Blog 369 – 08.09.2016

I recently remarked in print that I do not have much use for any group that thinks it is superior to others or for individuals who think they are better than others for that matter. I do think each and every one of us is a magnificent being with remarkable potential. The fact that for whatever reason that potential is not manifested does not diminish the value of that one life and in no way makes anyone superior to or inferior to anyone else. The fact that anyone needs to believe they are superior to someone else points to a deep seated inferiority complex in my estimation.

In the beginning of our struggle to be free of British rule the thirteen colonies envisioned themselves as thirteen sovereign states, separate countries loosely bound by a common cause, Independence, and a common enemy, Great Britain. The Articles of Confederation that the Continental  Congress drew up to conduct the War of Independence set up a central government so weak, on purpose, because they feared another government like the one they had endured under British rule. The Continental Congress had a hard time getting the states to contribute funding for the Army. The Continental Army was poorly supplied and many who fought were never paid in full for their service. George Washington, his aide, Lt. Colonel Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison, also military men knew the Confederation would never survive as they were and that the United States needed to become a single sovereign nation. The Quartet: The Making Of The Second American Revolution 1783 – 1789, by Pulitzer Prize winner Joseph J. Ellis, tells the story of those dicey days when a disjointed and fractured confederation of states was transformed by a few daring and bold men of vision into a single nation, the United States of America.

So much is made of Individualism but this country was not created alone by rugged individualists but rather by the efforts of many in unison striving to form a more perfect union. The U.S. Constitution was a far superior document to The Articles of Confederation and helped created a sovereign nation that has lasted far longer than even its writers ever thought it would. Even Abraham Lincoln “four score and seven years” after the signing of the Declaration of Independence in the Gettysburg Address said some were still questioning whether “a nation of the people, by the people, and for the people could long endure.” The United States is still very much an experiment in a republican form of government where the special interests are always in a tug of war with “the public good.” The  U.S. Constitution has stood for two hundred and thirty three years as a wonderful example of state craft and compromise by some pretty determined and smart dudes, yeah I said dudes, I mean what else could you call guys wearing powdered wigs, knee length pants and stockings. The 1970’s men wearing platform shoes, bell bottom pants, big pointy collared tight shirts and sideburns had nothing on these dudes.The working document they created still works. That is in large part because it is a living, ever changing, and reinterpreted  document by a people ever striving to “form a more perfect union.”

Your friend and fellow traveler,
David White