Tag: Thomas Jefferson

Old Man River

Can you believe I’ve written all these Blatant Self-Promotion* posts about New Orleans and my book A Streetcar Named Murder and haven’t yet written about the most defining thing about the city–the Mississippi River?

Why, we would not be here if not for that mighty river, the Father of Waters.

Sometimes, just for shits and giggles, I try to imagine what it was like for the Europeans to see the Mississippi for the first time. Imagine you’re a colonizer, heading west and hacking your way through the Forest Primeval, and you suddenly come upon this enormous river. Or imagine you’re on a boat powered by the wind, following along the coastline of the Gulf of Mexico and suddenly the water becomes muddy and messy and dirty, as opposed to the sparklingly clear blues and greens you’d been seeing since sailing into the Gulf in the first place? And then to come into the delta, trying to find the primary channel, and finding yourself in the fast-moving currents of an enormous river? Spaniard Hernando de Soto was the first European (well, probably one of his men, but he was the leader so naturally took credit for it) to lay eyes on the river inland just below Natchez; a Spanish navigator had already mapped the Gulf coastline by this time. Father Marquette explored the river, as did Joliet later (Marquette and Joliet played a very big role in my learning of History as a child in Chicago; a nearby suburb of Chicago was named Joliet. So learning the history of the Chicago area taught me about the exploration of the river by the French, coming south from Quebec and along the St. Lawrence through the Great Lakes). De la Salle discovered the mouth of the river and claimed it and all the land in its valley for France; Iberville rediscovered the mouth about fifteen years later and began exploring up the river, eventually deciding to settle a port/town/colony on the shores of the river where there was high ground…and that settlement became New Orleans.

For the record, the location was actually the perfect place for a city to be built, despite the climate, the water and the swampy land. New Orleans is the southern-most point on the river that is protected from the sea enough to accommodate shallow water ships but where it’s also deep enough to handle ocean-going ships. (The river is incredibly low right now–too low for barges to make it down here.) New Orleans became a vitally important city as the continent was slowly and gradually colonized by Europeans and later their descendants; water was the easiest mode of transportation before railroads and roads, and you can get almost everywhere within the two mountain ranges of the northern American continent by water. I think you used to be able to actually sail into the St. Lawrence down through the Great Lakes and down the Chicago and Illinois rivers to connect to the Mississippi and the Gulf, but am not sure if that is still true.

Because of the river and the Gulf, New Orleans became one of the most important ports in the western hemisphere and gradually one of the largest cities in the United States, and certainly one of the wealthiest.

I love the Mississippi River. It’s fascinated me since childhood; this enormous river that divides the country in two. As a child fascinated by history–beginning with US history–the importance of the Mississippi, and how it was linked to how the country grew and developed over the centuries, and how it was vital strategically and economically to a developing nation. The early fall of New Orleans during the Civil War guaranteed the Confederacy would fail. When Thomas Jefferson offered to buy New Orleans from Napoleon, the French conquerer, recognizing that without New Orleans the rest of the Louisiana territory was essentially worthless, threw in most of the North American continent in for a few million more. The primary takeaway for me from reading Mark Twain was his love of the river that I came to share. I also loved that I moved to New Orleans, practically the furthest south you can live on the river, from Minneapolis, practically the furthest north you can live on it. I can remember on a trip to the South from Chicago that we detoured and went to where the Ohio and Mississippi meet; I actually stood on that corner of Kentucky with the Ohio to my left and the Mississippi to my right. (The Ohio used to fascinate me as well; another river pivotal to the colonization and conquest of the continent.) I remember thinking how cool it was that the Ohio was blue and the Mississippi brown; that the wall of blue ended at the wall of brown–but there was a blue streak running down the middle of the brown for a good distance.

I love living here by the river, and one of the things I miss the most about working on Frenchmen Street is I don’t get the opportunity to walk down to Jackson Square, climb the levee, and stroll along the Moon Walk beside the river. It’s so massive that sometimes we forget how truly huge the river actually is; how when you fly into New Orleans over the river you can look from the window and see massive freighters that look like toys in a bathtub. Standing on the levee looking at the big freighters coming in or going out, they do seem almost like toys. I love how the city is below the river level, so when you’re driving down Tchoupitoulas the big ships are higher than the street.

I’d love to read about folk legends about the river, too–the size of the catfish and other creatures in its depths. And I want to write more about the river, too.

*Technically, I should be doing more of them, frankly.

O Say Can You See

The 4th of July; the supposed birthday of the United States of America, aka Independence Day.

It really isn’t the nation’s birthday, but rather the anniversary of the day that the thirteen English colonies along the Atlantic seaboard essentially said enough, and declared themselves to be free of the yoke of what they saw as royal and parliamentary tyranny; the war against the English had been going on for just over a year at this point, and the troubles between Mother England and her thirteen American daughters for just over ten years at this point.

As Constant Reader is aware, Gregalicious loves him some history. The United States did not spring into existence on July 4, 1776; the very concept of a “united states” was neither broached nor discussed during the process of the development of the Declaration of Independence, summarized in the previous paragraph (which leaves out, and/or ignores some very pertinent and important details).

The creation of the United States occurred eleven years later, in 1787, with the development and ratification of our true founding document; the Constitution. How the Constitution came into being is beautifully and intelligently described in one of my favorite books of history, Miracle at Philadelphia by Catherine Drinker Bowen. Bowen’s book describes the painstaking process through which our government was developed, written, and agreed to by representatives of the thirteen independent states, and the lengthy, seemingly endless debates, held over between these extraordinary men during the oppressive heat and humidity of a Philadelphia summer.

In the centuries since the Constitutional Convention, those Founding Fathers, those colonial Americans, have become rather deified in histories and common parlance; a pantheon of truly American gods whose names and reputations should never be besmirched or discussed in  human terms. But remarkable men as they were; they were also men, and they were, as such, just as flawed and complicated as any modern American. Thomas Jefferson had a slave as mistress, who also bore him numerous children; John Adams was not only vain but petty; and so on.

Of course the Constitution did not outlaw slavery, one of the country’s original sins; the repercussions of which are still felt today. The debates over slavery, the debates over the power of government and the freedoms held most dear, make for fascinating reading, even if one most always keep in mind the white supremacy that absolutely and positively drove almost every delegate at the convention. The United States was formed with only concerns for the rights of straight white men of European descent, and almost every freedom for the individual put into the document was for the benefit of straight white men–i.e. predicated on what they saw as abuses of their rights and privileges by the British government during the colonial period.

The ideals of the country, as set forth in this founding document which is still the basis for our government some two and a half centuries later, are most impressive; we have, as a nation, failed to live up to those ideals regularly. The founders’ compromises on slavery, their determination to make horrific compromises in order to forge a nation, unfortunately directly led to the sectional strife and divide that led to our bloodiest conflict, the Civil War, less than a hundred years after the Constitution was ratified. But even that conflict didn’t resolve the issues of white supremacy; racial conflict and strife continue to this day. The Constitution didn’t give women the right to vote or participate in the government; that didn’t come until 1920, and the equal rights of women are still not enshrined in the law to this day. Women are also still playing catch-up when it comes to representation in government either. All of our presidents have been men, and most elected officials to this day are primarily men. Racial equality is still a dream, an ideal, that we are still struggling to achieve; LGBTQ+ Americans also still are not seen as full citizens in the eyes of the law just yet.

And yet I love my country, despite its many flaws, despite its inability to live up to its founding ideals and the years of  floundering when it comes to equality for everyone un the eyes of the law. Our system is flawed because human beings are flawed; and we still have a ways to go before we are finally the nation of free people envisioned by those men in Philadelphia in 1787.

Here are the words Jefferson wrote in 1776, stirring words and ideals that we as Americans must continue to strive to achieve.

In CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

“When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

“That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”

“Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

“He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

“He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

“He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

“He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

“He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness of his invasions on the rights of the people.

“He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

“He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

“He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

“He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

“He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

“He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

“He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

“He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

“For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

“For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

“For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

“For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

“For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

“For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

“For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

“For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

“For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

“He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

“He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

“He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

“He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

“He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

“In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.”

“Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.”

“We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”

Happy 4th of July to all.

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Honey Hi

The book is coming along nicely, if slowly, but I feel that this weekend (no college football) will be a MOST excellent time for me to get caught up on it. I am also making terrific progress on the revision of the short story, and I have another to revise on top of it, so my work–around errands and cleaning–this weekend is cut out for me indeed.

But as I always say, I’d rather be busy–and holiday weekends are coming, as well. I’ve done the majority of my Christmas shopping already; Paul is, as always, a challenge as he simply buys what he wants when he wants it, and he never really wants much in the first place.

We’ve started watching Ray Donovan on Showtime, and we’re enjoying it so far. I’ve always been fascinated by Hollywood ‘fixers’–albeit the ones in the days of the big studios–so it’s kind of interesting to see a fictional series about one in the present day.

I am almost finished reading Gore Vidal’s Empire; it’s slow going, as so much of Vidal’s work is (although I’d really love to reread Julian the Apostate again; and The City and the Pillar as well). It’s part of his fictional ‘American history’ series, which I’ve not read. Vidal was, as one of my co-workers said, the kind of American intellectual we will probably never see again in this country; I tried to think, and have been trying to think, of whom the current day American intellectuals are, without much success. I don’t know if that’s my failing, or that of our society; I don’t know who the current day equivalent of Vidal or William F. Buckley Jr. would be. Vidal was incredibly intelligent, but there was also a sneering, condescending superiority to him that I never particularly cared for (Buckley was much the same); a sense that “if you don’t agree with me you are clearly mentally inferior.” No one likes to be told they’re stupid or not as smart as someone else; that puts me off even when it’s someone I agree with. Vidal had a deeply cynical view of American history and of the country itself; I’ve not read his essays on American history and politics so I am not sure if that cynical contempt was of the country or how it mythologized its past and the hand-over-heart patriotism it promotes; the concept of American exceptionalism, which does bear much deeper scrutiny than it gets as a general rule. I do know that he was fascinated by Aaron Burr (his fictional biography, Burr, was the first book in his series about American history) and felt he was an unappreciated American hero unjustly vilified by his enemies, whose view of him has come down to us through the centuries.

I’ve actually never read Burr, or any biographies of him; what I know of Burr has primarily come from reading biographies of his political enemies (Hamilton and Jefferson) or histories of the period that are slanted towards his enemies; it only stands to reason if Hamilton and Jefferson are to be heroes, than their enemies must therefore be villains. Yet Hamilton and Jefferson were political enemies; throw John Adams into the mix and you have quite a confusing mishmash of who is the bad guy/who is the good guy. The truth, of course, is they were human and a mix of both the good and the bad, despite the mythology.

Heavy thoughts for a Friday morning; and not where I really wanted my blog entry this morning to go.

Then again, I’m listening to the Hamilton cast show album, and Burr is mentioned periodically in Empire, so perhaps there was an inevitability to this, after all.

(And now, of course, I want to reread both The Federalist Papers and The Anti-Federalist Papers, damn you, Hamilton cast show recording!)

All right, perhaps it’s time to return to the Spice Mines.

Here’s today’s hunk: