American History: Ideology

 With the law, I have no use for originalism. Not in law school and certainly not now has it made sense: the past informs, it is not a prison.

Considering the rampant ignorance of historical knowledge in Americans, it is dangerous. I have a sister who believes this country was set up as a Christian nation. She sent me this link: https://www.facebook.com/share/16XTpKuTji/. I sent her this response:

I sent you the piece about the applicability of Sahria law - this is some BS dreamt up to scare people. But what most people don't understand is that if you weren't from England proper you came here under a different law. Scotland, Germany, France, Switzerland all had a different system of law. The Irish had the Brehon law but I think the English took that from them. Louisiana operates under a different legal system than Indiana. Are we to get to get rid of that state?

People who come here are not slaves anymore. Slaves have to accept what their masters tell them. Free people can say whatever they like. The real question is if their complaints are justified or not? We are not getting Danes and their like here because we do not have a real national health care system. I suppose this fellow would tell anyone complaining about no national health care should be sent back to Denmark.

He repeats that nonsense about this being a Christian country. It was not. We were set up as a country without a national church. Our ancestors knew how vile that institution could be. Especially the Scots who weave in and out of the Continental Congress and the Constitutional Convention.I was going to suggest googling conventeer but just go here: https://scotland-history.com/the-rise-of-the-covenanters-and-religious-conflict/. I suspect the Livingstons came over here to get away from that. But you can google Thirty Years War.

How does one baptize a nation? Without baptism, there is no remission of sins.  What soul does a nation have? A nation has no more soul than a rock. We are a nation of Christians - and Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, and Muslims. We always have been.

But then the question comes down to what kind of Christian. If only Protestants, then kiss colonial Maryland away. And if you will allow Roman Catholics, why are you a Protestant? Better check out the Northern Ireland Troubles if you want to see what "Christians" can do - in our own time.

Tell this fellow to read Jefferson's letter to the Danbury Baptists. He should also read the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, and his state's Bill of Rights. 

But, assuming this was a Christian country, it is not now. Christians do not turn away the stranger; Christians do not applaud torture and governmental murder; Christians favor feeding the poor. This was the Gospel reading for today:

    MATTHEW 25:31-46

    The Lord said, “When the Son of man comes in his glory and all the holy angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate them one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will place the sheep at his right hand, but the goats at the left. Then the king will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, O blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.’ Then he will say to those at his left hand, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ Then they also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?’ Then he will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it not to one of the least of these, you did it not to me.’ And they will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

I do not know why people keep repeating this nonsense. I suppose it's not having stayed awake in their history classes. Or they are too weak-minded to double check what they are being told. I notice he gives nothing to support his blather. That should have told you something right there.

She has not responded.

I want to add Joseph Ellis's  Leadership of the Founder from American Heritage. Ellis is not some wild-eyed fanatic, nor is American Heritage a publisher of flaky ideas.

 Second, they created the first wholly secular state. Before the American founding, it was assumed that state support for an established religion was a mandatory feature of all viable governments, because it enforced a consensus on the common values that made a collective sense of purpose possible. While many of the states retained various Protestant establishments well into the nineteenth century, the founders insisted on a complete separation of church and state at the national level, thereby overturning the long-standing presumption that only shared religious convictions could hold a nation together.

Third, they rejected the conventional wisdom, agreed upon since Aristotle, that political sovereignty was by definition singular and indivisible and must reside in one agreed-upon location. The Constitution defied this assumption by creating multiple and overlapping sources of authority in which the blurring of jurisdiction between federal and state levels, as well as between and among branches of government, became an asset rather than a liability. The very idea of sovereignty became problematic, and its rhetorical depository, “the people,” an inherently elusive location.

Ellis points out the Founders failures and their particular successes—they were human beings who met their moment in history as best they could. It was a white country; their imaginations and nerves failed them to abolish slavery and integrate the former slaves into the citizenry. But they knew their hypocrisy on this point; they knew what they created was not limited to whites.

Peter Cozzens's book review, Being Thomas Jefferson (American Heritage) makes a relevant point:

Any discussion of Jefferson and slavery must consider his relationship with his teenaged slave Sally Hemings, his late wife’s half-sister. Because Jefferson never wrote of her, Burstein is unable to provide any significant insights into what attracted Jefferson to the girl. But he was an ardent pursuer of beauty, so Burstein suggests she was beautiful. He assumes Jefferson felt tenderness toward Hemings but no inclination to elevate her from her subordinate position in the Monticello orbit. Burstein posits that the loss of his wife so devastated Jefferson that he was unwilling to expose himself again to such pain. Rather than remarry, as was customary in Southern society, he took a concubine with whom he could maintain a sexually active life without deep emotional involvement. Burstein summarizes the relationship in the context of Jefferson’s nature thusly:

“I am suggesting that we should reckon with the ‘Saly Hemings story’ as we do with evidence of Jefferson’s personal anxieties as these emerge in all he wrote over the years. He rationalized almost effortlessly. On the basis of his extensive reading and thinking, he was convinced that he knew what was best. He felt morally secure. He doled out advice. He willfully shaped his legacy (or at least tried to), and he managed his little mountain [Monticello] as he saw fit.”

In Jefferson’s feud with Alexander Hamilton over the future of the federal government, which Burstein explores in depth, he delves into the darker side of Jefferson’s psyche. Toward this political rival who orchestrated his removal from the Washington administration, Jefferson felt the deepest “contempt and disgust.” He was unable to recognize any good in an enemy, whom he could only traduce, and against whom he maintained smoldering revulsion. In the political arena, Hamilton “didn’t just frustrate Jefferson. He was the better Machiavellian.”

 If you want originalism, then you need to acknowledge what the Founders knew where they were acting wrongfully.

By stoppering up American life and thought into a sterile past, we ignore how we have risen above our limitations. Therein is the true greatness of America,

 sch 2/21