Armchair Travel
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Some Damn Fine Oratory From 'Black Daniel' Webster
I picked up a book called The Revolutionary Age of Andrew Jackson by Robert V. Remini which I read in the sauna at the gym.
It profiles all the picturesque characters of the age: Martin Van Buren (the Little Magician), Henry Clay (Harry of the West), James Calhoun (the Cast Iron Man), John Quincy Adams (the gloomy misanthrope) and "Black Daniel" Webster.
Webster was very swarthy - hence the name - and the great John Stark once said, "Daniel, your face is pretty black, but it isn't so black as your father's was with gunpowder at the Bennington fight." High praise indeed. Stark defeated a foraging party of "Gentleman Johnny" Burgoyne at that battle, which made possible the great victory at Saratoga.
Anyway, Calhoun, the Cast Iron Man, was vice president, and when he found out he wouldn't be Jackson's successor, he started making trouble, advancing the doctrine of "nullification" which allowed states to invalidate federal legislation if they didn't like it. The doctrine was first used against tariffs, but clearly it would apply to restrictions on slavery as well.
There was a big showdown in the Senate in 1828 where Calhoun's representative, Robert Hayne of South Carolina, in a "closely argued and meticulously constructed speech" defended state sovreignty and nullification as the only way to preserve the Union.
Webster's friends wondered how he would respond to Hayne's carefully crafted arguments. "I will grind him to powder," Black Daniel told them, "and blow him away."
And he did: "I go for the Constitution as it is," he said, "and for the Union as it is. It is, Sir, the people's Constitution, the people's government, made for the people, made by the people, and answerable to the people."
"While the Union lasts," he went on, "we have high, exciting, gratifying prospects spread out before us, for us and our children. Beyond that I seek not to penetrate the veil. God grant that in my day, at least, that curtain shall not rise!
"God grant that on my vision never may be opened what lies behind! When my eyes shall be turned to behold for the last time the sun in heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken and dishonored fragments of a once glorious Union; on States dissevered, discordant, belligerent; on a land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, in fraternal blood!
"Let their last feeble and lingering glance rather behold the gorgeous ensign of the republic, now known and honored througout the earth, still full high advanced, its arms and trophies streaming in their original lustre, not a stripe erased or polluted nor a single star obscured, bearing for its motto no such miserable interrogatory as 'What is all this worth?' nor those other words of delusion and folly, 'Liberty first and Union afterwards.'
"But everywhere, spread all over in characters of living light, blazing on all its ample folds, as they float over the sea and over the land, and on every wind under the whole heavens, that other sentiment, dear to every true American heart -- Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable!" ¶ 6:25 AM 1 comments
It profiles all the picturesque characters of the age: Martin Van Buren (the Little Magician), Henry Clay (Harry of the West), James Calhoun (the Cast Iron Man), John Quincy Adams (the gloomy misanthrope) and "Black Daniel" Webster.
Webster was very swarthy - hence the name - and the great John Stark once said, "Daniel, your face is pretty black, but it isn't so black as your father's was with gunpowder at the Bennington fight." High praise indeed. Stark defeated a foraging party of "Gentleman Johnny" Burgoyne at that battle, which made possible the great victory at Saratoga.
Anyway, Calhoun, the Cast Iron Man, was vice president, and when he found out he wouldn't be Jackson's successor, he started making trouble, advancing the doctrine of "nullification" which allowed states to invalidate federal legislation if they didn't like it. The doctrine was first used against tariffs, but clearly it would apply to restrictions on slavery as well.
There was a big showdown in the Senate in 1828 where Calhoun's representative, Robert Hayne of South Carolina, in a "closely argued and meticulously constructed speech" defended state sovreignty and nullification as the only way to preserve the Union.
Webster's friends wondered how he would respond to Hayne's carefully crafted arguments. "I will grind him to powder," Black Daniel told them, "and blow him away."
And he did: "I go for the Constitution as it is," he said, "and for the Union as it is. It is, Sir, the people's Constitution, the people's government, made for the people, made by the people, and answerable to the people."
"While the Union lasts," he went on, "we have high, exciting, gratifying prospects spread out before us, for us and our children. Beyond that I seek not to penetrate the veil. God grant that in my day, at least, that curtain shall not rise!
"God grant that on my vision never may be opened what lies behind! When my eyes shall be turned to behold for the last time the sun in heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken and dishonored fragments of a once glorious Union; on States dissevered, discordant, belligerent; on a land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, in fraternal blood!
"Let their last feeble and lingering glance rather behold the gorgeous ensign of the republic, now known and honored througout the earth, still full high advanced, its arms and trophies streaming in their original lustre, not a stripe erased or polluted nor a single star obscured, bearing for its motto no such miserable interrogatory as 'What is all this worth?' nor those other words of delusion and folly, 'Liberty first and Union afterwards.'
"But everywhere, spread all over in characters of living light, blazing on all its ample folds, as they float over the sea and over the land, and on every wind under the whole heavens, that other sentiment, dear to every true American heart -- Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable!" ¶ 6:25 AM 1 comments
Friday, January 18, 2008
Holes Has Something For Everyone
¶ 8:07 AM 0 comments
If you have a fifth-grader, or if you teach fifth grade, chances are you've read Holes by Louis Sachar, or at least seen the movie. I read it while substitute teaching in fifth-grade classrooms, and watched the movie when one teacher left it as a treat for the class.
But you don't have to be a fifth grader to enjoy this book. The stodgy New York Times Book Review and the Boston Sunday Globe gave it rave reviews. It also won the National Book Award and the Newbery Medal, and it was made into an excellent movie as well, starring Jon Voight and Sigourney Weaver.
For the fifth grader, Holes has characters with names like Armpit and Barfbag. But this book has something for everyone else, too: a gypsy curse, buried treasure, a bandit name Kissin' Kate Barlow, deadly spotted lizards, a fateful interracial kiss, a baseball player with a foot odor problem, and a delightful sense of irony.
Most of the action takes place at Camp Green Lake where nothing is green and there is no lake. Stanley Yelnats has been sent there for a crime he didn't commit, and he finds himself digging holes all day along with other juvenile offenders, under the watchful eye of Mr. Sir (Jon Voight) and the Warden (Sigourney Weaver).
It's not a very pleasant place, but Stanley takes it all pretty philosophically and just blames it on his "no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather."
And he has an old family song that's pretty philosophical, too:
"If only, if only," the woodpecker sighs,
But you don't have to be a fifth grader to enjoy this book. The stodgy New York Times Book Review and the Boston Sunday Globe gave it rave reviews. It also won the National Book Award and the Newbery Medal, and it was made into an excellent movie as well, starring Jon Voight and Sigourney Weaver.
For the fifth grader, Holes has characters with names like Armpit and Barfbag. But this book has something for everyone else, too: a gypsy curse, buried treasure, a bandit name Kissin' Kate Barlow, deadly spotted lizards, a fateful interracial kiss, a baseball player with a foot odor problem, and a delightful sense of irony.
Most of the action takes place at Camp Green Lake where nothing is green and there is no lake. Stanley Yelnats has been sent there for a crime he didn't commit, and he finds himself digging holes all day along with other juvenile offenders, under the watchful eye of Mr. Sir (Jon Voight) and the Warden (Sigourney Weaver).
It's not a very pleasant place, but Stanley takes it all pretty philosophically and just blames it on his "no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather."
And he has an old family song that's pretty philosophical, too:
"If only, if only," the woodpecker sighs,
"The bark on the trees was as soft as the skies."
While the wolf waits below, hungry and lonely,
Crying to the moo-oo-oon,
"If only, if only."
If you're looking for a hilarious, engaging read, Holes is the book for you.
If you're looking for a hilarious, engaging read, Holes is the book for you.
Monday, January 07, 2008
A Cool Cat From the Seventh Century
Continuing with the fun I had reading Tony Ellis' book Walking to Canterbury. It's a lot of scholarship about Chaucer and the Middle Ages interspersed with his account of his walk from London to Canterbury and the people he meets.
In his discussion of the Monk's Tale, he points out that a monk's life was not all sacrifice and suffering, quoting a seventh-century monk who loved his cat, Pangur Ban, so much that he wrote a poem about him:
I and Pangur Ban my cat,
'Tis a like task we are at.
Hunting mice is his delight.
Hunting words I sit all night.
'Tis a merry thing to see.
At our tasks how glad are we
When at home we sit and find
Entertainment to our mind.
'Gainst the wall he sets his eye,
Full and fierce and sharp and sly.
'Gainst the wall of knowledge, I
All my little wisdom try.
So in peace our task we ply-
Pangur Ban my cat and I.
In our arts we find our bliss.
I have mine, and he has his.
*** ¶ 2:44 PM 0 comments
In his discussion of the Monk's Tale, he points out that a monk's life was not all sacrifice and suffering, quoting a seventh-century monk who loved his cat, Pangur Ban, so much that he wrote a poem about him:
I and Pangur Ban my cat,
'Tis a like task we are at.
Hunting mice is his delight.
Hunting words I sit all night.
'Tis a merry thing to see.
At our tasks how glad are we
When at home we sit and find
Entertainment to our mind.
'Gainst the wall he sets his eye,
Full and fierce and sharp and sly.
'Gainst the wall of knowledge, I
All my little wisdom try.
So in peace our task we ply-
Pangur Ban my cat and I.
In our arts we find our bliss.
I have mine, and he has his.
*** ¶ 2:44 PM 0 comments
