Happy New Year!     01/01/19

Skidaway Island State Park, Savannah, Georgia

 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.  The old has passed away; behold, the new has come!  ~ II Corinthians 5:17

 

It’s a good start to a new year!  I’m feeling quite a bit better today!  So much so, that by 10:00am I’d make sausage, eggs and toast for breakfast (unfortunately, I couldn’t really taste much of it . . .), took a shower, did three large loads of laundry, started dinner, took a short walk . . . .  and after all that . . . . took an hour nap from 10-11.  😊  But it sure felt good to be active again!  Don’t be too impressed, Blaine helped out with most of those tasks.

Then, in the afternoon, we took a short bike ride, and tried to figure out any possible way to visit nearby Wassaw Island Wildlife Refuge.  Unfortunately, just like we eventually remembered from last year, that can’t happen for us.  It’s only accessible by boat, and a kayak trip would entail about 15 hours of paddling and fighting the 5-6’ tidal changes.  ☹

And all while our pork and sauerkraut was slowly simmering in the crock pot.  Mmmmmmm . . . . . . . 

 

So, I started this new book, “Tempest at Dawn” by James D. Best.  It’s a work of fiction that took the author five years to complete, but it’s based on the facts surrounding the events of the Constitutional Convention.  Are you in the dark about this like I was?

It seems that within just four years after the Revolutionary War was officially ended, our new country was on the verge of falling apart and world powers were anxiously waiting in the wings to take over the fledgling nation.  American leadership saw this and stepped in, holding a meeting in the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania State House (now called Independence Hall) that lasted from May 14 – September 17, 1787.  Can you imagine a meeting that long today?  😊

It was a one-hundred-day debate that became known as the Constitutional Convention.  The purpose of the meeting was to decide how America was going to be governed.  We already had the Articles of Confederation, but many delegates had much bigger plans.  Men like James Madison ( founding father and our fourth president)

and the now famous, even though he’s been on our $10-bill since 1929 – Alexander Hamilton (founding father and started our US Treasury Dept)

wanted to create a new government rather than fix the existing one.  The delegates elected George Washington to preside over the Convention.

 

Seventy delegates were appointed by the original 13 states to attend the Convention, but only 55 were able to be there and Rhode Island was the only state who sent no delegates. (FYI – they were also the only ones who refused to ratify the Constitution once it was completed)

The result of this Convention was the United States Constitution.  But it wasn’t easy, and I think that’s what my new book is going to show.  According to history, there was fierce debate for two months and the committee as a whole couldn’t agree on anything.  So, on July 24^th, a Committee of Detail was put in charge of drafting the Constitution.  It consisted of five men who were delegates from South Carolina (John Rutledge), Connecticut (Oliver Ellsworth), Virginia (Edmund Randolph), Pennsylvania (James Wilson), and Massachusetts (Nathaniel Gorham) and the result of their work was discussed in great detail from August 6 – September 10.

The members of the Committee of Detail:

 

Once the scrutiny was completed, a Committee of Style was appointed to “polish up the document”.  This group consisted of five different men – William Samuel Johnson, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, Gouverneur Morris (yes – that’s his real first and last name!) and Rufus King.

Mr. Morris is credited with writing our Preamble:

“We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

 

The signing of the Constitution took place on September 17, 1787 with 39 signatures and was then distributed to the States for ratification.  Apparently, even this was an uphill battle, but we’ll save that for another time because I have one more bit of history to share that I dug up because of a comment in this book.

Did you know that Dolley Madison spent 16 years as America’s “First Lady”, even though her husband, James was only president for 8?

Pretty odd, donchathink?  Here’s what I found to answer that:

By the time he became President of the United States, Thomas Jefferson had been a widower for twenty years. His long-deceased wife, Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson, was therefore never able to carry out the functions of a presidential spouse. While some commentators continue to refer to her as Jefferson’s “First Lady,” this is a misnomer, for Martha Jefferson never assumed any of the responsibilities associated with that role. Jefferson was aware nonetheless that the duties his wife would have assumed, had she lived, needed to be performed.

When his two married daughters, Martha “Patsy” Jefferson Randolph and Maria “Polly” Jefferson Eppes, stayed with him at the presidential mansion, they occasionally took on the job of hostessing. Patsy was well versed in the expectations of such a role, having traveled to Paris with her father and experienced the lavishness and rigid protocol associated with French court life. Yet the gatherings Patsy hostessed were simple affairs and quite a departure from the formal levees her two predecessors had held. That simplicity reflected Thomas Jefferson’s desire to endow his administration with the touch of the “common man.”

Jefferson’s second daughter, Polly, presided as hostess when her sister was unable. She did so only for a short time, however, dying from complications due to childbirth in 1804. Although both daughters had taken on the occasional hostessing duty for their father, neither resided permanently in the presidential mansion during Jefferson’s time in office. As a result, the President looked elsewhere for a permanent substitute. Two months after his inauguration, he contacted the wife of his friend, political protege, and secretary of state, asking if she would be “so good as to dine with him to-day, and to take care of female friends expected.” Dolley Payne Todd Madison thus stepped into the role of Thomas Jefferson’s presidential hostess.

In that capacity, she followed the example set by Abigail Adams and infused the role of presidential spouse with an even deeper political consciousness. She attended Senate debates and sparred with the British minister’s wife, defending Jefferson’s relaxed notions of etiquette. She frequently asked husband James Madison for the latest news on the country’s international relations, suspended White House entertainments during the Barbary Wars, and supported the Lewis and Clark expedition by heading a campaign to gather necessary supplies.

Although politically attuned, Dolley was equally attentive to her role as social hostess. She handled receptions and, with Jefferson’s assent, even guided friends through the presidential mansion.

Jefferson seemed to acknowledge the important role his daughters and Dolley Madison occupied in his administration. Indeed, in revising The Canons of Etiquette To Be Observed by the Executive, a guide to presidential protocol, the President now included Rule 12: “The President and his family take precedence everywhere in public or private.”

Though the role of presidential hostess had taken on added prestige, the person who held the position was not immune to public censure or personal attack. Critics openly debated the nature of Dolley Madison’s relationship with Jefferson, especially as James Madison prepared to run for the presidency in 1808. Dolley’s friendship with Thomas Jefferson fueled rumors that she was his mistress. Jefferson seemed rather amused by it all, thinking that his “age and ordinary demeanor” would have negated such innuendo. Yet further insinuations levied by congressmen suggesting that Dolley traded sexual favors for electoral votes sparked a full-fledged sex scandal. Despite such tactics, James Madison won both his party’s nomination and the subsequent presidential election. Dolley Madison was about to become First Lady in her own right.

 

Can you believe that last part?  Even more than 200 years ago!  The more things change, the more they stay the same!

And thus ends our history lesson on this first day of the New Year.  Bet you’ll be glad when I’m healthy enough to get out there and do something, huh?  😊

We also spent some time in the afternoon spying on our Espionage neighbors.  They have this custom painted motorhome and when I checked their website, discovered that they are both supposedly former CIA operatives who are out to teach us common folk how to read people and spy, etc.  Great.  Just what the world needs.  More suspicion.  We make a lot of jokes about them watching us, but who are we to judge?  They’re recent full-timers (since December 18, 2018) who are out with their two toddlers enjoying a freeing lifestyle and probably need to make an income since they seem to be at least 20 years younger than us.  Who can say if they were even really in the CIA?  Interested in spy stuff?  Check ‘em out!

 

Record high temperatures here in Savannah – 83!

Oh, and I’d be in a lot of trouble if I forgot to mention the Rose Bowl game today!  Washington Huskies vs THE Ohio State Buckeyes, and Ohio State coach Urban Meyer’s last game before retirement.

The outcome?  Oh!  You Know it!  28-23 Victory!  Although, it wasn’t as decisive a victory as it should have been . . . .

O-H   I-O!

Go Bucks!