A story about being open and catching inspiration,,,

16 Dec 2023 1 Comment

by jeannepoland in Poetry Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Epiphany

It was on this day in 1791 that the Bill of Rights was adopted by the United States, becoming the most sacred and debated laws in the history of our country. One of the people most responsible for the content of the Bill of Rights was a man named George Mason, who might not have even been a part of the process if he hadn’t been a lifelong friend of George Washington’s. He was a wealthy landowner in Virginia, and he liked to debate political ideas, but he wasn’t interested in politics because he shied away from public life.
Then, when the Revolutionary War broke out and George Washington was named Commander of the Continental Army, George Mason reluctantly took over his friend’s seat on the Virginia legislature. When the Virginia legislators held a convention to reorganize their state government, George Mason arrived late and found himself assigned to the committee to write the new state constitution.
So it was only by chance that Mason wound up writing Virginia’s “Declaration of Rights.” Mason had read the philosopher John Locke as a young man, and he shared Locke’s idea that all people are born with certain rights, and that government’s purpose should be to protect those rights. And George Mason believed that the best way to protect those rights would be to list them in the constitution itself. Virginia’s “Declaration of Rights,” was the first time in modern history that a government specified the absolute rights of individuals.
While George Mason was working on Virginia’s “Declaration of Rights,” he took under his wing a 25-year-old legislator named James Madison. Madison was deeply influenced by Mason’s ideas about freedom, and he passed them along to his friend Thomas Jefferson.
Mason mostly sat on the sidelines during the rest of the Revolutionary War, but after the war he was asked to participate in the Constitutional Convention. The trip from his home in Virginia to Philadelphia was the greatest distance he ever traveled, and it was a trip he quickly began to regret. He found that he disagreed with the other delegates on numerous issues, especially slavery, which he thought should be outlawed in the new constitution.
But more than anything, George Mason fought for the inclusion of a list of rights in the national constitution, just as he had written it into the Virginia Constitution. But when he brought his idea for a bill of rights to a vote, it failed by a wide margin. And so, when it came time to sign to new U.S. Constitution, George Mason was one of the only men there who refused. His decision created quite a stir, and it even ruined his lifelong friendship with George Washington. The two men never visited each other again.
But Mason hoped that his protest would encourage an eventual passage of a bill of rights, and it was ultimately his former protégé, James Madison, who made the Bill of Rights a reality. Madison introduced the Bill of Rights into the first session of Congress in 1789, and he used Virginia’s Declaration of Rights as the model. Madison originally supported the adoption of 17 amendments, which was eventually trimmed to 12, of which 10 were adopted, including the freedom of religion, freedom of speech, the right to bear arms, the right to privacy, and the right to a fair trial. George Mason died in 1792, a year after those freedoms and rights became law. (written by Garrison Keillor)

freedom of religion

freedom of speech

the right to bear arms

the right to privacy

the right to a fair trial

George Washington

22 Feb 2016 Leave a comment

by jeannepoland in Birthday, George Washington, Poetry Tags: , , , , , , , ,

George Washingtom

It’s the birthday of the first president of the United States, George Washington, born in Westmoreland County, Virginia (1732), whose favorite foods were mashed sweet potatoes with coconut, string beans with mushrooms, cream of peanut soup, salt cod, and pineapples. He lost all of his teeth except for one by — according to second president John Adams — cracking Brazilian nuts between his jaws. He got dentures made out of a hippopotamus tusk, designed especially to fit over his one remaining real tooth. But the hippo dentures were constantly rubbing against that real tooth so that he was constantly in pain. He used opium to alleviate the pain.

He snored very loudly, and instead of wearing a powdered wig like other fashionable people, he put powder on his own hair, which was naturally a reddish brown. He was not good at spelling and he had a speech impediment. George Washington’s inaugural address was the shortest inaugural address in U.S. history: It was only 133 words long and took him just 90 seconds to deliver.

President George Washington established the United States Post Office on this date in 1792. He did so by signing the Postal Service Act. Prior to the Revolutionary War, there were very few official standards when it came to mail delivery. Some people hired couriers, or asked friends to deliver letters for them. Taverns served as informal mail-gathering centers. The British government established the post of postmaster general in 1707, but that task was managed from Britain, and it didn’t have too much practical effect on how the mail was handled in the colonies. Benjamin Franklin was named postmaster general in 1737, but was fired and sent back to America after he abused the power of his office to spy for the colonies.

A printer named William Goddard brought the original plans for a formal American postal service before the Continental Congress in 1774. Goddard published a newspaper, the Pennsylvania Chronicle, and he wanted to make sure that it would be delivered to his readers. His paper supported American independence, and postal agents working for the British crown constantly undermined his delivery efforts. He decided to draw up plans for an independent colonial post. Benjamin Franklin backed Goddard’s plan, and Franklin was named the first Postmaster General when the Constitutional Post began operations in 1775. Franklin held the position for about year, during which time he established overnight mail delivery between New York and Philadelphia, and standardized delivery rates.

The Postal Service Act guaranteed a free press and the inexpensive delivery of newspapers. It also made it illegal for postal officials to open private mail, and laid the legislative groundwork for Congress to expand the Post Office as the new nation grew. It established 75 regional post offices and 2,400 miles of postal routes, and it set the framework that the U.S. Postal Service still operates within today.