About Connections: Love it or hate it, history is a map. Those who hate history think it irrelevant; many who love history think it escapism. In truth, history is the clearest road map to how we got here: America in the 21st century.
There were both: politicians and statesmen.
They finally did it. They nominated a woman. When they did, the newspaper reported that people were “convulsed and shaken.”
It was not an easy decision. Any woman who wanted the job was suspect. They called her names and dug deep to find misdeeds.
Then, too, she won the nomination partly because she was running against a man who was crazier than a barn owl.
Nonetheless, they did it – first one ever.
It was an arduous process. The hotelier – popular, respected, and male – resigned from the position, leaving a void and leaving the parties scrambling for a replacement.
A real estate man looked like a good choice and many were prepared to back him, but then it was discovered he was not a true party man. Besides, he was not as stable as desired. The local attorney and political operative stepped in and recommended that the politicians not back him as it might hurt their own chances for re-election.
They heeded the attorney’s advice and threw their weight behind a sober banker – a tad boring, but stable. The attorney-at-law was back, shaking his finger and shaking his head. He had scuttled the real estate man’s ship and now moved in to sink the banker.
He stated firmly that the bank needed all his time and so he would be unable to do the job properly. The banker’s name was dropped and the panic within the party rose. Where would they find a candidate?
That attorney, the political strategist, wasn’t finished. He proclaimed he had a solution and, by gosh, he nominated a woman. A woman was nominated as U.S. postmistress before women could vote and before anyone found use for the term “postmistress” rather than “postmaster.”
The digging finally paid off and a plot was alleged. The attorney owned the building where the female nominee’s father had his tailor shop. The attorney extracted a promise from the woman that, when she was made postmistress, she would move the post office to the attorney’s building. The move would increase the lawyer’s rent roll substantially and also increase her father’s business by bringing daily traffic past his shop as townsfolk picked up and dropped off the mail.
The lawyer was exposed as self-serving. The female nominee was exposed as a victim of deception. The banker and the real estate man stepped out of politics permanently, and bloodshed was averted when the hotelier withdrew his resignation for the good of the town and remained postmaster. It was 1886. The town was Stockbridge. The hotel was the Red Lion Inn.
Philadelphia September 17, 1787
After three months of debate, approval of the Constitution hung in the balance. The final speech of Benjamin Franklin at the Federal Convention (in favor of the Constitution) resonates more than two centuries later. As the convention appeared to be split, Franklin rose to unite the representatives.
“I confess that I do not entirely approve this constitution at present [however] the older I grow the more apt I am to doubt my own judgments and pay more respect to the judgments of others…our enemies are waiting with confidence to hear that our councils are confounded…[that we] only meet to cut each other’s throats…”
Since Franklin had always believed that they hang together or most assuredly hang separately and that the colonists had more in common that what separated them, he said, “Thus I consent, Sir, to this Constitution.”
Reminding the delegates of their obligation to the people first, he concluded, “If every one of us, returning to our constituents, were to report objections…and endeavor to gain partisans, we might prevent it [the Constitution] being generally received and thereby lose all the salutary effects and great advantages among foreign nations and among ourselves resulting from our real or apparent unanimity. I hope therefore that for ourselves and our prosperity that we act unanimously…I cannot help but wish that every member of the convention who may still have doubts, on this one occasion, doubt a little his own infallibility…help make manifest our unanimity…put his name to this instrument.”
On that day, the Constitution of the United States “passed by unanimous consent.”
It’s tough; we are not them: neither the brilliant and practical Founding Fathers nor, thankfully, the manipulators of the Gilded Age. We mean well, but we are swimming in a sea of hate-speech trying to navigate without facts bumping up against supposition and outright self-serving lies.
In the circumstances it is difficult to decide where we are, much less where to go next. What can we do? Doubt a little our own infallibility? Investigate and seek the truth? Think as clearly as possible and remember what another female politician, Nancy Astor, said: “The main dangers in this life are the people who want to change everything… or nothing,” and “I endeavor to take into politics that which my mother taught me – good manners.”
Then vote and pray.
