I asked. 

“I don’t know,” my mom said. But when we got to Catherine’s house, I found out a lot was different from the last time I saw her. 

We got to Catherine’s house at 1:00 in the morning on a cold windy night. We all thanked Cliff, Catherine and Bob’s friend, for picking us up at the airport and driving us there. It was so late, but I wasn’t even tired when Cliff said Catherine was going to make a special dessert, so we got whipped cream at a gas station shop on the way there. When we arrived, the house smelled like the meatballs and marinara Catherine and Bob had cooked that day. Bob woke up and said hi to everyone. My mouth was watering because dinner the next day was going be Bob’s “famous” ham. Everyone loves how Bob’s ham tastes, and it smells like warm spices. 

When I saw Catherine the next day, I was surprised at how bald and skinny she was. When I hugged her, I could feel her bones. At the end of dinner that day, Catherine was feeling sick so she went to bed. 

We stayed with Catherine for about a week. When it was time to leave to go back to California, I was upset because I didn’t want to go. 

About a week after we got home, my mom was crying a lot on the phone. My brother, dad and I were on the way to the library and my mom told my dad Catherine had died. My mom went to her funeral but I couldn’t go. 

I remember hugging Catherine so much that when we had to leave my mom pulled me away from her. I remember the times that I would watch movies in their big house with soft, fluffy cushions on the couch. I remember going on walks with her through farmland and forests on chilly winter days. I also remember Cliff setting off fireworks on New Year’s eve. Catherine and I watched together from inside the house because it was so cold outside. I remember her amazing cooking that always tasted like it came from a fancy restaurant. I learned how important being with people you love is while they’re still around. 

I loved Catherine so much.

Me too, Sam.  Thank you for your beautiful memoir.

"The Japanese obviously did pep-talks differently"

In his fine The Storm of War: A New History of the Second World War, Andrew Roberts relates the horrors of the war - the Final Solution, the atrocities committed by the Japanese - with appropriate gravity and revulsion.

And yet, in even so terrible a landscape as the war presents, every once in a while a hint of extremely dry British humor bubbles to the surface.  Witness, for example, Roberts's description of a "pep-talk" given to his officers in April 1944 by Japanese General Kotoku Sato shortly before the Battle of Kohima, in which Japanese forces launched an attack on a mountaintop village held by British and Indian forces in northeastern India:

Despite his formidable advantage in numbers at Kohima, Sato had little faith in the success of U-Go [the code name for the Japanese plan to invade India] in general.  On the eve of the attack, he drank a glass of champagne with his divisional officers, telling them, "Ill take this opportunity, gentlemen, of making something quite clear to you.  Miracles apart, every one of you is likely to lose his life in this operation.  It isn't simply a question of the enemy's bullets.  You must be prepared for death by starvation in these mountain fastnesses."  The Japanese obviously did pep-talks differently.

The illustration is of Colonel Hugh Richards, whose 1,500-man British-Indian-Nepalese force held off more than 6,000 Japanese under Sato for almost two weeks.

"A nudist who frequently wore only a pith helmet and carried a fly-swatter in camp"

I've been reading (and listening to) Andrew Roberts' exceptional The Storm of War: A New History of the Second World War.  Highly recommended. On the audio side, the Audible narrator, a British chap, is highly entertaining, although his imitations of an American accent need some work (his renditions of Churchillian cadence are excellent though).

But I digress.  The purpose of this post was to highlight this brief description - which had me laughing out loud - of the extraordinary Orde Wingate, a highly unconventional British commander who developed and led two long-range jungle penetration missions into Burma in 1943 and 1944 by British, Indian and Ghurka troops known as the Chindits:

A manic depressive who tried to commit suicide by cutting his own throat with a knife in Cairo in 1941 after the Ethiopian campaign; a nudist who frequently wore only a pith helmet and carried a fly-whisk in camp; someone who never bathed but instead cleaned himself by vigorously scrubbing of his body with a stiff brush, Wingate ate raw onions for pleasure and has been described as a "neurotic maverick" and a "foul-tempered, scruffily dressed egomaniac."

Roberts also relates that Wingate told luncheon companions at the War Office in August 1940 that "'he had acquired quite a taste for boiled python, which tasted like chicken.'"

Churchill loved him though, "call[ing] him 'this man of genius who might well have become a man of destiny' and liken[ing] him to Wingate's relation Lawrence of Arabia . . .."

Millard Fillmore, "the most Jacksonian of any president of the era"

Our thirteenth president, Millard Fillmore, is typically cast as a craven milquetoast who facilitated the Compromise of 1850 because he didn't have the guts to stand up to the southern Slave Power.

I have long argued that this is nonsense.  Citing among other things Millard's determination to address the state of Texas's threat to invade the New Mexico Territory, I have repeatedly argued that Millard was a bold and decisive leader who authorized and was prepared to use military force to put down rebellion if necessary.  See my post "Anyone who thought that Fillmore lacked spine was now disabused" for a summary of my views and links to earlier posts on the subject.

I am pleased to report that author Chris DeRose has clearly carefully studied and absorbed my posts.  In his most recent volume The Presidents' War: Six American Presidents and the Civil War that Divided Them the author correctly characterizes Millard as "the most Jacksonian of any president of the era."

In a message to Congress, Fillmore promised to respond to this [Texas's threatened invasion of New Mexico] for what it was - criminal invasion.  He underscored his words by dispatching 750 additional troops to the region. 

*** 

. . . Fillmore learned that extremists in South Carolina planned on seizing federal installments at Charleston.  As he had with Texas, Fillmore acted decisively, inviting General Winfield Scott to cabinet meetings.  He poured federal troops into South Carolina and positioned others in North Carolina that could strike if necessary.  The South Carolina legislature, through their governor, demanded an explanation.  Fillmore, through his State Department, made clear that he was the commander in chief of the army and navy, that the decision to direct troop was entirely within his discretion, and that he was not answerable to the governor, the legislature, or anyone else. 

*** 

. . . [B]y finding the right balance of firmness and flexibility, Fillmore has prevented civil war and ironically was the most Jacksonian of any president of the era.

It's Caturday (Photoshop Edition)!

About a month ago I went to our wonderful local animal shelter, Father John's Animal House, and took photos of some of the animals available for adoption.  Here are the results.  Happy Caturday!

It's Caturday!

Ariadne, enjoying a warm summer's eve.

"I know no method to secure the repeal of bad . . . laws so effective as their stringent execution"

I've been reading H.W. Brands's excellent biography of Ulysses S. Grant, The Man Who Saved the Union: Ulysses Grant in War and Peace, and ran across a brief description of Grant's first inaugural address.  I've long admired Grant, and his first address contains commonsense wisdom and honesty,  as well as advice that is so clearly relevant to the current situation that it needs no explication:

On all leading questions agitating the public mind I will always express my views to Congress and urge them according to my judgment, and when I think it advisable will exercise the constitutional privilege of interposing a veto to defeat measures which I oppose; but all laws will be faithfully executed, whether they meet my approval or not.  

I shall on all subjects have a policy to recommend, but none to enforce against the will of the people. Laws are to govern all alike - those opposed as well as those who favor them. I know no method to secure the repeal of bad or obnoxious laws so effective as their stringent execution.

(Emphasis added.)

About the illustration, entitled The Great November Contest. Patriotism: versus Bummerism (1868):

The strongly racist character of the Democratic presidential campaign of 1868 is displayed full-blown in this elaborate attack on Reconstruction and Republican support of Negro rights. Horses with the heads of Democratic candidate Horatio Seymour and running mate Francis P. Blair, Jr., pull a fine, ornate carriage in a race with a rude wagon drawn by asses with the heads of Republican candidates Ulysses S. Grant and Schuyler Colfax. The Democratic carriage pulls ahead in the race, heading toward a cheering crowd and a series of floral arches held by young maidens. The U.S. Capitol is visible beyond. In the carriage are four allegorical figures: Liberty, holding the Constitution and a banner which reads "Our Glorious Union D̀istinct, like the Billows, One, Like the Sea' This is a White Man's Government!"; Navigation, holding a miniature ship; Agriculture, holding sheaves of wheat and a scythe; and Labor, represented by a bearded man with a hammer and flywheel. In contrast to the Democratic vehicle, the Republican wagon has stalled before a pile of rocks and a cemetery strewn with bones representing "100,000,000 White Lives, the Price of Nigger Freedom!" Its wheels are blocked by a large stone "Killing Taxation" and a skeleton. Other stones represent "Ruined Commerce," "$30,000,000 stolen from the Treasury," and "Negro Supremacy." In the wagon are the grim reaper, Pennsylvania representative and abolitionist Thaddeus Stevens, an unidentified man, a black woman, and an idle black man. Stevens: "Colfax pulls like the d----l but old tangleleg [i.e., Grant] aint worth a d----n! Push at the tailboard, Ben!" Massachusetts representative and former Civil War general Benjamin F. Butler, pushing the wagon from the rear, replies, "I am pushing, Thad! but we are stuck. Seymour is a mile ahead now." Silver spoons protrude from Butler's pocket. (For the origins of Butler's nickname "Silver Spoons," see "The Radical Party on a Heavy Grade," no. 1868-14.) The black woman reassures Stevens, "Don't worry you'sef, honey, or you'll peg out afore we get de paeket for Seymour's in de White House and we's good for Salt River [colloquialism for political disaster]." The black man asks, "War's dis wagon gwine wid dis member ob Congress. I'd jes like to know?" The unidentified man remarks, "The Democracy would not take me so I thought I'd come back & stick by you Uncle Thad, and we'll all go to H-ll together!" Death announces, "My friends 1,000,000 slaughtered soldiers block the wheels--you fooled them, and they now impede your progress!" At bottom right a group of bummers, a term referring to party hangers-on, carpetbaggers, and other disreputable characters, stand in line to buy tickets to Salt River. At left New York "Tribune" editor Horace Greeley invites abolitionist preacher Henry Ward Beecher to play the thimblerig. Nearby a black couple in rags express their desire to return to their former master. At top right, next to the U.S. Capitol, a group of black youths in striped outfits dance and tumble about. In the lower right margin are prices and information regarding ordering copies of the print by mail. "Price 25 cents mailed. 5 for $1.00. 60 for $10.00, 100 for $16.00. Nothing sent C.O.D. Express charges paid by Parties ordering. Address: Bromley & Co. Box 4265. New York City.

It's Almost Caturday!

Max the lion sez that Memorial Day Weekend is gonna be a roarin' good time.

Did Cambyses Have Cats Nailed to His Soldiers' Shields?

Yesterday, I finished reading Tom Holland's Rubicon: The Last Years of Roman Republic.  Excellent and highly recommended.  Even if you know the period well, he brings it and many of the personalities to life. You also get a whiff of just how weird and alien the Romans were (but that's another story).  I then promptly took up another of his histories, Persian Fire: The First World Empire and the Battle for the West, about the Achaemenid (Persian) Empire founded by Cyrus the Great and the Persian Wars.  I'm only a few pages in, but as with Rubicon the vivid writing promises to bring drama to a well known period.

Soon into the book, however, I ran into a following startling assertion relating to the invasion of Egypt by Cyrus's son Cambyses II in 525 BC.  According to Holland, Cambyses defeated the Egyptians at the Battle of Pelusium in the eastern Nile delta by using a unique trick:

When the Persians finally met the Egyptians in battle, it is said that they did so with cats pinned to their shields, reducing their opponents' archers, for whom the animals were sacred, to a state of paralysis.  Victory was duly won.  Pelusium, the gateway to Egypt, was stormed, and the bodies of the defeated left scattered across the sands . . ..

Cats pinned to shields? Yikes!  I'd never heard that one before.  But whether for that reason or some other the story just seemed too bizarre, so I took a closer look.  The source, duly noted by the author, was one Polyaenus, a Macedonian who in the mid-second century AD ("perhaps a suspiciously late date," Holland admits) wrote a book called Stratagems in War in eight volumes.

Having never heard of Polyaenus either, I thought I'd take a look.  His Stratagems, it turns out, are freely available on the internet in both the original Greek and in English translation.  Alas, it appears that Mr. Holland has taken some liberties.  A standard English translation reads as follows:

When Cambyses attacked Pelusium, which guarded the entrance into Egypt, the Egyptians defended it with great resolution. They advanced formidable engines against the besiegers, and hurled missiles, stones, and fired at them from their catapults. To counter this destructive barrage, Cambyses ranged before his front line dogs, sheep, cats, ibises, and whatever other animals the Egyptians hold sacred. The Egyptians immediately stopped their operations, out of fear of hurting the animals, which they hold in great veneration. Cambyses captured Pelusium, and thereby opened up for himself the route into Egypt.

How accurate is the English translation?  Focusing on the key sentence ("Cambyses ranged before his front line dogs, sheep, cats, ibises, and whatever other animals the Egyptians hold sacred") a look at the original Greek shows the translation to be very close.  The original Greek uses a form of the verb "tasso", which typically refers to placing soldiers in a line of battle: "Cambyses placed [the cats and other animals] in line of battle in front of his own army."  No mention of shields or pinning the animals to them.

On the other hand, as the owner of multiple cats, I can attest that it is hard to imagine placing cats in a line of battle in front of an advancing army.  It's also doubtful that placing animals, particularly small ones like cats and dogs, on the ground, would prevent skilled archers from firing at soldiers behind them.  So perhaps Mr. Holland's reconstruction isn't all that unreasonable.  In this regard, it's interesting to note that the Wikipedia entry on the Battle of Pelusium comes up with yet another reconstruction (without admitting that it is not exactly in the text) (emphasis added):

Polyaenus claims that, according to legend, Cambyses captured Pelusium by using a clever strategy. The Egyptians regarded certain animals, especially cats, as being sacred, and would not injure them on any account. Polyaenus claims that Cambyses had his men carry the "sacred" animals in front of them to the attack. The Egyptians did not dare to shoot their arrows for fear of wounding the animals, and so Pelusium was stormed successfully.

Yet other pages on the internet, to which I won't link to, have come up with the idea (out of whole cloth so far I can tell) that Cambyses and his soldiers threw cats at Egyptians.

So did Cambyses and his men herd, carry, throw or pin the cats to their shields? Or is the whole story (related almost 700 years after the fact) a wild fabrication?  Your choice.

Cicero on Cato the Younger

Marcus Tullius Cicero gets Cato the Younger about right:

nam Catonem nostrum non tu amas plus quam ego; sed tamen ille optimo animo utens et summa fide nocet interdum rei publicae; dicit enim tamquam in Platonis πολιτείᾳ, non tamquam in Romuli faece sententiam.

Now you love our Cato as much as I do; and yet, with the best of intentions and in utter good faith, he sometimes does harm to the republic. For he expresses his views as if he were in Plato's Republic, not in the dregs of Romulus.

Pencil-long Eels vs. Giant Lampreys

Saw this article today: Would you share a bath with eels?  New exfoliating treatment gains in popularity - but the risks will make your skin crawl:

Many people are prepared to go to increasingly extreme lengths to enhance their looks.

But the latest beauty fad, involving bathing in a tank of eels in order to exfoliate the skin, has been condemned by health inspectors as extremely dangerous.

The new treatment is just another in a bewildering array of beauty treatments currently making their way into spas and beauty salons, which experts say are often not regulated as they should be.

The technique, imported from China, involves immersing the full body into a bath of pencil-long eels – an extension of the fish pedicures that were popular in 2011.

Wendy Nixon, a health and safety consultant, last week told a conference hosted by the Chartered Institute for Environmental Health (CIEH), the body which represents health inspectors, that there were problems with the procedure, especially for those wearing loose-fitting swimwear.

"In one case a stray eel found its way through the man’s genitals and into his kidney, and he ended up needing a three-hour operation," Nixon told the conference. "This is the sort of procedure that is coming your way."

The alarming example is reportedly that of Zhang Nan, a 56-year-old man from Hubei province in China.

"I climbed into the bath and I could feel the eels nibbling my body," Mr Nan said shortly after the incident two years ago.

"But then suddenly I felt a severe pain and realised a small eel had gone into the end of my penis.

And it made me think of this:

This same year [15 BC] Vedius Pollio died, a man who in general had done nothing deserving of remembrance, as he was sprung from freedmen, belonged to the knights, and had performed no brilliant deeds; but he had become very famous for his wealth and for his cruelty, so that he has even gained a place in history.

Most of the things he did it would be wearisome to relate, but I may mention that he kept in reservoirs huge lampreys that had been trained to eat men, and he was accustomed to throw to them such of his slaves as he desired to put to death.

Once, when he was entertaining Augustus, his cup-bearer broke a crystal goblet, and without regard for his guest, Pollio ordered the fellow to be thrown to the lampreys.  Hereupon the slave fell on his knees before Augustus and supplicated him, and Augustus at first tried to persuade Pollio not to commit so monstrous a deed. Then, when Pollio paid no heed to him, the emperor said, "Bring all the rest of the drinking vessels which are of like sort or any others of value that you possess, in order that I may use them," and when they were brought, he ordered them to be broken.

When Pollio saw this, he was vexed, of course; but since he was no longer angry over the one goblet, considering the great number of the others that were ruined, and, on the other hand, could not punish his servant for what Augustus also had done, he held his peace, though much against his will.

"The total extinguishment of the debt" is "a fundamental maxim in the system of public credit of the United States"

To the congress of the United States, and in a particular manner to the representatives of the people in this house, the period of the total emancipation of the nation from the thraldom of a public debt, will be a moment of intense interest, and of heartfelt mutual gratulation.  To have co-operated in the accomplishment of this event, is a laudable object of ambition.  To have witnessed and contributed to its accomplishment during his own term of service, is a legacy of honor and integrity, which any public servant may be desirous of leaving for the memory of his children, and the gratitude of posterity.  As a monument of good faith, of active industry and strenuous exertion for the fulfilment of public engagements, it is an example of morality, well worthy of that community, which was also the first among the nations of the earth to lay the foundations of the government upon the basis of freedom and the unalienable rights of human kind.

The consummation of this purpose was indeed one of the great objects for which the constitution of the United States received its present organization.  The public debt had originated in and by the war of our national independence; but so feeble and inefficient was the confederation first formed for the government of the union, that its central power was incompetent to levy upon the people funds adequate even to discharge the interest as it became due upon the public obligations. . . .

Accordingly, no sooner had the government of the United States been organised under the present constitution, than the first object to which the attention of congress and of the executive were turned, was to devise means of providing for the payment of the public debt.  From that time, the principle of its total discharge, as soon as by a vigorous exercise of the resources of the union it might be rendered practicable, it was assumed; assumed after full and free deliberations, and in pointed preference to the doctrine then honestly entertained by a portion of the statesmen of the time, that a permanent public debt to a moderate extent and under judicious regulation would prove a public blessing.  Happily, a principle of deeper moral obligation and of sounder policy prevailed.  In the first report of the first secretary of the treasury to the house of representatives upon public credit, bearing date the 9th of January, 1790, within one year after the first meeting of the national congress, he adverted to this then controverted question of political economy in the following terms: "Persuaded, as the secretary is, that the proper funding of the present debt will render it a national blessing, yet he is so far from acceding to the position, in the latitude in which it is sometimes laid down, that public debts are public benefits, a position inviting to prodigality, and liable to dangerous abuse, that he ardently wishes to see it incorporated as a fundamental maxim in the system of public credit of the United States, that the creation of debt should always be accompanied with the means of EXTINGUISHMENT.  This he regards as the true secret for rendering public credit immortal."

And upon this principle was the public debt of the United States, burthensome as it then was, funded.  By the sanction which congress then gave to this lofty and honorable sentiment, the total extinguishment of the debt became incorporated as a fundamental maxim in the system of public credit of the United States.

John Quincy Adams, 1832.

Ironic Quote of the Day (1840 Edition)

"General [William Henry] Harrison will be our next President, if he lives until the fourth of March next [1841]," said the Hudson River Chronicle on November 10 [1840].  "Nothing but death can prevent this glorious result."

Harrison barely made it.  He died on April 4, 1841, having served one month in office.

The quote is from Alasdair Roberts' America's First Great Depression: Economic Crisis and Political Disorder After the Panic of 1837.

About the illustration, entitled Uncle Sam's Pet Pups! (1840):

A crude woodcut satire showing Harrison luring "Mother Bank," Jackson, and Van Buren into a barrel of "Hard Cider." Jack Downing chases Jackson and Van Buren toward the barrel as Mother Bank crawls into it. While Jackson and Van Buren sought to destroy the Bank of the United States, one of Harrison's election campaign promises was to reestablish it, hence his providing "Mother Bank" a refuge in this scene.

"Yankee Doodle borrows cash, Yankee Doodle spends it . . ."

In the first half of the 1830s many of the states of the Union engaged in an orgy of spending to fund internal improvements - principally canals and railroads.  They financed most of the this spending by issuing or guaranteeing bonds, most of which were marketed and sold to investors in Europe, principally in Great Britain.  After an initial market decline that began in 1836 and manifested itself in early 1837, the markets recovered somewhat in 1838, only to collapse again into a deeper and more long-lasting depression beginning in 1839.

In the typical state project, revenues from the anticipated improvements (e.g., canal tolls or railroad freight charges) had optimistically been expected to fund payment of interest and ultimately repayment of the notes; the state guarantees would never be called on.  The Panic of 1837 and ensuing depression resulted in a collapse in revenues, assuming they had ever been realistic.  British and European bondholders demanded that the states honor their guarantees, while states realized that they could not do so without imposing unprecedented and ruinous taxation on their residents.

In the aftermath, during the early 1840s, no fewer than eight states (Michigan [about $5MM], Indiana [$10MM], Maryland [$14MM], Arkansas, Illinois, Mississippi, Pennsylvania [$40MM] and Louisiana [$24MM]) and one territory (Florida) defaulted on bonds with a face value totaling in excess of $100,000,000 and repudiated their guarantees.  British and other European bondholders were financially devastated.  And they lacked any legal recourse.   A combination of the Eleventh Amendment and state sovereign immunity made it impossible for foreigners to sue the states in either federal or state court.  The federal government was not a party to the transactions, lacked the power to intervene and, under president John Tyler, was not inclined to do so in any event.  The foreign holders were reduced to hurling invective at the states that had stolen their money.

All of which brings me to the point of this post, a wrenching but (softened by the passage of almost 170 years) amusing protest published in the London Literary Gazette in January 1845, to be sung to the tune of Yankee Doodle:

Yankee Doodle borrows cash,
Yankee Doodle spends it,
And then he snaps his fingers at
The jolly flat who lends it.

Ask him when he means to pay,
He shews no hesitation,
But says he'll take the shortest way,
And that's repudiation!

As a bonus: Did you know that Charles Dickens' December 1843 A Christmas Carol contains a brief reference to "a mere United States' security" as a synonym for worthless?

When Scrooge awoke, it was so dark, that looking out of bed, he could scarcely distinguish the transparent window from the opaque walls of his chamber. He was endeavouring to pierce the darkness with his ferret eyes, when the chimes of a neighbouring church struck the four quarters. So he listened for the hour.

To his great astonishment the heavy bell went on from six to seven, and from seven to eight, and regularly up to twelve; then stopped. Twelve! It was past two when he went to bed. The clock was wrong. An icicle must have got into the works. Twelve!

He touched the spring of his repeater, to correct this most preposterous clock. Its rapid little pulse beat twelve: and stopped.

“Why, it isn’t possible,” said Scrooge, “that I can have slept through a whole day and far into another night. It isn’t possible that anything has happened to the sun, and this is twelve at noon!”

The idea being an alarming one, he scrambled out of bed, and groped his way to the window. He was obliged to rub the frost off with the sleeve of his dressing-gown before he could see anything; and could see very little then. All he could make out was, that it was still very foggy and extremely cold, and that there was no noise of people running to and fro, and making a great stir, as there unquestionably would have been if night had beaten off bright day, and taken possession of the world. This was a great relief, because “three days after sight of this First of Exchange pay to Mr. Ebenezer Scrooge or his order,” and so forth, would have become a mere United States’ security if there were no days to count by.

Alasdair Roberts' America's First Great Depression: Economic Crisis and Political Disorder After the Panic of 1837 is the source for both.

About the illustration, entitled New Edition of MacBeth.  Bank-oh's! Ghost:

Another satire on the Panic of 1837, again condemning Van Buren's continuation of predecessor Andrew Jackson's hard-money policies as the source of the crisis. Clay shows the president haunted by the ghost of Commerce, which is seated at the far right end of a table which he shares with a southern planter (far left) and a New York City Tammany Democrat. Commerce has been strangled by the Specie Circular, an extremely unpopular order issued by the Jackson administration in December 1836, requiring collectors of public revenues to accept only gold or silver (i.e., "specie") in payment for public lands. The ghost displays a sheaf of papers, including one marked "Repeal of the Specie Circular," and notices of bank failures in New Orleans, Philadelphia, and New York. Van Buren recoils at the sight of the specter, exclaiming, "Never shake thy gory locks at me, thou can'st not say I did it." Jackson, in a bonnet and dress made of bunting, turns away saying, "Never mind him gentlemen, the creature's scared, and has some conscience left; but by the Eternal we must shake that out of him." Planter (a note reading "Cotton Planters Specie in "Purse." Alabama" protrudes from his pocket): "No credit. Huzza!!" Tammany Irishman (raising a glass): "Down with the Bank!!"

Is It Legitimate to Defund Obamacare? The Fourth Congress Says Yes

In all the hullaballoo over the debt ceiling and Obamacare negotiations (or non-negotiations) the Democrats have been complaining, among other things, that the Republican attempt to defund Obamacare is illegitimate. Obamacare, the Dems complain, is legislation that was duly enacted by Congress, signed by the president, and is now "the law of the land." The Republican House cannot in effect now sabotage duly enacted legislation through the back door by refusing to fund it.

As a buff of early US legal history, it immediately occurred to me that there was early - very early - historical precedent.  And that precedent, in the form of resolutions passed by the Fourth Congress in 1795, strongly suggests that Republicans are entirely within their rights to refuse to provide funding for Obamacare.

The fracas I have in mind arose out the Jay Treaty – a treaty with Great Britain negotiated by John Jay. President George Washington, who had sent Jay to England for that purpose, submitted the treaty to the Senate for its consent in June 1795. The merits of the proposed treaty were hotly contested. In a nutshell, President Washington and the Federalists urged approval as the best that could be achieved. The Democratic-Republicans grouped around Thomas Jefferson and James Madison viewed it as an abomination, both constitutionally unsound and humiliating.

To make a long story short, even some Federalists balked at one article containing onerous trade restrictions, but the Senate conditionally approved the treaty.  After Britain agreed to suspend the offending article, the president signed the treaty.

Then the action moved to the House of Representatives. When the president sought funds to cover expenses associated with the treaty (e.g., funds to cover the expenses of a commission established by the treaty), Rep. Edward Livingston (DR - NY) (pictured at the top of this post) offered a resolution requesting the President to provide the House with Jay’s instructions and other materials relevant to the treaty. “The debate on this resolution lasted an entire month and was one of the most impressive and fundamental ever conducted in Congress.” (All quotes are from David P. Currie’s wonderful The Constitution in Congress: The Federalist Period 1789-1801.)

Federalists argued that the House had no right to look into such matters because only the Senate and the president were constitutionally competent to approve and ratify treaties:

The House had no right to seek information, said Representative [William Vans] Murray (F - MD), without indicating how it related to some subject within the House’s purview. The House had nothing to do with treaties, since Article II, sec. 2 expressly empowered the President to make them with Senate consent. Impeachment, he acknowledged, would be a legitimate purpose, but as [Robert Goodloe] Harper [(F - SC)] noted no one had suggested that Jay or anyone else should be impeached.

Rep. Albert Gallatin of Pennsylvania (later President Jefferson’s and President Madison's Secretary of the Treasury) disputed the point, arguing (among other things) that the House “had a right to information because even if the treaty was valid it could not be carried out without appropriations, which under Article I, sec. 9 only a statue could provide.”

In reply, the Federalists made an argument akin to that made by Democrats now: in the face of a ratified treaty, the House had no discretion to refuse funding:

Not so, said the treaty’s supporters; Article VI made a treaty duly concluded the law of the land, as binding on the House as on anyone else. The House could no more refuse to implement a treaty than a tax collector could refuse to enforce the law; it might as plausibly withhold the salaries of the President and the judges or decline to call a constitutional convention at the request of two thirds of the states. Congressional discretion to refuse an appropriation, in short, would undermine the treaty power. 

The Democratic-Republicans submitted these contentions to withering abuse:

Wrong, said Pennsylvania’s John Swanwick; discretion was implied in every grant of legislative authority. To hold that the House was bound to vote funds to implement a treaty would destroy the appropriation power – which, [William Branch] Giles [(DR - VA)] added, was intended as a check on the powers given to other branches. The two-year limit on military appropriations, [James] Madison [(DR - VA)] noted in support of this conclusion, was designed to permit the people’s representatives to review on regular occasions the desirability of maintaining an army. The clauses expressly requiring payment of the salaries of the President and the judges [Art. II, sec. 1; Art. III, sec. 1], Gallatin explained, were narrow exceptions to the general principle. There was no comparable provision with respect to treaties; the supremacy clause served only to establish the subordinate status of state law and (in Swanwick’s words) “does not affect the power of this House, as a component part of the General Legislature, and authority of the United States.” Finally, Gallatin invoked British precedent: Though Blackstone described treaties as law, it was universally acknowledged that Parliament had discretion not to appropriate money to implement them. 

The lengthy and impressive debate ended in a dramatic victory for the Democratic-Republicans. “At length the House approved Livingston’s resolution by a lopsided vote of sixty-two to thirty-seven, suggesting that a substantial majority agreed that the House had discretion in implementing the treaty.” And when President Washington refused to turn over the requested information, the House adopted “by a similarly decisive vote,” another, similar resolution “affirming its discretion to refuse to implement and treaty affecting a subject within congressional power and its right to request information without giving reasons.”

The battle having been won, the war evaporated. The treaty, it turned out, was far more popular with constituents than the Democratic-Republicans had realized. Flooded with petitions urging Congress to appropriate the necessary funds, “a number of House opponents gave up the fight; having asserted its right not to appropriate money, the House voted to do so after all.”

Additionally, it is worth noting that Prof. Currie, reviewing the dispute, had no doubt but that the Democratic-Republican proponents of Congressional discretion were correct.  While I will not (out of respect for copyright laws and the reader’s patience) recite his reasoning at length, Prof. Currie concluded that “the appropriation power was intended as a check on other branches.” “Congress normally has discretion whether or not to appropriate funds.”  (Emphasis in original.)

Finally it is important to understand that the case for House discretion in funding legislation (Obamacare) is stronger than the case for such discretion in funding treaties such as the Jay Treaty. The Constitution provides that treaties are to be ratified by action of the Senate and the Executive; the House has no part to play. Legislation, of course, involves an interplay among both houses of Congress as well as the Executive. If the House has discretion to refuse to fund the implementation of treaties, with which it is otherwise unconcerned, then a fortiori it has the right and power to refuse to fund ordinary legislation, which forms its core function.

***

For a somewhat different approach to the Democratic argument that Obamacare is the "settled" "law of the land," see this interesting article by one of my favorite lawprof bloggers, Gerard Magliocca: Why Obamacare isn't "settled".

The Wit and Wisdom of Cato the Elder V

Marcus Porcius Cato the Elder (234BC-149BC) was a piece of work  Gotta love him.  Who else would toss a senator out of the Senate for embracing his wife in public while making jokes about his own "thundering" love life?  Plutarch explains in his Life of Cato the Elder:

[After having been elected Censor in 184BC] Cato expelled another senator who was thought to have good prospects for the consulship, namely, [Manius] Manilius, because he embraced his wife in open day before the eyes of his daughter.  For his own part, he [Cato] said, he never embraced his wife unless it thundered loudly; and it was a pleasantry of his to remark that he was a happy man when it thundered.

 For earlier installments of The Wit and Wisdom of Cato the Elder, see here.

Never Forget

Make no mistake, we are at war with untold numbers of barbarians who would kill us and rejoice if they could.  If we continue to pretend that our enemies are "moderates," civilization - and we - are lost.  Never forget.

Varina Davis on Senator Thomas Hart Benton

For reasons unknown, I was leafing (virtually) the other day through Varina Davis's memoir of her late husband, Jefferson Davis, entitled (as you might expect) Jefferson Davis: Ex-President of the Confederate States of America (1890).  Mrs. Davis, it turns out, is an engaging writer with a knack for sketching lively portraits of many of the famous figures she encountered.

Here, for example, is an endearing story about Senator Thomas Hart Benton, which casts a softer light on the craggy and somewhat forbidding public persona of the pugnacious "Old Bullion" Benton:

[T]here was an hour in the day that came to be recognized as one that Mr. Benton would have.  About midday, or perhaps three o'clock, he always rose and left the [Senate] chamber to take his paralyzed wife out for an airing.  Generally he brought her, with infinite tenderness, to the Capitol grounds, seated her on a bench in a pleasant shade, and no young lover could try more sedulously than he to amuse and comfort her.  She seemed to be most happy when with him, and it was a familiar sight to see him picking flowers for her as they first peeped up in the early Spring.  He introduced me to a lady once - "Mrs. C., a friend of my wife's, madam; need I say more?