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Been reading David O. Stewart’s “The Summer of 1787,” about the Constitutional Convention. When James Madison says of the Articles of Confederation that “the present system neither has nor deserves advocates,” or Alexander Hamilton calls for the convention noting “the embarrassment which characterizes the present state of affairs,” I think of the dog and pony show conjured up by our would-be leaders and opinion makers while they ignore today’s threats to our lives and liberties.
I liked Washington’s neighbor, George Mason, who like Patrick Henry, (“I smell a rat.”) never did approve of the Constitution. He called the delegates “knaves, fools, coxcombs and office seekers,” and insisted that it should be easy to amend the Constitution because “the plan to be formed will certainly be defective.”
At one point when the delegates were at each others throats, Benjamin Franklin leaked to a reporter that “So great is the unanimity we hear, that it has been proposed to call the hall in which they assemble –Unanimity Hall.” Another time things got so bad that even freethinking Franklin proposed that they begin each session with a prayer. Hamilton opposed this, warning that it might scare the public if they were to hear that the delegates were resorting to prayer, and another delegate pointed out that they had no funds to pay a preacher to lead them in prayer. So no prayer was said.
-And the shameless panderers in our state legislature have defiled the statehouse with one of those electronic signs like you see at Quick E Mart to spell out the words “In God We Trust.”
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