I was talking with one of my friends at the Y last Friday morning and the conversation drifted, as it always does, all over the place.
We eventually started talking about family heirlooms and how the current generation—Nancy and I have two members of one, she doesn’t—has no interest in them. The silver service grandma used to dig out of the bottom dresser drawer when people were coming over for a special occasion, the doilies great aunt Marge made, the quilt (oh, lord, the quilts!) from who knows?
The nick-nacks from the places we and our forebears visited—the ash tray from the Great Smokeys (a clever pun of a souvenir), the paperweight with a picture of an enrupting Old Faithful embedded in it, matchbooks galore from hotels and motels long closed and either rotted or demolished, dried up pens from the same places, an old felt pennant that says “Rock City.”
All of that STUFF.
The coal oil lamp from the days before farms had electricity, the radio with a built-in 78 rpm record player, the salters that used to be placed on the dinner table for special occasions so people could dip their radishes in some salt before eating them, the stiff old baseball glove that great uncle Herb used in the 1920s.
My mother-in-law, Yuba Hanson, referred to STUFF as things having a “sedimental value,” being as meaningful to someone else as the dust that gathers in the corners of seldom-used and thus seldom-cleaned rooms, like sediment.
And then we slid into discussing disposing of this or that relative’s clothes after their deaths—parceling things out to surviving relatives who find something close to still being in style and giving the rest to Goodwill or the Salvation Army, and taking dishes and cooking utensils to this or that re-sell-it shop.
And I asked—–“What do you think will happen to Queen Elizabeth’s clothes.”
Yes, we really should be more reverential about the late Her Majesty (by the way, how long to do you have to be dead before you are no longer “late?). There are millions of people, probably, in the United Kingdom who would take umbrage at such a comment. But this is the United States and we cut to the chase.
We do not expect to see a sign on Buckingham Palace Road with an arrow pointing the way to London SW1A 1AA reading “Garage Sale.” It’s not uncommon to see a few racks of no-longer-fitting clothes in garage sales. But we’re not going to see anything of the sort at Buckingham Palace.
Queen Elizabeth was known for her hats—which matched the rest of her attire when she was out in public. What is to become of them?
This grossly irreverent thought has occurred that should offend so many people:
We understand that it is customary within the Catholic Church for the galero, the red ceremonial wide-brimmed tasseled silk hat of Cardinals, to be suspended from the rafters of the cathedral in which they served a month after their deaths.
The first Queen Elizabeth was the daughter of King Henry VIII, the king who broke with the Catholic Church and created the Anglican, or Episcopal, Church as the Church of England. Perhaps her large collection of hats could be distributed to the oldest Anglican churches in England, one to each, and be lifted to the rafters as a tribute to the person who headed the Church of England longer than anyone in its 488-year history.
We are aware that some will find this discussion unsavory. But to common folks such as most of us who deal with the disposal of the worldly goods of family members who have left us, the question might lurk somewhere in the recesses of our minds but we are afraid to ask.
And she had an irreverent side to her, too. Ten years ago, some might remember, she opened the London Olympics by “parachuting” into the stadium. She did a video with James Bond (Daniel Craig) who went to Buckingham Palace to provide her security as she went to the royal helicopter and headed to the stadium where a stunt double jumped out of the chopper and moments later the real Elizabeth was introduced in the stadium.
Or there is the video she shot of tea with Paddington Bear in which he offered her a marmalade sandwich only to see her reach into her ever-present purse and pull out one she claimed she always kept for emergencies.
Both are on Youtube along with other moments when the Queen was just Elizabeth. I have a feeling she would have enjoyed doing a turn on Downton Abbey if the story line were to continue another eighty years beyond where the latest movie left off.
We probably would not have written this irreverent entry if we had not seen three news stories the day after Her Majesty’s death. One asked what would become of her beloved dogs? She had four or five dogs, “two Corgis named Muick and Sandy, a Dorgi called Candy, and two Cocker Spaniels,” as Newsweek reported them. There was much speculation already.
The second news story reported that the producers of the Netflix television series “The Crown,” a biopic inspired by the life of Queen Elizabeth II, had decided to pause the filming of the sixth and apparent final year of the series “as a mark of respect” on the day she died. We have seen no date for resumption of the filming although it appears it won’t happen until after her funeral. The series’ website says it is about “the political rivalries and romance of Queen Elizabeth II’s reign and the events that shaped the second half of the twentieth century.” The writer of the series, Peter Morgan, says it is “a love letter to her.”
And ABC was quick to assure subjects of the United Kingdom that their money with Her Majesty’s face on it would still be the currency of the realm. She was the first British Royal to have a photo on paper bills, in 1960. The Bank of England has indicated more details about changes in currency will be announced after the 10-day mourning period.
A spokesman for the Bank of Canada says there are no plans to change the face on that country’s currency. The same is true in Australia although a new $5 note with the image of King Charles will be issued at some undetermined date. New Zealand has the same plans although its new bill will be a $20 bill.
That’s paper money. Coinage?
The custom of the reigning monarch being on coins began with the last King Charles, the 17th Century Charles II. The custom is to issue new coins with the new monarch facing the opposite direction the immediate past-monarch faced.
It is said she had a “wicked” sense of humor—or humour as her people would spell it.
I wonder if she ever counted the number of hats she had and laughed.
“Unprecedented” is a word frequently heard these days in our national political discussions. We thought it might be interesting to see what other times “unprecedented” has been applied to our Presidents. “Unpresidented,” if you will, although it isn’t a real word.
It was unprecedented when the nation selected its first President who was not a member of an organized political party. He also was the first President unanimously elected, a truly unprecedented feat: George Washington.
The idea that a President would never veto a bill while in office was unprecedented when John Adams did, or didn’t, do it. Adams had a lot of “not” precedents: the first President who did not own slaves; the first President who was a lawyer; the first President to lose a re-election bid and the first President who did not attend the inauguration of his successor.
Thomas Jefferson’s defeat of an incumbent President (Adams) was unprecedented. (So was the method of his election. In those days the President and Vice-President each accumulated electoral votes. Jefferson and his running mate, Aaron Burr, each got 73 electoral votes. Incumbent John Adams had 65 but his running mate, Charles Pinkney, only had 64. The House of Representatives cast 36 ballots before Jefferson won 10 of the 16 state ballots. Burr had four and Maryland and Vermont delegations tied within the delegation. All of this was unprecedented, too, of course.)
James Madison took the unprecedented step of asking Congress for a declaration of war.
The election of Senator James Monroe to the presidency was unprecedented.
John Quincy Adams’ election was unprecedented because he was the first President who lost the popular vote. (None of the candidates got a majority of the electoral vote, throwing the election into the House of Representatives under the 12th Amendment. Thirteen state delegations favored Adams, seven favored Andrew Jackson and four favored William H. Crawford.)
Andrew Jackson’s administration was the first administration to pay off the entire national debt.
Martin Van Buren’s presidency was unprecedented because he was the first President who was born an American citizen (all of his predecessors had been born as British subjects).
The death of William Henry Harrisons while in office was unprecedented.
The House of Representatives took an unprecedented vote to impeach President John Tyler. It failed.
James K. Polk took the unprecedented step of refusing to seek a second term.
Zachary Taylor had never held a public office before becoming President, an unprecedented event.
Millard Fillmore took the unprecedented step of installing a kitchen stove in the White House.
His successor, Franklin Pierce, took the unprecedented step of installing central heating in the White House.
James Buchanan was our first bachelor president. Historians debate whether he was gay.
No president had been murdered until John Wilkes Booth took the unprecedented step with Abraham Lincoln, who is the only president to hold a United States patent.
The House of Representatives held a successful unprecedented impeachment vote against Andrew Johnson. The Senate held an unprecedented trial and failed to convict him.
U. S. Grant vetoed more than fifty bills, an unprecedented number.
It was unprecedented in modern election history when Rutherford B. Hayes won the electoral vote but not the popular vote.
James Garfield was an unprecedented President because he was left-handed or ambidextrous.
Chester Arthur took the unprecedented step of having an elevator installed in the White House.
Grover Cleveland set several precedents—the first President married in the White House; the first to have a child while President, and the first President to veto more than 100 bills.
Benjamin Harrison set a precedent by being the first President to have his voice recorded.
William McKinley was the first president to ride in an automobile.
Teddy Roosevelt set a precedent by becoming the first president to ride an airplane. (He got aboard a Wright Brothers airplane piloted by Arch Hoxsey and flew for about four minutes at Kinloch Field in St. Louis. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NaFulqGGkwk). He also took an unprecedented trip on a submarine.
The first president to throw out the first ceremonial pitch of the baseball season: William Howard Taft.
The first president to hold regular news briefings was Woodrow Wilson. He also took the unprecedented stop of appointing a Jew to the U.S. Supreme Court, Louis Brandeis.
Warren G. Harding learned of his election in an unprecedented way—he heard about it on the radio.
In 1927 the Lakota Sioux tribe took the unprecedented step of adopting a U.S. President as a member of the Lakota nation. Calvin Coolidge.
Herbert Hoover took the unprecedented step of having a telephone installed on his desk.
Franklin D. Roosevelt set a precedent by serving more than two terms. Among his other precedents—the first to fly across the Atlantic and the first to establish 100 days as the first benchmark for accomplishments in office.
The Secret Service set a precedent when it made Harry Truman the first President to have a code name (General). Television set a precedent by televising his 1949 inauguration.
Television set a precedent when it gave one of its Emmy Awards to President Eisenhower who was the first President to appear on color television.
First President who was a Catholic: John F. Kennedy. He also set a precedent by being the first former Boy Scout elected to the office.
The first President to be inaugurated on an airplane was Lyndon Johnson. He also set precedents by appointing the first African-American to the U.S. Supreme Court and appointing the first African-American to serve in a cabinet position
Richard Nixon set a precedent when he attended a National Football League game. Also: First President o resign.
First President never elected to the office or to the office of Vice-President: Gerald Ford.
Jimmy Carter broke precedent when he went by a nickname instead of the formal James E. Carter Jr. As we write this, he moves into unprecedented territory by living longer than 97 years and being married for more than 75 of them.
Ronald Reagan set a precedent when he was re-elected, the first President re-elected older than 70 (73 at the time). He also set a precedent by nominating a woman to the U.S. Supreme Court.
George H. W. Bush set a precedent when he became the first President to pardon a Thanksgiving turkey.
First President who was a Rhodes Scholar, to have an official White House website, and to perform at a jazz festival (saxophone): Bill Clinton
First President to achieve a 90% approval rating in modern polling: George W. Bush.
America set a precedent by electing African-American Barack Obama, who was the first president born outside the 48 continental United States (Hawaii) and who was the first to endorse same-sex marriage.
First President with no prior public service experience, first to be impeached twice, first president to never see an approval rating above 50%, first president to refuse to publicly acknowledge re-election defeat: Donald Trump.
Joe Biden has set a precedent by being in office past his 77th birthday. He’s the first President to get more than 80-million votes.
First President to be indicted by a grand jury? The first President to be brought to trial on criminal charges? The first President to wear a prison uniform? These are unprecedented possibilities that many hope never come to pass while many others hope come true.
That’s because we are living in unprecedented times.
Wire service reporters used to do something called a “new top” as stories developed. If something happened reasonably soon after an original story was sent out on the wire, the reporter would write a new lede that would replace the opening paragraph or paragraphs, and editors down the line could use it and graft the rest of the story behind it.
Today we offer a new top to an old story that we related in this space on September 5, 2016. It was about the naming of the Lake of the Ozarks.
Construction of Bagnell Dam was completed in April, 1931 and the water reached spillway level in May.
A year-and-a-half before the dam was finished, a controversy broke out about what to name the reservoir. Union Electric, now Ameren, the builder of the dam, found itself fighting an effort in January, 1930 to name the reservoir “Lake Osage.”
A land company had bought property on the planned lakeshore and had gone to the Camden County Recorder of Deeds to register the name “Lake Osage.” But the development of the lake was a private enterprise by Union Electric which immediately said the proposed name was not authorized and would not be allowed.
The land company liked the name because it wanted to build a “summer colony” it wanted to call Osage Beach.
But critics thought “Lake Osage” would be confusing because the new lake was only two counties away from Lake Sac-Osage at Osceola (now the Truman Reservoir).
The 1929 legislature passed a bill calling the new lake “Lake Missouri,” but Governor Henry Caulfield vetoed it. Several other names were suggested including Lake Benton, for Senator Thomas Hart Benton. When the legislature passed a bill in ’31 calling the reservoir “Lake Benton,” Caulfield vetoed it, too, because it referred to “Missouri’s greatest Senator,” a phrase some might question then and one that could be questionable when future men and women had the job.
Union Electric, through the construction years, had referred to the dam creating the “Ozark Reservoir,” which turned out to be the largest man-made lake in the world—a claim that was eclipsed five years later.
By 1932 the lake was generally referred to as the Lake of the Ozarks. As far as we know there was never a formal dedication of the lake’s name.
And Osage Beach became much more than a “summer colony.”
It’s baseball season. And baseball is a great radio sport.
As Jack Buck put it when he was inducted ins the Radiio Hall of Fame in 1995:
“Turn the radio on. You’ll hear a friend. You will enjoy; you will learn; you will imagine; you will improve.
“Turn the radio on, at home, in your car, in prison, on the beach, in a nursing home. You will not be alone; you will not be lonely.
“Newspapers fold. Magazines come and go. Television self-destructs.
“Radio remains the trusted common denominator in this nation.”
Or as others have said, in various forms: “Theatre is life; film is art; television is furniture; radio is imagination.”
Perfect for baseball.
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I Read. I write. I am an author. A library tells me much about a town and its people. I’ve been on various local and regional library boards for 14 years and counting. That’s why this sign was interesting:
Of course, I saw this sign on the internet.
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We keep hearing critics of the January 6 Committee refer to it as a Kangaroo Court. Do they consider another form of investigation a Kangaroo Grand Jury?
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Your faithful correspondent has, for the last two cars he has bought, suggested, “This might be the last entirely gas-powered car I’ll buy.” But we’re getting closer to where that statement will true. When grandchildren live in Colorado, a car that gets 250 miles before needing a charge doesn’t make the navel tingle.
But this one does. It’s the Mercedes EQ/XX, still in prototype stage. Mercedeces ranks its range at 747 miles. Might have to mortgage the house, twice, but when it goes into production, it might not be too hard to tell the grandchildren their inheritance is greatly diminished. It even has solar panels on the roof to power some of the little things inside.
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We have heard our most recent ex-president say at least a couple of times, including last week, that he wanted to give himself the Medal of Honor but Congress wouldn’t let him do it.
Should he ever read one of these postings (and there are some serious suspicions in this lofty place that he reads much of anything), here is how the Medal of Honor is awarded.
The main way is through nomination and approval through the military chain of command. The second is a nomination by a member of Congress who is usually acting on a constituent’s request. The medal is general presented by the President, in the name of Congress.
A year ago about now, I was honored to work with some veterans and with Gold Star Families to put up a monument to those families that have lost loved ones during wartime. I cherish the opportunity to have been part of that effort.
The ex-president’s remark is an insult to those who deservedly have received Medal of Honor—-or to the families of those who did not live to know they would receive it. Actually, it is an insult to anyone who has ever worn our country’s uniforms.
In fact the first time he joked about that was at an AMVETS meeting a couple of years ago and he embroidered his poorly-read remarks by kidding Woody Williams about them.
Woody Williams died a few weeks ago. He was the last surviving WWII Medal of Honor winner. It was his foundation that supported last year’s efforts to put up the Gold Star Families Memorial Monument near the Missouri Capitol.
Our ex-president might have thought he was being funny. I am ashamed of those who laughed or applauded.
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And finally, another observation about baseball:
You faithful observer has seen a new book that says “Bull Durham” is the greatest sports movie ever made. It is difficult from this recliner chair next to the TV remote to disagree. Part of one of Hollywood’s greatest movie scripts is when Crash explains to Nuke how to use all of the great baseball clichés.
We suggest, however, that there are two baseball clichés that need to be thrown on the ash heap of baseball cliché history.
After watching the Kansas City Royals and the St. Louis Cardinals leave some of their players behind, including some of the bigger names of both teams, when they went to Canada recently because they had not been vaccinated, we suggest these two clichés be discarded:
Take one for the Team.
There is no “I” in Team.
Maybe the Royals and the Cardinals need something we find supporting our high school sports.
A movement called “Christian Nationalism” is called “a fundamental threat to Democracy” in a new book, The Flag and the Cross by Phillip S. Gorski and Samuel L. Perry. When Gorski was interviewed by Sarah Jones for the online British newspaper, TheIndependent, about the book defining Christian Nationalists as people who “often have a completely incorrect understanding of American history.” She asked, “Can you talk about what myths tend to be attractive to them and why?”
Gorski responded, “Because it puts people like them at the center of the American story and it puts the American story at the center of the cosmic drama. White Christians like us are the real Americans, and America is the exceptional nation, the chosen nation that is playing a special role in the battle between good and evil…I would add to this that if you think in terms of this narrative, if you’re a white Christian, it doesn’t matter when you showed up in the United States; you have a kind of a birthright. You belong. You were always here, in a sense…You’re part of the founding group.
“I always find this kind of ironic when you think about the folks who get sort of exercised about discussions of race and reject “The 1619 Project.” Why do they get so exercised about this? In part because it threatens their central place in the story and makes clear that in some sense you’re really talking about who got here first.”
Perry continues, “There is this huge identify-based motivation to believe these myths about America’s past that are factually incorrect oftentimes…A lot of people in these communities are socialized into believing it because there is an entire Christian nationalism industrial complex that is built to continue to perpetuate those myths.”
He says the goal of that “complex” is to “either provide religious leaders with that kind of ammunition or to provide religious consumers, people in the pews, with information about America’s Christian past that may or may not be factually correct. It is designed…to center white Christian Americans within that story and to tell them that this nation was founded on Christian values for Christian people…And, of course, they get to decide what that means.”
This movement has been a thousand years in the making. And, to the considerable discomfort (I hope) of those who promote a distortion of our history by claiming our country was founded as a Christian nation, we’re going to tell you about the ancient roots of this misguided movement. In doing so, we hope some readers will ask if the “Christian nation” of the early settlers is the kind of Christianity we should practice today, or honor in our politics and policy-making.
The beginning of the “White Christian America” myth is based on a corruption of the Great Command in the Biblical book of Matthew in which Jesus told his disciples to “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.”
Pope Urban II was the first to twist this command into what became known as the “Doctrine of Discovery.” Urban led the Roman Church from 1088 until he died in 1099. He is credited with triggering the First Crusade by declaring war on all non-Chistian nations and promising absolution to those who fought to take Spain and the Holy Land back from the Muslims. For about four centuries, this doctrine was considered authorization by European kings to “discover” new lands and if they were considered non-Christian, to claim them
The real Doctrine of Discovery that shaped our nation and much of our national self-image came from the Papal Bull Romanus Pontifex of 1452 by Pope Nicholas V that extended Urban’s idea to sanction war against non-Christians throughout the world. It also sanctioned conquest of those nations.
The Boston-based Upstander Project (which says, “An upstander is a person who takes action in defense of those who are targeted for systemic or individual harm or injustice. An upstander is the opposite of a bystander.”) says these decrees are based on two assertions:
“First, Christians were the only civilized peoples and thus, they had the right to treat non-Christians as uncivilized and subhuman who had no rights to any land or nation.
“Second, Christians had the God-given right to ‘capture, vanquish, and subdue the Saracens, pagans and other enemies of Christ,’ to ‘put them into perpetual slavery’ and ‘to take all their possessions and property.’”
Portugal, a rival of Spain’s in exploration at that time, protested Nicholas’ Bull that seemed to grant exclusivity to Spain because Portugal already had seized North Africa as early as 1415 and had explored coastal Africa all the way to India. Pope Alexander, in 1493, issued a new Papal Bull forbidding Spain from establishing control over lands claimed by other “Christian lords,” effectively drawing a line between hemispheres. That wasn’t good enough for King John II of Portugal, who negotiated with Columbus’s friends Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, to move the line further west with the Treaty of Tordesillas, clearing the way for the Portugese to claim Brazil.
Alexander’s division line wasn’t just in the Atlantic. It went all the way around the world. A later treaty between Spain and Portugal, The Treaty of Saragossa, gave Spain and Portugal the power to seize and control all non-Christian nations on the Earth just by stepping off a boat onto those lands.
Of course, other nations had other ideas—the French and the English in particular and in years to come, the English especially recognized no papal authority. And this is where our country’s history begins to take shape.
The concepts of these papal statements influenced the sentiments of European settlement of what is now the United States and laid the groundwork for the erroneous attitude that Christianity should be the motivation behind public policy.
It is the Doctrine of Discovery that enabled European settlers to look upon well-organized Native American socieities as inferior because they were not “Christian” regardless of how those societies interpreted God or what they called God. Since they were inferior, they had no right to the lands they had inhabited for thousands of years if Christians wanted it.
It didn’t take long for the presumptuous, righteous, Europeans to push things too far. King Phillip’s war broke out in New England in 1675 between the son of Massasoit—the friend of the Pilgrims—who resisted colonists’ grab of his land. The war lasted until 1678 when it ended with the Treaty of Casco Bay. But the settlers did not stop doing the things that led to the war. Another treaty in 1703 also was violated by the settlers.
And so it went, decade by decade, treaty by broken treaty, as the Christian Europeans seized the heathen lands they wanted.
The Louisiana Purchase represents the Doctrine of Discovery for we Missourians. France had taken “ownership” of that territory from Spain and sold it to the United States. But Fance and Spain only “claimed” the land under the doctrine. They did not own it. The United States really bought “preemptive rights” to obtain the land within that territy from the tribes, either by treaty or by conquest.
Missouri? Harvard University’s first tenured professor of American Indian history, Phillip deLoria, told interviewer David Rubenstein in 2020 that the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 established requirements for western territories to become states: “Sixty-thousand free people. What that means is if you’re a territory and you want to become a state, youneed to get your Indian people out fo there so that you can bring in more settlers. What that leads to is either removal—making them leave the state—or moving them onto reservation territories where they’re contained and compressed.” Missouri is a perfect example.*
Historian Greg Olson has written that it took 22 treaties with 13 Native American nations before the United States had clear title to all of the land in Missouri, a process that was finally concluded in 1837, sixteen years after we became a state, with the Platte Purchase that gave us our northwest corner. .
The national attitude was encapsulated in an 1823 U. S. Supreme Court unanimous ruling that the Age of Discovery had given the Christian nations of Europe “ultimate dominion” over all of North America, that Native Americans no longer had any right to “complete sovereignty, as independent nations” and were only entitled to occupy their lands. Chief Justice John Marshall’s opinion said that when this country became an independent nation, it kept Britain’s right of discovery and gained Britain’s power of “dominion.”
The Doctrine of Discovery was carried out until European Christians’ North American empire stretched from the Atlantic to the Pacific based on papal bulls declaring Christians are the only civilized peoples and therefore have a God-given right to “capture, vanquish, and subdue….enemies of Christ” and to put them into “perpetual slavery” and to “take all their possessions and property.”
The papal bulls of the Popes were Americanized in an editorial in the United States Magazine and Democratic Review editorial of July/August, 1845 calling for an end to opposition, especially from England and France, to the annexation of Texas.
” Why, were other reasoning wanting, in favor of now elevating this question of the reception of Texas into the Union, out of the lower region of our past party dissensions, up to its proper level of a high and broad nationality, it surely is to be found, found abundantly, in the manner in which other nations have undertaken to intrude themselves into it, between us and the proper parties to the case, in a spirit of hostile interference against us, for the avowed object of thwarting our policy and hampering our power, limiting our greatness and checking the fulfillment of our manifest destiny to overspread the continent allotted by Providence for the free development of our yearly multiplying millions.”
(Emanuel Leutze, “Westward, the Course of Empire”)
It is disputed whether editor John O’Sullivan or staff member Jane Cazneau wrote that editorial. The phrase showed up in a December issue of the New York Morning News, also edited by O’Sullivan, advocating American annexation of the Oregon Territory.
Mainfest Destiny, America’s version of Europe’s sanctified Christian Naionalism, proclaimed it was ordained by God that this nation had a right to displace non-European residents so the “yearly multiplying millions” had land and livelihood of their own. It led to the Mexican War that added all or parts of Arizona, Californa, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming to our country’s map. With the addition of those new territories, the concept also raised the issue of expansion of slavery into these new areas, an issue that ultimately led to civil war.
Those are things the nationalists prefer we not know, teach, or learn because—going back to the top of this entry, Christians are the only civilized people and as such they can treat others “as uncivilized and subhuman” with no rights to any land or nation.
White Christian Nationalism is not new and it is not unique to our country, nor is it unique to Christians. Its advocates prefer that neither our school children nor their parents know where it came from and what it has done here and in other parts of the world.
Sadly, there are too many Christians who think White Christian Nationalists will go away. They won’t. They’ve been here for more than four centuries and they’re louder than ever, it seems.
So we are presented with a choice: What would you rather be, a Christian living in a free country or someone living in a Christian country—where history tells us we might not be considered a citizen at all?
*David M. Rubenstein, The American Experiment: Dialogues on a Dream, New York, Simon & Schuster, 2021.
Greg Olson, “White Man’s Paper Trail: Extinguishing Indigenous Land Claims in Missouri, Missouri Historical Review, July, 2021
It is possible Roger Stone, Michael Flynn, John Eastman, Alex Jones, Allen Weisselberg and two Trumps have no idea who John Lilburne was. But they owe a large debt to this Englishman who died in 1657.
Trump aides, advisers, and defenders Stone, Flynn, Eastman, Jones and Weisselberg have “taken the Fifth” when summoned to testify on this or that issue involving our most recent former President.
Indeed, DJ Jr., the son of the aforesaid former president, reportedly has done it more than 500 times, as did Weisselberg, the former Trump organization chief financial officer, when summoned to talk about the elder Trump’s reputed manipulation of property values to get loans.
And so, for that matter, has the Big Guy himself. More than thirty years ago when he was carrying on with Marla Maples and his then-wife, Ivana, was divorcing him, DJT was asked about 100 questions about faithful marriage and reportedly pleaded the Fifth Amendment 97 times. The questions came from his soon to be ex-wife’s lawyer who wanted him to explain his reported dalliances with other women.
But he must have had an epiphany sometime in the next twenty-or so years when he he told a crowd of followers during his campaign, “You see the mob takes the Fifth. If you’re innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?”
How does John Lilburne enter this unsavory set of circumstances?
Isaac Amon’s article for The Journal of the Missouri Bar a while ago tell us that John Lilburne was an English pamphleteer who was arrested in 1637 for writing things the king and his Star Chamber Court did not like and he was badly punished for it.
The Star Chamber?
It was the court of inquisition in England that was above the common law and answered only to the King. Those brought before it were ordered to take “the ex officio oath” that promised they would admit charges against them—-before knowing what the charges were.
John Lilburne was arrested in 1637 for printing and circulating unlicensed books. When he was taken before the Court of the Star Chamber and asked how he pleaded, Lilburne refused to respond until he knew the charges against him and argued that he was not bound to incriminate himself. He maintained the oath was “against the law of God and the law of the land.” He also demanded the right to confront his accusers.
That defiance earned him a sentence in February of 1638 of a £500 fine, imprisonment at the Fleet Street Prison, and to be whipped and pilloried until he obeyed the court. In April he was taken from his cell, his hands were tied to the rear of an oxcart that pulled him through the streets, as he was flogged with a three-tailed whip before he was locked in a stooped position in the pillory. Even then he spoke loudly against those who sought to silence him—until he was gagged. He was taken back to prison where, despite his situation, he was able to write a pamphlet describing the cruelty of his punishment and another encouraging a separation of the English government fronm the Church of England.
Eventually he was released but he continued to stand for his contention
Lilburne was called “Freeborn John” by his supporters for his contention that citizens have “freeborn rights” that include the right to hear charges against them, to face their accusers, and to refuse to say something that might incriminate themselves.
He was a soldier in the first English Civil War as a “Roundhead,” the Parliamentarians who fought against the Royalists to determine the type of government England would have and to seek religious feedom. He left the army after rejecting the Presbyterian Solemn League and Covenant, an agreement in which the Scots agreed to help the Parliamentarians if England, Scotland, and Ireland would unite afterwards under a parliamentary-presbyterian system.
Lilburne maintained the covenant was, in effect, an agreement to preserve the religion of Scotland and was therefore a restriction on general freedom of religion. He had no problem with the Scots being Presbyterians but he wanted no part of an agreement that bound others to that faith.
In the end, the Civil Wars of England united England, Scotland and Ireland into the United Kingdom, ended the monopoly on worship and government control held by the Church of England, protected the reform movement in Scotland, and cleared the way for the Protestantism to become established in Ireland, leading to political control under the Anglican Church of Ireland, a situation that led to “The Troubles” or the Northern Ireland conflict, a thirty-year sectarian conflict between Protestant loyalists and Catholic nationalists from 1968-1998. That’s a discussion for another day, perhaps.
John Lilburne was imprisoned again in 1645 for criticizing members of Parliament for living well at a time when English soldiers were poorly treated. While in prison he penned An Agreement of the People for a Firm and Present Peace Upon Grounds of Common Right.
Lilburne’s political activism saw him in and out of prison and even banished from England for a time. In 1657, while visiting his wife (who was expecting their tenth child) on temporary release from prison, he died.
More than three centuries after his death, James Madison, who was influenced by Lilburne’s story, wrote as part of the Bill of Rights, “No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.”
The Fifth Amendment and the other nine statements of OUR “freeborn rights” were adopted in 1791.
In 1966, United States Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren specifically mentioned Lilburne in writing the majority opinion for Miranda v. Arizona that police must tell suspects that they have the freeborn right to remain silent in the face of accusations against them.
A few days ago we watched Michael Flynn refuse to answer questions from a Republican member of the January 6 Committee, saying only, “Take the Fifth, “Fifth,” and “The Fifth” in responding to three questions.
A man almost four centuries ago endured imprisonment, whipping, the pillory, and even banishment from his country to give him that right.
But here’s the deal: While it is easy to think those who “plead the Fifth” are therefore hiding their guilt, there is far more to the plea than that. This amendment stands between us and Lilburne’s Star Chamber Court. All of us—you, me, them—are not forced to say something that others might consider an admission of guilt before any charges are filed. This amendment keeps the government from considering you guilty unless you can prove yourself NOT guilty. This amendment protects our sacred concept that a citizen, no matter how reprehensible we might consider their behavior, is innocent until proven guilty.
We doubt that Mr. Flynn or any of the others we mentioned at the beginning of this piece know about or care about what John Lilburne went through to protect them.
But all of us should care—-because we Americans all have freeborn rights.
It was one of those little mysteries that we notice that stays quietly in the backs of our minds but doesn’t nag at us. But then somebody says something and the mystery is solved although they don’t know there ever was a mystery.
This mystery is rooted in the story of one of Jefferson City’s most prominent 19th Century citizens, the donation of a building to the city, the founding of a church, and the creation of a center to help the city’s needy a century after a man’s death.
And a mausoleum.
Joseph M. Clarke, Ohio-born, Illinois newspaperman, Alabama horse trader, Osage County Missouri plantation owner, state legislator, and Jefferson City banker is at the center of the story.
He was a city developer and philanthropist and upon his death toward the end of 1889, he bequeathed Bragg Hall to the city. Bragg Hall still stands at the corner of High and Monroe Streets, on the southwest corner. For decades, the upper floors were city hall, with the city council chambers (which doubled as the Municipal Court during the daytimes) on the top floor.
One of the provisions of his will was that the city had to pay for a life-size bronze statue of Clarke to be kept in the building. Portraits of his wife, Lavinia, and of his two sons, Marcus and Junius, also were to be placed prominently in the building. All of them wound up in the council chambers, the statue in the southeast corner where it watched the council proceedings, the portraits of his sons on the east wall and the life-size portrait of his wife on the west wall. In those days, five councilmen sat on each side of the room and I always felt sorry for the councilmen on the east because Mrs. Clarke was, well, a very severe looking woman and I often wondered if any of the council members felt her withering gaze.
Bragg Hall became inadequate as a city hall in the 1970s and after negotiations with Clarke descendants, the city sold the building and moved to a new city hall. But the new building didn’t seem to have adequate space for the bronze Clarke and the canvas family members. Four years later, when the city opened a nutrition center, it was named for Clark. And today folks who have meals there do so under the watchful eyes of Mr. Clarke and his sons. And I think Lavinia is watching their table manners closely.
One of the other things Clarke did was to give the First Christian Church a lot at the corner of (then) East Main and Adams Street as the site for its first sanctuary, to which he also contributed liberally.
All four members of the Clarke family are in that mausoleum in the old cemetery. One day while I was doing some church research about Clarke, I went to the mausoleum, the interior of which was pretty dusty and cobwebby and peered through the locked door. There wasn’t much to see except for a very old chair that was slowly collapsing under the weight of dust and decades.
Why is that chair there? I wondered. Were they expecting visitors? Were they thinking someone would come in a sit with them for a while? Somebody would come in and tell them what had happened with their gifts?
That chair was the mystery that stuck in the back of my mind for several years. Since then, the mausoleum has undergone a maintenance and repair effort.
A few weeks ago I think I learned what that chair was and why it was there.
The Christian Church has been without a minister for more than a year, a situation that will be resolved this coming Sunday when our new minister preaches his first sermon. In the interim we have had “pulpit supply” ministers filling in, including three retired ministers who are members of the congregation. We’ve had sermons from two lay members. And on June 26, a young woman who was raised in our church—her parents and her grandmother are still active members—and then went on to become a minister stood in the pulpit and asked what kind of a church we would be in the future, one stuck in the old ways or “will we accept the mantles of change and embrace our own giftedness and passions?”
Her sermon was based on the story of Elijah, the prophet from the Old Testament Book of Kings where stories of his miracles are told—one of which is resurrection. Early in the message, Sarah Blosser Blackwell referred to an ancient custom that sometimes is practiced in some homes today:
An empty chair at a family gathering was likely referred to in passing as the “Elijah” chair. The idea was that since Elijah did not die an earthly death, but instead was taken up into heaven, and we should save him a space in case he returned. According to Jewish tradition, Elijah was known as the messenger of the covenant and, thus, was present at every circumcision, so a chair was left open for his arrival. Later that became the place of honor for the godfather of the child.
And there it was!
That was why the chair was in the Clarke family mausoleum—the Elijah Chair where he could sit when he returns as a harbinger of the arrival of the Messiah.
I don’t think there’s a chair in the mausoleum since the repairs were made. I could see no sign of it as I peered through the three dingy windows. It’s unknown if the chair had been put there at the request of the Clarkes or if it was just part of a tradition in 1889.
I kind of think there should be a chair in there now, though.
This is a day of eloquent words. The celebration of that eloquence is overshadowed by the festival this day has become.
We’re not talking only about the eloquence of the Declaration of Independence, approved by the Continental Congress on this day (but not signed by the 56 delegates for some time), but for the eloquence of a speech by a special man before thousands of admirers on this date.
This is the day in 1939 that Lou Gehrig, one of the greatest players and greatest people to play baseball, said goodbye—with words of courage and gratitude before a crowd of almost 62,000 people in Yankee Stadium who had come for baseball games but mostly to pay tribute to Lou Gehrig.
The words were spoken a little more than a month after a consequential trip to Missouri.
The most memorable line came at the beginning, not the end—as is the case with the Declaration’s most famous line.
“Fans, for the past two weeks you have been reading about the bad break I got. Yet today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of this earth. I have been in ballparks for seventeen years and have never received anything but kindness and encouragement from you fans.
“Look at these grand men. Which of you wouldn’t consider it the highlight of his career just to associate with them for even one day? Sure, I’m lucky. Who wouldn’t consider it an honor to have known Jacob Ruppert? Also, the builder of baseball’s greatest empire, Ed Barrow? To have spent six years with that wonderful little fellow, Miller Huggins? Then to have spent the next nine years with that outstanding leader, that smart student of psychology, the best manager in baseball today, Joe McCarthy? Sure, I’m lucky.
“When the New York Giants, a team you would give your right arm to beat, and vice versa, sends you a gift – that’s something. When everybody down to the groundskeepers and those boys in white coats remember you with trophies – that’s something. When you have a wonderful mother-in-law who takes sides with you in squabbles with her own daughter – that’s something. When you have a father and a mother who work all their lives so you can have an education and build your body – it’s a blessing. When you have a wife who has been a tower of strength and shown more courage than you dreamed existed – that’s the finest I know.
“So I close in saying that I may have had a tough break, but I have an awful lot to live for.”
As far as the trip to Missouri—
Gehrig had sensed something was wrong when he hit “only” .295 in the 1928 season with 29 home runs and 114 runs batted in—the kind of season most of today’s major leaguers would love to have. But it lowered his lifetime batting average to .340 and left him 287 hits short of becoming the seventh player with 3,000 hits, an achievement he could have expected to reach in 1939 under normal circumstances. It also left him seven short of 500 home runs and six short of 2000 runs batted in, both statistics he would have achieved in ’38 if he had had a normal year.
He was troubled at the start of the 1939 season by the fact that he was only four for fourteen in the World Series, all of the hits being singles, and going four-for-28—again, all singles—to start the year. He didn’t hit a home run during spring training and his coordination in the field was off. He played his last major league game on April 30, then told manager Joe McCarthy he was benching himself after 2,130 straight games.
But there would be one more game. Gehrig was still the Yankees’ captain, often the man who took the lineup card to the home plate umpire at the start of the game, as he did during a series in June against the St. Louis Browns. It was there that Gehrig told reporters he was going to the Mayo Clinic soon for some tests but expected to return to the playing field during the summer. “I can’t help believing there’s something wrong with me,” he told them. “It’s not conceivable that I could go to pieces so suddenly. I feel fine, feel strong, and have the urge to play…I’d like to play some more and I want somebody to tell me what’s wrong. Usually a fellow slows up gradually.” But this year, he said, “Without warning…I’ve apparently collapsed.”
After wrapping up the series with the Browns, the Yankees went to Kansas City for an exhibition game against their best minor league team, the Kansas City Blues, team that matched rising Yankee star Joe DiMaggio against brother Vince, who played the same position for the Blues against the Blues’ up and coming double play duo of shortstop and future Hall of Famer Phil Rizzuto and second-baseman Jerry Priddy, who combined that year for 130 double plays, a league record. They were called up by the Yankees in ’41.
Lou Gehrig played his last game on June 11, 1939 in Kansas City. He played in great pain, but played errorless ball at first base. His last at-bat was in the third inning. He grounded out to Priddy.
While the rest of the team took a train to Cleveland for a series there, Gehrig and his wife, Eleanor (in this AP photo from 1936), flew to Rochester for tests on the 13th that she had arranged. Six days later, the clinic’s Dr. Harold C. Habein issued a “Two whom it may concern” letter telling Gehrig he had been diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, an illness that “involves the motor pathways and cells of the central nervous system and in lay terms is known as a form of chronic poliomyelitis—infantile paralysis.”
The letter concluded, “The nature of this trouble makes it such that Mr. Gehrig will be unable to continue his active participation as a baseball player inasmuch as it is advisable that he conserve his muscular energy. He could, however, continue in some executive capacity.”
Gehrig took the letter to manage Joe McCarthy and team president Ed Barrow on the 21st. They released the information to the media that day and announced that July 4th had been set aside for Lou Gehrig Appreciation Day at the stadium.
Gehrig admitted he was shocked by the findings. He told New York sportswriters, “Mrs. Gehrig and I are fully resolved to face the situation calmly” and he called the trip to the Mayo Clinic “the best move I ever made.” But he didn’t ignore the reality of his situation. “My friends tell me not to worry. They slap me on the back and say, ‘Don’t worry, Lou. Everything is going to be all right.’ But how can I help worrying.”
He was honored during a forty-minute ceremony held between games of a doubleheader against the Washington Senators. There were a lot of gifts including a fruit bowl and two candlesticks from the New York Giants. The one that might have had the most meaning was a 21-inch silver trophy from his 1939 teammates, their names and a poem by New York sportswriter John Kieran engraved on it.
To LOU GEHRIG
We’ve been to the wars together;
We took our foes as they came:
And always you were the leader,
And ever you played the game.
Idol of cheering millions:
Records are yours by sheaves:
Iron of frame they hailed you,
Decked you with laurel leaves.
But higher than that we hold you,
We who have known you best;
Knowing the way you came through
Every human test.
Let this be a silent token
Of lasting friendship’s gleam
And all that we’ve left unspoken.
Your Pals of the Yankee Team.
When Gehrig walked back to the dugout that day, the only one of the many gifts he took with him was that trophy.
Kieran said his poem was a “feeble interpretation” of how the players felt about Gehrig, who was his neighbor in the suburb of Riverdale, New York. Kieren often visited Gehrig as his health declined. One day, Kieran later related, Gehrig pointed to the trophy and said, “Some time when I get—well, sometimes I have that handed to me—and I read it—and I believe it—and I feel pretty good”
Lou Gehrig died, only 37 years old, On June 2, 1941. Six months later, the Baseball Writers Association of America voted unanimously to ignore the traditional waiting period for admission to the Hall of Fame and unanimously elected him.
When Eleanor Gehrig died in 1984 she donated that trophy to the Hall of Fame. It and other Gehrig memorabilia are on display in Cooperstown.
Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis is known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease. There still is no cure for it. Nor is there an effective treatment to stop it or reverse its progression.
July 4th. A day we normally observe eloquent words. Perhaps a few of us today will remember, too, words not only of eloquence but of courage in the face of a life to come and gratitude for the life that had been.
” All my life, I have said (as to myself, and at times, by way of sarcastic prescription for others) that I never . . . talk . . . any . . . faster . . . than . . . my . . . mind . . . can . . . think.”
—Judge Michael Luttig. June 16, 2022 before the January 6th Committee.
Nancy and I had the same reaction as we listened to Judge Luttig’s testimony. We both recalled a routine by the comedy duo of Bob Elliott and Ray Goulding, Bob & Ray, in which Ray interviewed the President of the Slow Talkers of America.
Sometimes we talk too rapidly. We are so accustomed to talking rapidly, even before we have understood a question or a discussion point, ignoring the admonition from the Gospel of James: “Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires”
The most underrated part of speech is the pause.
—-because pauses give listeners the chance to process what we say.
As we watched, it became apparent to us that Judge Luttig realized the gravity of his appearance before the committee, and wanted to so carefully respond to questions that there could be no lack of clarity in his responses or misunderstandings of what he said. His pauses made us listen more closely.
We were drawn into his answers not only by the pauses but by the exactness of his words. And it was because his pauses caused us to listen so carefully that one line had an impact (at least to this listener) greater than all of the others. It came as the committee was discussing the erroneous advice given President Trump that history and law establish a precedent for the Vice-President to overturn a presidential election. Judge Luttig, after refuting that claim, told the committee: “I would have laid my body across the road before I would have let the Vice President overturn the 2020 election on the basis of that historical precedent.”
He didn’t say that as the written transcript preserves it. Without raising his voice, the pacing of his statement carried an unmistakable power and a passion as he carefully formed his thoughts, pausing as he did so, knowing that his words became history a soon as he spoke them.*
Near the end, his carefully-delivered words carried a warning:
Today, almost two years after that fateful day in January 2021, that still Donald Trump and his allies and supporters are a clear and present danger to American democracy.
In the days since his testimony an unusual thing has happened. The judge has explained why he spoke as he did. Several organizations have reported his explanation. It began with praise from a writer for Vanity Fair, Joe Hagan, who wrote on Twitter:
“I like how this guy treats every line of his testimony like he’s engraving it on a national monument. And frankly, he really *is* engraving it for history. And he seems to know it. I also respect, despite how halting he may sound, that Luttig is not setting himself up to be a mere soundbite maker. He’s speaking to history, not TV. His sobriety, his graveness, his hallowedness, is so foreign to our modern sensibilities — but that’s the point. That is the precise point.”
Judge Luttig saw what Hagan had written and responded that Hagan “almost presciently understood precisely what I was at least attempting to do…”
What you could not know, and did not know, but I will tell you now, is that I believed I had an obligation to the Select Committee and to the country, first to formulate . . . then to measure . . . and then . . . to meter out . . .every . . . single . . . word . . . that I spoke . . . , carefully . . . exactingly . . . and . . . deliberately, so that the words I spoke were pristine clear and would be heard, and therefore understood, as such.
I believed Thursday that I had that high responsibility and obligation — to myself, even if to no other. Also please bear in mind that Thursday was the first time in 68 years, to my knowledge, I had ever been on national television, let alone national television like that. And though not scared, I was concerned that I do my very best and not embarrass myself, as I think anyone who found themselves in that frightening circumstance would be.
I decided to respond to your at once astute and understanding tweet finally this afternoon, because I have been watching the tweets all day suggesting that I am recovering from a severe stroke, and my friends, out of their concern for me and my family, have been earnestly forwarding me these tweets, asking me if I am alright. Such is social media, I understand. But I profoundly believe in social media’s foundational, in fact revolutionary, value and contribution to Free Speech in our country, and for that reason I willingly accept the occasional bad that comes from social media, in return for the much more frequent good that comes from it — at least from the vastly more responsible, respectful speech on those media.
That is why, 16 years after my retirement from the Bench, even then as a very skeptical, curmudgeonly old federal judge, I created a Facebook account and then a Twitter account — slowly . . . very slowly . . . one account first . . . and then . . . followed . . . by the other. All of this said, I am not recovering from a stroke or any other malady, I promise…
I was more ready, prepared and intellectually focused (I had thought) during Thursday’s hearing than I have ever been for anything in my life. I gather my face appeared ‘too red’ for some on Twitter, betraying to them serious illness. The explanation was more innocent than that. At the last minute, I had been able during the weekend preceding my testimony to help my daughter get settled into her new home, where the temperatures were in the upper 90s, and where I was appreciatively, though unwittingly, to get just a little bit of needed suntan!
What I will say, though, is this. And I think it explains it all. All my life, I have said (as to myself, and at times, by way of sarcastic prescription for others) that I never . . . talk . . . any . . . faster . . . than . . . my . . . mind . . . can . . . think. I will proudly assure everyone on Twitter that I was riveted, laser-like as never before, on that promise to myself… beginning promptly at the hour of 1:00 pm Thursday afternoon.
What is more, as consciously as one can be aware of something subconsciously, I was…supremely conscious that, if I were chiseling words in stone that day, it was imperative that I chisel the exact words that I would want to be chiseled in stone, were I chiseling words in stone for history.
He concluded, “I can assure you that on last Thursday, June 16, I had never felt, or been, better in my life.”
Judge Luttig, in addition to contacting Politico to explain his careful presentation, shared with the political news site a reflection he wrote in February about those who were heroes on January 6. He called the piece “the most important words to him that he has ever written” and said they are the words “that he wants remembered.” You can find it at:
Writing has no pauses. We, and many others, will remember Judge Luttig not for those words he wrote in February but the words and the pauses that he gave us on June 16, 2022.
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*National Public Radio (and others, probably) has been publishing transcripts of each day’s hearings. We have edited the NPR transcript for that hearing to highlight Judge Luttig’s testimony. For the full transcript, please go to https://www.npr.org/2022/06/16/1105683634/transcript-jan-6-committee
The transcript (excerpted)
LIZ CHENEY:
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Judge Luttig, thank you as well for being here with us today. You issued a very important statement earlier today, which I urge all Americans to read. And I’d like to ask you, Judge, about one of the sentences in your statement and ask if you could explain to us the significance of it. You say, had the Vice President of the United States obeyed the President of the United States America would immediately have been plunged into what would have been tantamount to a revolution within a paralyzing constitutional crisis.
Could you elaborate on that for us, Judge?
MICHAEL LUTTIG:
Thank you, Madam Vice Chairman. That — that passage in my statement this morning referenced the — the most foundational concept in America, which is the rule of law. Thus, as I interpret your question, you are asking about that foundational truth of these United States, which we call America. The foundational truth is the rule of law.
That foundational truth is, for the United States of America, the profound truth, but it’s not merely the profound truth for the United States, it’s also the simple truth, the simple foundational truth of the American republic. Thus, in my view, the hearings being conducted by this select committee are examining that profound truth, namely the rule of law, in the United States of America.
The specific question of course before you and before the nation, not before me, is whether that foundational rule of law was supremely violated on January 6, 2021. Now, to the question specifically that you asked, Madam Vice Chair, I believe that had Vice President Pence obeyed the orders from his President and the President of the United States of America during the joint session of the Congress of the United States on January 6, 2021 and declared Donald Trump the next President of the United States, notwithstanding that then President Trump had lost the Electoral College vote as well as the popular vote in the 2020 Presidential election, that declaration of Donald Trump as the next President would have plunged America into what I believe would have been tantamount to a revolution within a constitutional crisis in America, which in my view, and I’m only one man, would have been the first constitutional crisis since the founding of the republic.
LIZ CHENEY:
Judge Luttig, did the Trump electors in those seven states who were not certified by any state authority have any legal significance?
MICHAEL LUTTIG:
Congresswoman, there — there was no support whatsoever and either the Constitution of the United States nor the laws of the United States for the Vice President frankly ever to count alternative electoral slates from the states that had not been officially certified by the designated state official in the Electoral Count Act of 1887. I did notice in the passage from Mr. Eastman’s memorandum and I took a note on it, and correct me if I’m wrong, but he said in that passage that there was both legal authority as well as historical precedent.
I do know what Mr. Eastman was referring to when he said that there was historical precedent for doing so. He was incorrect. There was no historical precedent from the beginning of the founding in 1789 that even as mere historical precedent as distinguished from legal precedent would support the possibility of the Vice President of the United States quote, “Counting alternative electoral slates that had not been officially certified to the Congress pursuant to the Electoral Count Act of 1887.” I would be glad to explain that historical precedent if the committee wanted, but it — it would be a digression.
JOHN WOOD:
Judge Luttig, I had the incredible honor of serving as one of your law clerks. Another person who did was John Eastman. And you’ve written that Dr. Eastman’s theory that the Vice President could determine who the next President of the United States is in your words incorrect at every turn.
Could you please explain briefly your analysis?
MICHAEL LUTTIG:
It was my honor, Mr. Wood, to have you serve as my law clerk. I — I could answer that question perfectly if I had at my disposal either Mr. Eastman’s tweet or my own analytical tweet of September 21st. But I don’t. But that said, let me try to remember the analysis of — of Mr. Eastman’s analysis.
JOHN WOOD:
And — and Judge, I can read to you and to the audience I think what was a really key passage from your very insightful analysis when you wrote, “I believed that Professor Eastman was incorrect at every turn of the analysis in his January 2nd memorandum beginning with his claim that there were legitimate competing slate of electors presented from seven states.”
You’ve already addressed that issue. But your next sentence said, “Continuing to his conclusion that the Vice President could unilaterally decide not to count the votes from the seven states from which competing slates were allegedly presented.” So what was your basis for concluding that Dr. Eastman was incorrect in his conclusion that the Vice President could unilaterally decide not to count the votes from these disputed states?
MICHAEL LUTTIG:
I understand. As I previously stated in response to Congresswoman Cheney, the — there was no basis in the Constitution or laws of the United States at all for the theory espoused by Mr. Eastman at all. None. With all respect to my co-panelist, he said I believe in partial response to one of the select committee questions that the single sentence in the 12th Amendment was he thought [unartfully] written.
That single sentence is not [unartfully] written. It was pristine clear that the President of the Senate on January 6th, the incumbent Vice President of the United States, had little substantive constitutional authority if any at all. The 12th Amendment, the single sentence that Mr. Jacob refers to, says in substance that following the transmission of the certificates to the Congress of the United States and under the Electoral Count Act of 1887, the archivist of the United States that the presiding officer shall open the certificates in the presence of the Congress of the United States in joint session.
It then says unmistakably not even that the Vice President himself shall count the electoral votes. It clearly says merely that the electoral count votes shall then be counted. It was the Electoral Count Act of — of 1887 that — that filled in, if you will, the simple words of — of the 12th Amendment in order to construct for the country a process for the counting of the — the — the sacred process for the counting of the electoral votes from the states that neither our original Constitution nor even the 12th Amendment had done.
The irony, if you will, is that, from its founding until 1887 in — when Congress passed the Electoral Count Act, the nation had been in considerable turmoil during at least five of its presidential elections, beginning as soon thereafter from the founding as 1800. So, it wasn’t for — almost 100 years later until the Electoral Count Act was passed.
So, that’s why, in my view, that piece of legislation is not only a work in progress for the country, but at this moment in history an important work in progress that needs to take place. That was long winded. I understand.
JOHN WOOD:
Well, Judge Luttig, at the risk of oversimplifying for the non-lawyers who are watching, is it fair to say that the 12th Amendment basically says two things happen, the vice president opens the — the certificates and the electoral votes are counted. Is it that straightforward?
MICHAEL LUTTIG:
I would not want that to be my testimony before the Congress of the United States. The language of the 12th Amendment is that simple.
JOHN WOOD:
Thank you, Judge.
PETE AGUILAR:
I appreciate that. In our investigation, the select committee has obtained evidence suggesting that Dr. Eastman never really believed his own theory. Let me explain. On the screen, you can see a draft letter to the President from October 2020. In this letter, an idea was proposed that the Vice President could determine which electors to count at the joint session of Congress.
But the person writing in blue eviscerates that argument. The person who wrote the comments in blue wrote, quote, “The 12th Amendment only says that the President of the Senate opens the ballots in the joint session. And then in the passive voice that the votes shall then be counted”. The comments in blue further state, “nowhere does it suggest that the President of the Senate gets to make the determination on his own”. Judge Luttig, does it surprise you that the author of those comments in blue was in fact John Eastman?
MICHAEL LUTTIG:
Yes, it does Congressman. But let me — watching this unfold, let me try to unpack what was at the root of what I have called the blueprint to overturn the 2020 election. And it is this.
And I had foreshadowed this answer in my earlier testimony to Congresswoman Cheney.
Mr. Eastman, from the beginning, said to the President that there was both legal as well as historical precedent for the Vice President to overturn the election.
And what we’ve heard today, I believe is — is what happened within the White House and elsewhere as all of the players, led by Mr. Eastman, got wrapped around the axle by the historical evidence claim by Mr. Eastman. Let me explain very simply, this is what I said would require a digression, that I would be glad to undertake if you wished, in short, if I had been advising the Vice President of the United States on January 6th, and even if then Vice President Jefferson, and even then Vice President John Adams, and even then Vice President Richard Nixon had done exactly what the President of the United States wanted his Vice President to do, I would have laid my body across the road before I would have let the Vice President overturn the 2020 election on the basis of that historical precedent.
But what this body needs to know, and now America needs to know, is that that was the centerpiece of the plan to overturn the 2020 election. It was the historical precedent in the years — and with the Vice Presidents that I named, as Congressman Raskin understands well, and the — the effort by Mr. Eastman and others was to — to drive that historical precedent up to and under that single sentence — single pristine sentence in the 12th Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Taking advantage of, if you will, what many have said is the inartful wording of that sentence in the 12th Amendment. Scholars before 2020 would have used that historical precedent to argue, not that Vice President Pence could overturn the 2020 election by accepting non-certified state electoral votes, but they would have made arguments as to some substantive, not merely procedural, authority possessed by the Vice President of the United States on — on the statutorily prescribed day for counting the Electoral College votes.
This is — this is constitutional mischief.
BENNIE THOMPSON:
The gentlelady yields back…
Judge Luttig, I want to give you an opportunity to share your thoughts on the ongoing threat. You’ve written the clear and present danger to our democracy now is that former President Donald Trump and other political allies appear prepared to seize the presidency in 2024 if Mr. Trump or one of his anointed candidates is not elected by the American people.
What do you mean by this?
MICHAEL LUTTIG:
Mr. Chairman, I’m honored beyond words by your words. I was honored on January 6th, 2021, and also honored beyond words to have been able to come to the aid of Vice President Mike Pence. I prayed that day just like the vice president prayed that day. I believe we may have prayed the — the same prayer to the same God. I prayed that same prayer with my wife this morning before I came into these hearings.
I have written, as you said, Chairman Thompson, that today, almost two years after that fateful day in January 2021, that still Donald Trump and his allies and supporters are a clear and present danger to American democracy. That’s not because of what happened on January 6th. It’s because, to this very day, the former president, his allies, and supporters pledge that, in the presidential election of 2024, if the former president or his anointed successor as the Republican Party presidential candidate were to lose that election, that they would attempt to overturn that 2024 election in the same way that they attempted to overturn the 2020 election, but succeed in 2024 where they failed in 2020. I don’t speak those words lightly.
I would have never spoken those words ever in my life, except that that’s what the former president and his allies are telling us. As I said in that New York Times op-ed, wherein I was speaking about the Electoral Count Act of 1887, the former president and his allies are executing that blueprint for 2024 in open, in plain view of the American public.
I repeat, I would have never uttered one single one of those words unless the former president and his allies were candidly and proudly speaking those exact words to America. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to appear here today for these proceedings.
Our ex-President has been raging on his personal social media platform about the January 6th Committee hearings and their discoveries. Last Thursday, after the third hearing explored the physical danger faced by the Vice-President during the Trump-inspired riot, Trump took to his own personal platform to complain, “It is a one-sided, highly partisan Witch Hunt, the likes of which has never been seen in Congress before. Therefore, I am demanding EQUAL TIME to spell out the massive Voter Fraud & Dem Security Breach!”
Your faithful correspondent suggests the ex-President make a minor change in his characterizations of the committee. It’s a small thing but precision in language is important in times of great personal and national stress. The committee hearings do not constitute a witch hunt. Witches are females. Males are Warlocks. It would improve his credibility as an intelligent individual if he referred to the perceived attacks on him with the proper term.
It’s a Warlock Hunt.
Your faithful correspondent also agrees with the ex-President that he should be allowed equal time to respond to statements made by numerous associates and advisers and played back during the hearings.
We believe his most equal time should be spent under oath.
Before the committee.
And the committee should extend to him the privilege of speaking in an open, public, widely-broadcast hearing in which he could explain at great length his thoughts, actions, and words—unlike the way the committee has handled his associates, with closed hearings and excerpts of their testimony played in the public hearings. After all he WAS the President of the United States and he deserves that special courtesy.
He’s correct in observing that these hearings are something “which has never been seen in Congress before.” It would REALLY be something that has never been seen before if he would explain to the committee under penalty of perjury—-as so many of his associates have done—his justifications for his words and his actions or his lack of actions.
But maybe his request should be refused because—
actually, the hearings are Democracy’s equal time to lies he told at all of the rallies he held before and after the 2020 elections.
-0-
There’s another observation we have, uh, observed in the months since those events.
Some members of Congress deny the events constituted a violent uprising or insurrection or riot or whatever. The people who came into the Capitol that day, they say, were just peaceful tourists.
We were peaceful tourists at the Capitol once when we took our children to Washington, D.C. So we know about these things.
We didn’t see any of the Congressmen who say the people on January 6 were like our family greet us at their offices, as ours did. (Our Congressman even took the children down on the House floor with him during debate that day; our son wanted to go back the next day but we told him the only way he could ever do that would be to get elected).
One of our previous Congressmen once invited us to visit him in Washington and even told us he’d take us to the House cafeteria for some of the famous bean soup that’s served there.
We didn’t see any of those Congressmen go out on the front steps of the Capitol and get their pictures taken with their peaceful constituents that day. Ours did. He even signed the picture.
We’re sure the peaceful visitors would have enjoyed seeing their representatives and senators. They probably had worked up a pretty good appetite by then, too, and might have enjoyed some bean soup.
What a bummer of a day that was for those visitors. They go to all the trouble they went to to travel to Washington, to gather at the Capitol, to make a special effort to get in to see their Congress people only to find there would be no family picture and no bean soup.
