Cowblogging

Last weekend, Farmer Harry and Farmer Austin came to take the cows in from the pasture for the winter. The matriarch, Mollie Moo, was suspicious:

Mollie was her usual surly self:


Baby was nervous:


Others seemed less concerned:




When it was all over and the girls had been loaded on the van, Farmer Harry was happy:


So was Farmer Austin:

"Black Lines! Black Lines!"

In 1833, while Congress was in recess, President Andrew Jackson determined to remove from the Second Bank of the United States the funds of the federal government on deposit with that institution. President Jackson’s Secretary of the Treasury had indicated that he was unwilling to carry out the instruction. In something of a precursor to the Watergate “Saturday Night Massacre,” Jackson appointed a new Treasury Secretary, who also declined to remove the funds. Jackson then removed him and appointed Roger Taney (the future Chief Justice of the Supreme Court) as Secretary. Taney directed that the funds be removed and deposited with various state banks, which came to be known as “pet banks.”

When Congress reconvened in December 1833, Henry Clay of Kentucky introduced in the Senate a resolution censuring President Jackson for his allegedly unconstitutional actions. The resolution passed on March 28, 1834.

Thereafter, Senator Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri spearheaded Democratic efforts to have the resolution expunged. For two years, these efforts were unsuccessful. But when the Senate convened in December 1836, the Democrats had acquired the majority they needed.

Things came to a head in January 1837. Senator Benton’s resolution provided that the 1834 resolution would be physically deleted from the Senate Journal. On the evening of January 16, 1837, with passage imminent, Henry Clay rose to oppose the resolution, although he knew the effort was futile. Even Clay’s arch enemy Senator Benton later expressed his praise for the speech that Clay delivered.

By all accounts, the cold transcripts of Clay’s speeches do not begin to convey the mesmerizing power of his oratory. Like a great actor, Clay marshaled every physical and vocal resource at his command to convey his message. He was a passionate advocate whose enthusiasm and ardor swept away audiences. He was naturally graceful and used every part of his body to emphasize and illustrate his points. Above all, the tone and cadence of his voice were extraordinary. Without raising his voice, it “filled the room as the organ fills a great cathedral, and the ladies stood spell-bound as the rolling cadences rolled about the vast apartment.” “[H]is voice was music itself, and yet penetrating and far-reaching, enchanting the listener; his words flowed rapidly, without sing-song or mannerism, in a clear and steady stream.” The total effect was very much greater than the sum of the parts, and utterly overwhelming.

Nonetheless, the cold record is all we have. All I can ask you to do, while you read Clay’s speech, is to try to see and hear Clay summoning all of his powers there on the floor of the Senate one hundred seventy years ago, while he delivers his denunciation, knowing it is in vain.

As with other speeches, try reading it aloud. I have added additional paragraph breaks to aid your oratorical efforts.

How is it with the President? Is he powerless? He is felt from one extremity to the other of this vast republic. By means of principles which he has introduced and innovations which he has made in our institutions, alas! but too much countenanced by Congress and a confiding people, he exercises uncontrolled the power of the State. In one hand he holds the purse, and in the other brandishes the sword of the country. Myriads of dependents and partisans, scattered over the land, are ever ready to sing hosannas to him, and to laud to the skies whatever he does. He has swept over the Government, during the last eight years, like a tropical tornado. Every department exhibits traces of the ravages of the storm. . . .

What object of his ambition is unsatisfied? When disabled by age any longer to hold the scepter of power, he designates his successor, and transmits it to his favorite!

What more does he want? Must we blot, deface, and mutilate the records of the country, to punish the presumptuousness of expressing an opinion contrary to his own?

What patriotic purpose is to be accomplished by this expunging resolution? Can you make that not to be which has been? Can you eradicate from memory and from history the fact that in March, 1834, a majority of the Senate of the United States passed the resolution which excites your enmity? Is it your vain and wicked object to arrogate to yourselves that power of annihilating the past which has been denied to Omnipotence itself? . . .

What patriotic purpose is to be accomplished by this expunging resolution? Is it to appease the wrath and to heal the wounded pride of the Chief Magistrate? If he be really the hero that his friends represent him, he must despise all mean condescension, all groveling sycophancy, all self-degradation and self-abasement. He would reject, with scorn and contempt, as unworthy of his fame, your black scratches and your baby lines in the fair records of his country.

Black lines! Black lines! Sir, I hope the Secretary of the Senate will preserve the pen with which he may inscribe them, and present it to that Senator of the majority whom he may select, as a proud trophy, to be transmitted to his descendants. And hereafter, when we shall lose the forms of our free institutions, all that now remain to us, some future American monarch, in gratitude to those by whose means he has been enabled, upon the ruins of civil liberty, to erect a throne, and to commemorate especially this expunging resolution, may institute a new order of knighthood, and confer on it the appropriate name of the Knight of the Black Lines.

But why should I detain the Senate, or needlessly waste my breath in fruitless exertions. The decree has gone forth. It is one of urgency, too. The deed is to be done – that foul deed which, like the blood-stained hands of the guilty Macbeth, all ocean’s waters will never wash out.

Proceed, then, to the noble work which lies before you, and, like other skilful executioners, do it quickly. And when you have perpetrated it, go home to the people, and tell them what glorious honors you have achieved for our common country.

Tell them that you have extinguished one of the brightest and purest lights that ever burnt at the altar of civil liberty.

Tell them that you have silenced one of the noblest batteries that ever thundered in defense of the constitution, and bravely spiked the cannon.

Tell them that, henceforward, no matter what daring or outrageous act any President may perform, you have hermetically sealed the mouth of the Senate.

Tell them that he may fearlessly assume what powers he pleases, snatch from its lawful custody the public purse, command a military detachment to enter the halls of the Capitol, overawe Congress, trample down the constitution, and raze every bulwark of freedom; but that the Senate must stand mute, in silent submission, and not dare to raise its opposing voice. That it must wait until a House of Representatives, humbled and subdued like itself, and a majority of it composed of the partisans of the President, shall prefer articles of impeachment.

Tell them, finally, that you have restored the glorious doctrine of passive obedience and non-resistance.

And, if the people do not pour out their indignation and imprecations, I have yet to learn the character of American freemen.

Merrill Peterson relates the aftermath:

Near midnight the vote was taken, twenty-four for, nineteen against. The Whigs walked out, and as the secretary took up the journal of 1834, drew black lines around Clay’s censure resolution, and stamped it “Expunged,” the gallery broke into riot and tumult never before witnessed in the Senate.

Here is the result:

Boycott NBC and GE

The refusal of NBC and CNBC to accept paid advertisements supporting the troops is simply outrageous . . . disgusting.

Boycott NBC and CNBC and their corporate parent General Electric. Watch the ads and thank our troops.

I'm with Tom Smith: "Edwards is right. There really are two Americas."

Learning to Love Classical Music 1

Do you know nothing, or almost nothing, about classical music? Do you have an interest in exploring it? This post is for you.

By way of background, I grew up on 60s-70s rock. I knew virtually nothing else until well into adulthood. No music lessons, no instrument, no exposure to classical music. In my dotage, however, I got bored. Rock in the 80s seemed derivative and insipid. I was listening to less and less music, and I wasn't happy about it. In desperation I decided that I had to try other genres. I tried jazz, but with a few exceptions (early Louis Armstrong, Charlie Parker) it just wasn't grabbing me. I then decided I had no choice but to try -- gulp! -- classical. My technique was largely hit and miss. The following thoughts are based on the lessons I learned.

One of the biggest roadblocks to learning to enjoy classical music is the intimidation factor. Classical music devotees seem to know so much about composers and conductors and performers and works that you've never even heard of that you're embarrassed to talk to them and display your ignorance. Entering the classical music department of a retail store (brick and mortar or virtual) is like entering a foreign bookstore. This leads to Rule No. 1:

Do Not Be Intimidated. Everyone's got to start somewhere. If you have a friend or acquaintance who knows something about classical music, or encounter a knowledgeable brick and mortar salesperson, don't be shy. My experience is that classical music fans are generally delighted to spread the word (and show off in the process). You'll probably wind up with too much information, and too many recommendations, rather than too few.

How, then, to start? Although I've said I knew nothing about classical music when I started, that isn't exactly true. Everyone knows at least one classical tune or two. Perhaps it's the duh-duh-duh-duh sequence from Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. Perhaps in high school you heard that frenzied buildup in Stravinsky's Rite of Spring when the naked virgin is sacrificed (at least I hoped she was naked). Whatever it is, it doesn't matter. If it's stuck in your head all these years, then you must have liked it on some level. If you own it, put it on. If you don't own it, go out (or go online) and buy it and then put it on.

Now listening to classical music is not supposed to be torture. I do recommend that you sit down and listen to your piece, whatever it is, at least once giving it your full attention, to get a feel for it. But after that, put it on as background music, while you're cooking or while your cleaning, or whatever. Do not treat it respectfully: it is something to be enjoyed, not worshiped. Do not play it so low it's inaudible -- this is not muzak we're talking about. Would you blast the Stones while you're surfing the web? Well, then blast Beethoven. In this way, you become familiar with the tunes. After a while, you'll find yourself involuntarily focusing on particular passages that you especially enjoy, anticipating the next theme or the climax of a movement, and disappointed when it's over. You may even stop what you're doing because you like a section so much it breaks through. Hey, this is pretty good!

I should add here that listening to classical is not an all-or-nothing thing. I routinely listen to classical, then rock, then something else, then perhaps some more classical. Classical is just another form of music -- albeit a particularly beautiful one at its best. But the point is that you're not in a straight jacket, and it shouldn't be a chore. Mix it up.

Let me assume that you've found one piece that you enjoy. How to branch out? The most obvious way is to try other works by the same composer. Do you like Beethoven's Ninth? Well, try his other symphonies. Are you enjoying Bach's Goldberg Variations? Well, try some of his other keyboard works. The basic progression is:

Other works by the same composer in the same genre (by "genre" I mean here basic groupings such as symphonies, solo piano, chamber music, etc.)

Other works by the same composer in different genres

Other works by "similar" composers, beginning in the genre you've enjoyed most (I'll get to how you locate "similar" composers shortly).

Rule No. 2: Follow what you like, and do not worry about what you don't like.

Let's say you have found one or two pieces of classical music you like, but your next venture is a bust. You're enjoying the Beethoven Symphonies, so you try a Violin Concerto and it leaves you cold. DO NOT WORRY ABOUT IT. The upside of the fact that classical music is intimidatingly vast is that you have choices. If you decide that the Violin Concertos are not for you, just move on (at least for now). I love classical music (to the point my friends think I'm nuts). But the fact of the matter is that there are numerous works and composers that bore me to tears, and I don't listen to them. So what? There are dozens of composers and hundreds of works that give me great joy -- pleasure I never would have experienced otherwise. That's all that counts.

In the next post, I'll discuss branching out some more, experimenting, and provide some practical tips.

The Glenn Gould video at the top, by the way, is simply unbelievable. I was laughing out loud.

Sexual Integration of Combat Forces

Over at the Volokh Conspiracy, guestblogger Kingsely Browne has concluded a series of extremely interesting posts arguing that the integration of women in the military impairs the military's ability to wage war. Here are Professor Browne's closing comments:

In these posts, I have touched upon some of the problems created by sexual integration of combat forces. . ..

A common response . . . is that, yes, these are problems but they can be worked around; the military will “manage” these challenges with more leadership, more training, and more discipline. One could as easily say, however, that during the Battle of the Bulge GIs “managed” one of the coldest winters on record even with the challenge of inadequate clothing. But clearly both the soldiers and the war effort would have been better off if they had not been compelled to manage that particular challenge.

In deciding on rules about combat integration, the ultimate question can’t be how to maximize women’s opportunities. Instead, it has to be how to maximize the military’s power to defeat the enemy. Clausewitz wrote that “everything in war is very simple, but the simplest thing is difficult.” Mixing the sexes together in an integrated combat force adds substantially to what he described as the “friction” of war. The combat environment is difficult enough; we do no one any favors by making it even more so.

Professor Browne makes a powerful case. I would be fascinated to see what military historians such as Mark Grimsely have to say on the subject. Any takers?

The Daily Coyote

Quite unusual for this site, but, also via Metafilter, I found a blog, The Daily Coyote, which documents the raising of an orphaned coyote cub, Charlie, in Wyoming. I wound up reading it from end to end. The photography is understated but striking -- sample above. Highly recommended.

A British Illustrator Draws the American Civil War

Via Metafilter, I stumbled across a site documenting 56 remarkable cartoons concerning the American Civil War drawn by British illustrator John Tenniel and published in Punch. Never heard of him? Well, I didn't recognize the name either, but you know his work: Tenniel did the original illustrations for Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass.

The site contains high resolution photos of each cartoon, and there is an explanatory essay accompanying each. Well worth a visit.

Cause vs. Motivation 2

In an earlier post, I referred to the difference between cause and motivation. In his brilliant The Political Economy of the Cotton South, Gavin Wright touches on a similar theme:

Economic interpretations of the Civil War . . . appear most often nowadays in partnership with loosely defined concepts like "modernization" . . .. This chapter argues that the current dissatisfaction with economic analysis of the war stems from an inappropriate conception of what an economic interpretation should be. No reasonable historical explanation should characterize individuals as motivated solely by the pursuit of economic gain. Nor is it reasonable to view the sections as though they were negotiating and fighting over aggregate economic costs and benefits, because the political leadership had neither the means nor the desire to calculate and pursue such collective goals. Instead, the main task of an economic interpretation should be to show how the structure of economic interests and incentives encouraged individuals to mobilize politically, and how an underlying logic of interests and coalitions led political representatives to pursue certain lines of action.

John Randolph of Roanoke on Henry Clay

Mr. Clay took his seat in the House of Representatives in December, 1811; his first stride was from the door to [Speaker's] chair, where he commenced to play the dictator; he fixed his eyes on the presidency, and I, who had been twelve years in Congress, fixed mine upon him, and have kept them there ever since. Sulla said that he saw many a Marius in Caesar.

The Clay-Randolph Duel

As a result of John Randolph's Blifil and Black George speech, recounted in earlier posts, Henry Clay challenged Randolph to a duel. Although the story is fairly well known, I can't help relating it. Here is Merrill Peterson's summary:

Randolph, having provoked the challenge, could not decline it. As much as he hated Clay's politics he had a sneaking admiration for him personally -- Black George, after all, was a good-natured knave -- and had been heard to say, "I prefer to be killed by Clay to any other death." The two men met, with their seconds, on the Virginia side of Potomac on April 8 [1826]. Neither was experienced with dueling pistols. Both missed on the first exchange of shots at ten paces. This was enough to satisfy the code duello, but it did not satisfy Clay. He insisted on another round, and Randolph consented. Clay then put his bullet through the long, voluminous white coat Randolph wore for the occasion. Uninjured, and drained of any desire to injure Clay, he fired into the air, dropped his pistol, came forward, extended his hand and said, "You owe me a new coat, Mr. Clay." Taking his hand, Clay replied, "I am glad the debt is no greater."

Quiz

Americans say, "A cat's got my tongue." Who says, "A great ox is standing on my tongue"?

John Greenleaf Whittier on John Randoph of Roanoke

The poet John Greenleaf Whittier was a Quaker and forceful advocate of abolition. Yet he penned a moving tribute to John Randolph of Roanoke. Even more surprising is the fact that the poem included three stanzas praising Randolph's attitude toward slavery and his slaves:

He held his slaves, yet made withal
No false and vain pretences,
Nor paid a lying priest to seek
For Scriptural defences.
His harshest words of proud rebuke,
His bitterest taunt and scorning,
Fell fire-like on the Northern brow
That bent to him in fawning.

He held his slaves; yet kept the while
His reverence for the Human;
In the dark vassals of his will
He saw but Man and Woman!
No hunter of God’s outraged poor
His Roanoke valley entered;
No trader in the souls of men
Across his threshold ventured.

And when the old and wearied man
Lay down for his last sleeping,
And at his side, a slave no more,
His brother-man stood weeping,
His latest thought, his latest breath,
To Freedom’s duty giving,
With failing tongue and trembling hand
The dying blest the living.

John Randolph of Roanoke, Abolitionist

As difficult and ornery a man as Randolph was in many respects, he had one highly unusual quality: he seems to have truly detested slavery. Unlike Jefferson, Randolph even freed all of his slaves upon his death.

Although at least one biographer attributes Randolph’s dislike of slavery in part to moral qualms, it seems safe to say that his principal motivation may be ascribed to more practical concerns: he was convinced that slavery was devastating to the prosperity of the white society that harbored it.

The most well-known manifestation of Randolph’s stance came in 1803. On February 8 of that year, the House of Representatives received a petition from a convention held in Vincennes, Indiana Territory in December 1802, chaired by future president William Henry Harrison. The petition sought the suspension, for ten years, of Article 6 of the Northwest Ordinance, which barred slavery from the Territory. The petition apparently argued that the Territory was suffering from a shortage of labor and that it was necessary, for the time being, to import slaves until a sufficient white population became available.

The House referred the petition to a Select Committee headed by Randolph. The other members were Roger Griswold (Fed - CT), Robert Williams (Rep - NC), Lewis R. Morris (Fed - VT) and William Hoge (Rep - PA).

On March 2, 1803, Randolph delivered to the House the Committee’s Report, written apparently by Randolph himself, which strongly endorsed the exclusion of slavery as “wisely calculated to promote the happiness and prosperity of the Northwestern country.” It was the Committee’s view

That the rapid population of the State of Ohio sufficiently evinces, in the opinion of your Committee, that the labor of slaves is not necessary to promote the growth and settlement of colonies in that region. That this labor, demonstrably the dearest of any, can only be employed to advantage in the cultivation of products more valuable than any known to that quarter of the United States. That the committee deem it highly dangerous and inexpedient to impair a provision wisely calculated to promote the happiness and prosperity of the Northwestern country, and to give strength and security to that extensive frontier. In the salutary operation of this sagacious and benevolent restraint, it is believed that the inhabitants of Indiana will, at no very distant day, find ample remuneration for a temporary privation of labor and emigration.

For these reasons, the Committee recommended rejection of the petition:

Resolved, that it is inexpedient to suspend, for a limited time, the operation of the sixth article of compact between the original States, and the people and States west of the river Ohio.

How odd it is to think that fierce John Randolph of Roanoke played a potentially key role in preserving the free-labor status of the old Northwest. It is also worth noting that, Old Republican though Randolph was, it clearly did not occur to him that the federal government lacked the power to exclude slavery from the Territories.

"Who Made Him His Brother's Keeper?"

John Randolph's March 30, 1826 Senate speech inveighing against John Quincy Adams and Henry Clay, discussed in a post yesterday, is so bizarre that I thought I'd provide another excerpt.

Here Randolph displays his stream-of-consciousness/free association style, moving from Adams the Son to Adams the Father and then back to Son again, intermingled with references to a French revolutionary, British statesmen, Randolph's brother, and Randolph himself playing hooky as a boy, over thirty years earlier. Randolph's vicious wit is also in evidence. I have added paragraph breaks for readability:

Now, sir, John Quincy Adams coming into power under these inauspicious circumstances, and with these suspicious allies and connexions, has determined to become the apostle of liberty, as his father was, about the time of the formation of the Constitution, known to be the apostle of monarchy. It is no secret -- I was in New York when he first took his seat as Vice President. I recollect -- for I was a school boy at the time, attending the lobby of Congress, when I ought to have been at school -- I remember the manner in which my brother was spurned by the coachman of the then Vice President, for coming too near the arms blazoned on the scutcheon of the Vice-Regal carriage.

Perhaps I may have some of this old animosity rankling in my heart, and, coming from a race who are known never to forsake a friend or forgive an enemy -- I am taught to forgive my enemies, and I do from the bottom of my heart, most sincerely, as I hope to be forgiven; but it is my enemies -- not the enemies of my country; for, if they come here in the shape of the English, it is my duty to kill them; if they come here in a worse shape -- wolves in sheep's clothing -- it is my duty and my business to tear the sheep skins from their backs, and, as Windham said to Pitt, open the bosom and expose beneath the ruffled shirt the filthy dowlas.

. . . [John Quincy] Adams determined to take warning by his father's errors, but in attempting the perpendicular, he bent as much the other way. Who would believe that Adams, the son of the sedition-law President, who held office under his father -- who up to Dec. 6, 1807, was the undeviating, staunch adherent to the opposition to Jefferson's Administration, then almost gone -- who would believe he had selected for his pattern, the celebrated Anacharsis Cloots, "orator of the human race?"

As Anacharsis was the orator of the human race, so Adams was determined to be the President of the human race, when I am not willing that he should be President of my name and race; but he is, and must be, till the third day of March, eighteen hundred and -- I forget when. He has come out with a speech and a message, and with a doctrine that goes to take the whole human family under his special protection. Now, sir, who made him his brother's keeper? Who gave him, the President of the United States, the custody of the liberties, or the rights, or the interests of South America, or any other America, save only the United States of America, or any other country under the sun?

What Hath Howe Wrought?

I mentioned a week ago that Daniel Walker Howe's What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848 was on my wish list. If you too are eying it, this interview with the author at NRO should whet your appetite even further. Excellent questions, interesting answers. A taste:

MILLER: You write about the period from 1815 to 1848. How was the America of 1848 different from the America of 1815?

HOWE: The America of 1815 was what we would call a third-world country. Most people lived on isolated farmsteads; their lives revolved around the weather and the hours of daylight. Many people grew their own food; many wives made their own family’s clothes. Only people who lived near navigable waterways could easily market their crops. Improvements in transportation such as the Erie Canal, the steamboat, and the railroad wrought enormous transformations by 1848. Americans were more and more integrated into a global economy. Revolutionary innovations in communication expanded the printed media, with consequences as varied as the rise of the novel in literature and the rise of mass politics and nationwide political parties. Together, the improvements in transportation and communication liberated people from the tyranny of distance. That is, they liberated people from isolation — economic, intellectual, and political. Meanwhile America was extending its territory westward until it stretched from sea to sea, creating a transcontinental empire that these improvements in transportation and communication could integrate. The America of 1848 was significantly more like the America of today. Like all conscientious historians, I seek to be faithful to representing the past, with its many differences from the present. Still, my book shows how the present came to be.

"The President Has Jonathan-Russelled Himself"

John Randolph of Roanoke was a downright bizarre character. An "Old Republican" who broke with Jefferson because he thought Jefferson was too much of a consolidationist (!), Randolph had an odd, high voice and an acid tongue with which he flayed his political enemies.

Reading Randolph's "Blifil and Black George" speech, I discovered, to my delight, that Randolph repeatedly used the verb "Jonathan-Russell," the origin of which I discussed just the other day.

By way of background, the presidential election of 1824 was thrown into the House of Representatives when no candidate received a majority of votes in the Electoral College. Although Andrew Jackson had received a plurality of the popular vote and of the Electoral College votes, Henry Clay lobbied hard for runner-up John Quincy Adams in the House. Clay's influence enabled Adams to become president with a bare majority of votes in the House (13 of 24 states). Adams thereafter appointed Clay to be his Secretary of State, a position then viewed as a stepping-stone to the presidency (James Madison had been Jefferson's Secretary of State; James Monroe had been Madison's; and Adams had been Monroe's). The incipient Jacksonian opposition cried foul: Adam's election was, they charged, the result of a "corrupt bargain" between Adams and Clay.

Merrill Peterson provides an overview of Randolph's speech:

On March 30, 1826, two weeks after the Senate concluded debate on the Panama Mission [Adams and Clay had proposed that the United States send delegates to a Pan-American conference in Panama], John Randolph delivered perhaps the most offensive speech ever heard in that body. The fifty-two year old Virginian, whose gaunt, emaciated frame gave dramatic point to the political degeneration and decay that was his constant theme, launched one of the "elaborate salmagundis and zigzags" with which he had alternately entertained and terrorized Congress for years. Once a master of Swiftian satire, he was now too consumed by malice for that and spoke only in sneers and sarcasms. Some thought him insane, others only demoniacal, but all dreaded the poison of his tongue.

On this day, Randolph touched on the doctrines of the First Message [Adams's nationalistic 1825 State of the Union Address, which included the "lighthouses of the skies" passage that I quoted the other day], recalled the "monarchism" of old John Adams, which the son had inherited, denounced the American System [the pro-Bank, pro-internal improvements, pro-tariff program of Henry Clay], scorned the Panama Congress, where Americans would be forced to commingle with mulatto generals, and accused the secretary of state [Clay] of fraudulently manufacturing the invitation to this assembly. . . . Concluding his harangue, Randolph recurred to the source of these evils, the corrupt bargain between Adams and Clay, which he then bitingly characterized as "the coalition of Blifil and Black George . . . the combination, unheard of till then, of the puritan with the blackleg."

Blifil and Black George were characters from Henry Fielding's Tom Jones. Blifil was a sanctimonious hypocrite; Black George was a morally dubious knave.

In the passage quoted below, Randolph accused the president of having "Jonathan-Russelled himself" by entering into the corrupt bargain with Clay:

I say I will prove, if the Senate will have the patience to listen to me -- I will prove to their satisfaction that the President has Jonathan-Russelled himself. I have as good a right to coin compound verbs as other People. I say the President of the United States has Jonathan-Russelled himself -- has shown that, in the execution of a great public trust, he has done that which has damned Jonathan Russell to everlasting infamy, and enabled him to put his foot on Russell -- to clap an extinguisher on him. If I don't prove it -- it is a pledge that shall be redeemed -- not like the pledge about the navigation of the Mississippi -- not like the pledge about this Spanish American resolution -- it shall be redeemed, or I will sit down infamous and contented for the rest of my life.

And how sir has he Jonathan-Russelled himself? He has done it by the aid and instrumentality of this very new ally. I shall not say which is Blifil and which is Black George. I do not draw my pictures in such a way as to render it necessary to write under them "this is a man, this is a horse." I say this new ally has been the means of Jonathan-Russelling him; and for what? Sir, we hear a great deal of the infirmity of certain constitutions -- not paper constitutions -- we hear a great deal of Constitutional infirmity -- seven years is too long for some of us to wait; and if the President can be disposed of at the end of three years, then, being Jonathan-Russelled, may they not, by some new turning up of trumps, expect to succeed him?

"An Anachronism In Need Of Repeal"

Before you click on the link, take the quiz.

Which provision of the Bill of Rights does the "Staff" of the Harvard Crimson contend is "an anachronism in need of repeal"? I'll even narrow it down for you. You have a one out of four chance:

a. The First Amendment (free speech and that sort of stuff)

b. The Second Amendment (right to bear arms)

c. The Fourth Amendment (search and seizure)

d. The Eighth Amendment (bail, cruel and unusual punishment)

A hint: this is not hard; it's just sophomoric.

"Light-Houses of the Skies"

I can't figure out whether to admire John Quincy Adams or simply shake my head in wonder at his political tone deafness. In 1825, while the rest of the country argued heatedly over whether the federal government could build roads, President Adams was urging Congress to erect "light-houses of the skies:"

Connected with the establishment of an university, or separate from it, might be undertaken the erection of an astronomical observatory, with provision for the support of an astronomer, to be in constant attendance of observation upon the phenomena of the heavens, and for the periodical publication of his observances. It is with no feeling of pride as an American that the remark may be made that on the comparatively small territorial surface of Europe there are existing upward of 130 of these light-houses of the skies, while throughout the whole American hemisphere there is not one. If we reflect a moment upon the discoveries which in the last four centuries have been made in the physical constitution of the universe by the means of these buildings and of observers stationed in them, shall we doubt of their usefulness to every nation? And while scarcely a year passes over our heads without bringing some new astronomical discovery to light, which we must fain receive at second hand from Europe, are we not cutting ourselves off from the means of returning light for light while we have neither observatory nor observer upon our half of the globe and the earth revolves in perpetual darkness to our unsearching eyes?

I Guess Dan Rather Was "Jonathan Russelled"

By 1822, a number of politicians were already surreptitiously jockeying for position in the race to succeed James Monroe as president. Among the contestants were Henry Clay of Kentucky and John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts, who was then serving as President Monroe’s Secretary of State.

Clay and Adams had served together in 1814 as two of the five members of the American delegation that had negotiated the treaty with Great Britain, known as the Treaty of Ghent, that settled the War of 1812. During the negotiations, there had been some tensions among the American delegation. The British took the position that the War terminated American rights to fish off the Labrador coast; in return, the British were prepared to give up their right to navigate on the Mississippi River. Adams, a New Englander, was determined to press the Labrador fisheries issue, although he never advocated conceding the latter issue. Westerner Henry Clay adamantly saw the Mississippi River as an American stream and the paramount issue. Ultimately, the Treaty did not mention or settle either issue.

A third member of the American delegation at Ghent had been Jonathan Russell, who in the spring of 1822 was serving as a Representative from Massachusetts in the House. Although from Massachusetts, Russell was a Clay man in 1822, and he came up – either with or without Clay’s connivance – with an ingenious scheme to discredit Clay’s rival Adams.

Russell arranged for another member of the House to demand that the executive branch produce a letter – which Russell believed had been lost – that Ghent delegate Russell had written at the conclusion of the negotiations. Russell then produced a “true copy,” which portrayed Adams at Ghent as one who “would barter the patriotic blood of the West for blubber, and exchange ultra-Allegheny scalps for codfish.”

Adams, however, had the last laugh. He was able to locate the original letter and establish that the “copy” was nothing of the sort and had been fabricated years later. Adams’s destruction of Russell was so devastating that for a time a new phrase entered the language: “to be Jonathan Russelled.”

The Origin of "Godlike Daniel"

On August 2, 1826, Daniel Webster delivered a eulogy on the lives and services of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson at Faneuil Hall in Boston. So magnificent was the speech that, upon its conclusion, tremendous cheers roared through the hall -- although "inappropriate indeed for the occasion," according to Webster's friend and fellow Dartmouth alumnus George Ticknor.

The eulogy also earned Webster the appellation "Godlike Daniel:"

Three days later, an obscure temperance journal in Boston [called the National Philanthropist] commented, "To say of this production that it was eloquent, would be too common an expression to apply to such a performance. It was profound -- it was sublime -- it was godlike."

Merrill D. Peterson, The Great Triumvirate: Webster, Clay, and Calhoun, at 111.