Discovering unexpected stories about people over-shadowed by events in American History. Former journalist and amateur Civil War historian since reading Carl Sandburg's Lincoln at 11. Compare past and present leadership. Through work with nonprofits for 25 years and travel, have enjoyed meeting people, seeing historic sites, and admired artwork in 46 states. Optimism runs through me.
It is with great sadness that Marmie’s daughter, Julia, will write this last blog post.
Marmie Edwards passed away on March 7th, 2024, following complications after a fall on March 3rd. When she fell, she was listening to the audiobook, “The Supremes Sing the Happy Heartache Blues” by Edwards Kelsey Moore, and engaging in one of her favorite daily rituals of walking the mile-long trail behind her condo.
Mom, I’ll do my best to do you justice here, but I assume I’ll be forgiven for any errors and lack of writing chops by all.
How fitting that your last blog post was about your mother, and now I will be writing about you. As I read it last week, through tears, so impressed by your inspirational writing, your mother, and you, I continue to be struck by your selfless nature. You are, and will always be, one of the most giving and caring people I will know. And I know others reading this will agree. At 26 years old, you put your life on hold and nursed your mother back to health after her stroke. You helped care for your youngest brother and encouraged your middle brother to continue his college studies, while you helped establish the new normal. You have shared how hard those 6 months were, but I know they contributed to your caring nature.
From there, life was not always easy, but you are a fighter and did so much with what you had. From being a staffer in the house to a future Vice President, your devotion to highway rail safety for 20 years, going back to get your Masters in Crisis Management at 58, and eventually making the choice to move across the country from D.C. to Austin, to be near your grandchildren and restart your life at 64. In Austin, you found many mentoring groups you assisted, volunteered at many local triathlons and races, and spent countless hours and years volunteering at the LBJ Library as a docent. You worked many polls as a poll worker or election judge, walked door to door for the League of Women’s voters, and met dear friends through your love of the democratic process. You started this blog in 2017 as a way to share your deep love of history with others and to help bridge the present with the past.
Above all, your love for others was shared, especially with Family. You were the invisible string that stretched out and brought them together. The string even continued through the countless baby blankets you made – from many neighbors, to a nurse who helped you once, you wanted everyone to know each baby was special and worthy of your time. You never hesitated to share how proud you were of me or your grandchildren. As you were a single mother most of my life, I can understand why you were so proud. Thank you for your countless sacrifices you made to help me and others become who we could become.
As a grandmother, you taught us so much about our children and saw their gifts in a way that parents cannot. Your encouragement to Corbin, our eldest, and his writing will be influential for the rest of his life. I spent the last hours of your life reading his latest 15 chapter book as I knew that you didn’t want to go without reading it. He will greatly miss discussing plot lines with you and his future stories. They will miss your devotion to finding just the right book for each grandchild, especially a science or comic book for Kellen to explore his engineering and comedic chops. Your willingness to create any type of craft with Talia, your only granddaughter, always made me laugh. Talia will miss your many trips to the bookstore. The countless pictures I found on your phone of your “grand dog” Rowdy, made me smile.
The hole in our hearts is deep, but we know you would have wanted us to celebrate who you are and cherish the memories we hold dear. We will forever remember you for the amazing writer, volunteer, historian, friend and grandmother that you are.
After her fall, Marmie never regained consciousness, but she took a turn on Wednesday after the Super Tuesday results – a coincidence, I think not. Because of this, we are asking any donations be given to the Austin chapter of the League of Women Voters. Where hopefully, they can help deliver the future my mom would have hoped for.
Please go to lwvaustin.org, under donation, then general fund, and state the contribution is in memory of Marmie Edwards. If you wish to mail a donation: LWV Austin Area, 3908 Avenue B, Austin, TX 78751.
. . .in conversations with Mom after her stroke. Next, she welcomed international students to Lafayette.
I was scratching my head thinking about what to blog about when one of my friends said, “You should write about your mom!”
Mom was rather amazing in a hometown sort of way. She taught school briefly after the last of us got into first grade. Her stint as an in-school reading teacher didn’t last long. That first year, Mom had a migraine headache coming in from the playground with her students. She fell before making it inside the door, and it took EMS eight minutes to revive her.
Her doctor ran tests at Home Hospital and found a blood clot had burst in her brain. Later the following day, the surgeon went into the right side of her brain to repair the damage. Following a brain swell after surgery, she could no longer move her left arm or leg when she awoke. This situation changed little after months of therapy.
This may sound like a sad story, but it wasn’t. Despite mom’s impairment, she made the best of it. In church, offering a greeting, her right-handed squeeze made a 6-foot-tall construction worker wince; the strength of her grip could have won an arm-wresting contest.
In the mid-1970s, when this took place, little research was available to guide doctors and patients about stroke recovery. Together we discovered that she saw in vertical stripes—seeing and not seeing from right to left. Mom learned to turn her head to gather all the words in a sentence when she scanned a page. As a reading teacher, novels and short stories were vital to her happiness. She gathered a stack of books by the couch to read before the library came to trade her load of books for a new batch. Mom knew what was happening in town and across the world because she read the Lafayette newspaper, listened to National Public Radio, and watched Walter Cronkite every night.
Mom also listened on the radio to her Indiana Hoosiers basketball team, especially Isiah Thomas. Yes, years later, Thomas moved on to a professional career. Still, when Indiana won the national championship in 1981, Marion, an Indiana graduate, sat glued to the television.
Remembering recipes with more than three steps to them proved to be too challenging, but her muscle memory helped her get back to tutoring young children having difficulty with reading. Mom had no problem with her speech, which was a blessing that helped her reach out to children. I remember a particular guy, maybe eight, who had become a bit of a problem in the classroom because being unable to read took away his confidence and returned a belligerent, not very happy student. There was something about mom and struggling students. This guy, I’ll call him Tommy, may have seen Mother walk back from the door with a walker and understood life provided challenges for her. He saw her as a kindred spirit, not someone to be mocked or pitied.
They talked, and Mom, with nothing but time, listened. Tommy told her all about his favorite baseball team, the Cubs, quoting scores and the names of his favorite players. Mom’s eyes lit up because she listened to the Cubs baseball games, too, since it was Dad’s favorite team. They made a connection, and Mom ordered books about baseball for Tommy. Since he desperately wanted to know more about baseball, he had a reason to sound out the words on the page because they were about BASEBALL, his favorite thing. Funny, it wasn’t long before Tommy liked reading because he could learn more about baseball players! Soon several boys who were into sports cars, football, and baseball came along and had experiences similar to Tommy’s.
A bit later, Mom noticed a news article asking for volunteers to help international students at Purdue University feel more at home in Lafayette. She called and explained she would not be able to come to campus but would welcome students to her home for discussions.
Not long after, students from Japan, China, Mexico, and South America made the trip to Lafayette’s east side, some taking three busses, to chat with Mom. She had no English as a Second Language training but offered a willingness to answer questions on any topic. Her age endeared her to many of the students, who respected her as an elder, like those they left behind. The students soon realized they could indeed ask her anything, including things they were too embarrassed to ask their roommate. They ask about the many English words that have dual meanings, like “hear” and “here.” Some at the time were really interested to know more about football, which has always been part of student life at Purdue. Mom could easily help out. Her Dad played football with Knute Rockne at Notre Dame, of course, long before any of these students would have known. The game had not changed all that much, except maybe for weight rooms, fancier locker rooms, and probably more meat on the training tables.
My protective father asked Mom one Saturday, “Do you think I should be here when these students arrive?” My mom glanced over and gave him a strong Mom Look that said, “I got this, thank you.”
We’ve been down this path before–163 years ago. Then we went to war with ourselves to determine if people could be held in bondage based on their race. And whether or not a state can write its own rules because they disagree with the federal laws established by “We the People.”
Many who claim today to be “strong Constitutionalists” cling to the basics found in the Constitution written by the Founding Fathers. But they do not accept the Amendments that grew out of the Bill of Rights—a compromise among the Colonists that made ratification of the nation’s Constitution possible.
In Texas, a big, rowdy state far from the national seat of power, Governor George Abbott believes he has the power and the right to “go it alone,” at least on certain issues. Immigration for starters biased on his interpretation of State’s Rights. He savors a run for the Presidency in 2028, when his good buddy Donald Trump will no longer be eligible, figuring Trump will win the White House in 2024.
Immigration as a Campaign Issue
Americans on all sides of the immigration issue realize federal legislation to establish a viable U.S. immigration policy is decades overdue. (The last political agreement on the issue came in the Reagan Administration over 40 years ago.) On Sunday, February 4, a bipartisan group of U.S. Senators issued a compromise immigration bill after working together for four months. The results closely follow the immigration demands of the Republicans. But now that their efforts appear to be nearly ready for a vote, Presidential candidate Donald Trump refuses to support any compromise on immigration policy until after 2025, when he intends to regain the White House. Why? Trump intends to use immigration as a 2024 campaign issue. (Simultaneously this rejection also prevents American ally Ukraine from receiving badly needed ammunition in its conflict with Russia. Unitil the Trump Administration, Russia was considered an adversary, if not an enemy, of the U.S.)
Abbott names immigration as the critical issue in his State, next to the Mexican border. Texas, he says, is feeling the pain of a massive increase in migrants coming to its borders–more than in other State. He’s spent hundreds of thousands of dollars shipping thousands of newly arrived immigrants to Chicago, New York, and Washington, DC. Democratic city mayors there have had no warning of these “revenge” arrivals coming from Texas and Florida’s conservative governors–politicians hoping to create chaos that would be reflected in conservative media, like Fox News and opinion coverage, to enrage their political base. Abbott won legislation in the Republican-dominated Legislature that allows state and local enforcement to arrest migrants crossing from outside Texas.
Lone Star Campaign Installs Razor Wire
The immigration nightmare gets very real for people caught in the concertina wire that Abbott demanded the Texas National Guard install 1,000 feet of razor wire along the Rio Grande as part of his multi-million dollar” Lone Star” campaign to prevent southern access. Several people have died in the razor wire, including a mother and her two children in late January. They drowned in the Rio Grande in sight of Abbott’s state border guards. Not only did the Texas patrol not lift a finger to assist them, but the Texans also prevented the U.S. Border Patrol from going in to assist, blocking access to the park that borders the river.
Supreme Court Nixes Razor Wire on Rio Grande: January 2024
The U.S. Supreme Court, not currently known to be liberal in its perspective, overruled the 5th Circuit Appeals Court ruling that prevented removal of the razor wire while a final decision came down. The Court voted 5-4 under Article VI of the Constitution against Abbott’s decision to install razor wire. Article VI is the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution that gives federal law precedence over state government and state officials, including legislators and judges, and state laws. Since the case, Homeland Security v. Texas, came under the Court’d emergency shadow docket, no explanation came along with the ruling.
The Court ordered the razor wire to be removed from the Rio Grande River that serves the entire region. The decision could also come in part from the Constitution’s Commerce Clause, dealing with free access to America’s waterways as well. The Constitution does not specify immigration, but it is determined to be a plenary power of sovereign nations. The Supreme Court has consistently upheld the federal government as having jurisdiction over immigration.
In response, Abbott has vowed to maintain the razor wire as a means of preventing immigrants from entering Texas (and incidentally maintaining his name in the public eye). He continues the war of words with a news release rejecting the Supreme Court’s ruling. “The federal government has broken the compact between the United States and the States,” he charged. “The Executive Branch of the United States has a constitutional duty to enforce federal laws protecting States, including immigration laws on the books right now.”
The criticisms flow both ways. Has the Republican-controlled House passed the funding needed to cover housing and court hearings for the waves of immigrants? Even if every immigrant were immediately sent back to their country of origin, it would still cost money to do so. However, our laws also require those seeking asylum, those fleeing mortal danger, to be given a fair hearing. Or are Republicans willing to buck American law? Will they be comfortable letting the issue fester into an even greater uproar by 2025?
U.S. Law Back to 1798 Defies Abbott’s “Compact Theory
Abbott, in his postings, offers “compact theory” as giving Texas the right to cast aside federal rulings. This theory takes us back to the 1798 Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions issued in defiance of the Alien and Sedition Acts. These two states were not supported by the other 11 Colonies. Kentucky and Virginia said the agreement was between the States, not “We the People.” Check the first line of the Preamble to the Constitution.
In 1816, legendary Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story established the Court’s power of judicial review over state decisions and rejected the compact theory. Story wrote for the Court: “The constitution of the United States was ordained and established not by the states in their sovereign capacities, but emphatically, as the preamble of the constitution declares, by ‘the people of the United States.’ ”
Three years later, Chief Justice John Marshall, in McCulloch v. Maryland, strengthened Story’s attack on the compact theory. “No political dreamer was ever wild enough to think of breaking down the lives which separate the States . . .,” Marshall wrote. “The Government of the Union is emphatically and truly a government of the people.”
In 1828, after the passage of a protective tariff, conflict over states’ rights and economic policy blew up after South Carolina found the tariff unconstitutional and prohibited its application among the State’s coastal ports. Southerners developed “nullification” to address this and other federal issues they hated. Under nullification, the opposition said a State could scrub away or erase any federal laws it did not wish to follow. Thus began a slippery slope, but surprisingly, President Andrew Jackson, who had a reputation for rule-breaking, strongly opposed nullification.
President Jackson said: “Perpetuity is stamped upon the Constitution by the blood of our fathers—by those who achieved as well as those who improved our system of free government. For this purpose, was the principle of amendment inserted into the Constitution which all have sworn to support and in violation of which no state or states have the right to dissolve the Union.”Notice how he mentioned those who “improved” our system of free government.
“Union of these States is perpetual. . .It is safe to assert that no government proper ever had a provision in its organic law for its termination (referring to nullification),”Jackson said.
Later, the Civil War resolved the question—the Union is forever. No state or states, on their own, could decide otherwise. As for Governor Abbott, he comes from a large, diverse state, but Texas still belongs to the Union; what happens in Texas is of concern to those in the other states, including California, New Mexico, Virginia, and Alaska. We are all tied together with rights, responsibilities, privileges, and obligations among and between us.
Politics may be the lifeblood and even a blood sport for American politicians eager for pole position in 2024 or even 2028, but “We the People” want to see them apply themselves to solving the most difficult problems of our generation. We’re smarter than they think, and political theater, social media videos criticizing the opposition, or false interpretations of the Constitution will not win the race in November 2024.
I close with a quote from an ambitious 28-year-old Abraham Lincoln in 1838, speaking to the Young Men’s Lyceum of Springfield, IL, when he served in the Illinois Legislature. He speaks of the threats to America.
“At what point is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reaches us, it must spring up among us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.” Lincoln 186 years ago urged us, “We the People,” to guard our democracy as we protect the Union.
References:
Heather Cox Richardson, January 30-February 3, 2024, “Letters from an American”
Jamelle Bouie, “No, Nikki Haley, the Constitution does not say that,” New York Times, February 2, 2024.
Adam Liptak, “Supreme Court Backs Biden in Dispute with Texas Over Border Barrier,” New York Times, January 22, 2024
Dante: The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in a time of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality.
Even Abe Lincoln hedged a bit about slavery while debating Stephen Douglas during the Illinois Senate race in 1856. Lincoln lost that race. But his words stood up well enough to reach delegates to the Republican Convention who nominated him for President four years later.
Then Lincoln led the country through its darkest days refusing to give up—the quintessential Profile in Courage. But when JFK wrote that book (or maybe worked with a ghostwriter), he didn’t focus on Lincoln. Although he might have if he’d ever had a serious discussion about history with his grandmother; she was alive when Abraham Lincoln was assassinated in 1865.
Instead, Kennedy chose a man who lived just prior to the Civil War– Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri (1782-1858). He served as a U.S. Senator from 1821 to 1851, completing five terms. He became one of eight men who embodied outstanding courage that Kennedy selected in 1956 for the book. (One would hope if the book were being written today the author would include some of America’s courageous women.)
During the War of 1812, Benton served as an aide to America’s then hero, General Andrew Jackson. Just a year later, Benton defended his brother, Jessie, when General Jackson pulled a gun on him. Jessie fired back seriously wounding Jackson in the left arm, creating a rift between the Thomas Benton and the General (and helping strengthen Benton’s reputation as a brawler). Friends and foe alike knew Benton to be a “rough and tumble fighter off and on the Senate floor, not with pistols but with “stinging sarcasm, vituperative through learned oratory and bitterly heated debate,” according to Kennedy’s Profiles. (see below) With just one year at the University of North Carolina under his belt, Benton was said to carry the Congressional Library in his head, easily correcting other Senators when they forgot a name, date, or incorrectly quoted a passage from the Classics or Shakespeare.
The Senator belonged to the 1840s Democratic Party helping to orchestrate the nation’s westward expansion, now referred to as “Manifest Destiny.” Benton foresaw a nation that would stretch from the Atlantic to the Pacific oceans. A man of boundless energy, Benton pushed through legislation for the Pony Express moving mail service westward and extending the telegraph lines to eventually tie the coasts together and promoted the development of highways (such as they were) that drew a path across the nation for the heroic settlers to follow. He shared Lincoln’s dream of a transcontinental railway to carry merchandise and people betwixt and between the nation’s settlements.
Kingpin of Missouri Politics
Benton wrongly believed that the Missouri Compromise of 1820, which brought his state into the Union, also took the issue of slavery out of politics. He reigned supreme as the Kingpin of Missouri politics from 1821 to 1844. Then he broke with his Party by engineering the defeat of the annexation of Texas. He believed John Calhoun from North Carolina (vice president from 1824-1832) had cooked up a political plan to loop the Texas territories in with the slave state to increase Congressional votes in favor of slavery. His courage came as Benton did not hesitate, even on the eve of an election, to denounce his party’s policy. He managed to be re-elected but at the same time a pro-slavery candidate won to fill an unexpired Senate term by three times his tally. Benton continued his struggle against bringing Oregon and California into the Union as slave states—an opposite stance of Calhoun and President Andrew Jackson. Despite Senator Benton’s near defeat in 1844-45, he would not join the Whig party, saying the group “are no more able to comprehend me . . .than a rabbit, which breeds 12 times a year, could comprehend the gestation of an elephant, which carries for 2 years.”
In 1832, President Jackson and Benton faced a serious challenge from Henry Clay, who supported nullification. Under nullification the individual states could veto individual laws to meet the desires of individual states. But Jackson pointed out that the Union would have been dissolved in its infancy, during the War of 1812 with such a policy. “Nullification,” he wrote, “was incompatible with the existence of the Union, contradicted expressly by the letter of the Constitution, unauthorized by its spirit, inconsistent with every principle on which it was founded, and destructive of the great object for which it was formed.” It became an issue claimed by the South to win freedom from Washington. Here again, Benton did not side with the South, but with the Union.
Home in Missouri became his respite, but the death of two sons early in life and the long physical and mental illness of his wife, made this relief short-lived. Benton’s son-in-law, John Fremont, explored the West and became the original governor of California. Benton’s daughter, Jessie Benton Freemont, a well-educated and well-spoken force of nature herself, would later seek support from Lincoln to get her husband out of a jam during the Civil War. (Like most things in politics, it was complicated, suffice to say. Lincoln had bumped Fremont up to General rank, based on his expeditions, despite his lack of military training, which created some problems due to Freemont’s failure to respect the chain of command.
Benton met his waterloo on February 19, 1847, when Calhoun read to the Senate his resolution insisting that Congress had no right to interfere with the development of slavery in the territories. Calhoun called for an immediate vote. Benton rose from his chair, accepting his fate.
Mr. Calhoun: I certainly supposed the Senator from Missouri, the representative of a slave state, would have supported these resolutions. . .
Mr. Benton: The Senator knows very well from my whole course in public life that I would never leave public business to take up firebrands to set the world on fire.
Mr. Calhoun: Then I shall know where to find the gentleman.
Mr. Benton: I shall be found in the right place . . . on the side of my country and the Union. (An answer Benton noted later he “will wish posterity to remember.”
When the Missouri Senator was warned not to deliver a eulogy in appreciation of John Quincy Adams, a foe of slavery, Benton marched up and delivered a tribute for the ages.
Dante: The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in a time of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality.
Even Abe Lincoln hedged a bit about slavery while debating Stephen Douglas during the Illinois Senate race in 1856. Lincoln lost that race. But his words stood up well enough to reach delegates to the Republican Convention who nominated him for President four years later.
Then Lincoln led the country through its darkest days refusing to give up—the quintessential Profile in Courage. But when JFK wrote that book (or maybe worked with a ghostwriter), he didn’t focus on Lincoln. Although he might have if he’d ever had a serious discussion about history with his grandmother; she was alive when Abraham Lincoln was assassinated in 1865.
Instead, Kennedy chose a man who lived just prior to the Civil War– Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri (1782-1858). He served as a U.S. Senator from 1821 to 1851, completing five terms. He became one of eight men who embodied outstanding courage that Kennedy selected in 1956 for the book. (One would hope if the book were being written today the author would include some of America’s courageous women.)
During the War of 1812, Benton served as an aide to America’s then hero, General Andrew Jackson. Just a year later, Benton defended his brother, Jessie, when General Jackson pulled a gun on him. Jessie fired back seriously wounding Jackson in the left arm, creating a rift between the Thomas Benton and the General (and helping strengthen Benton’s reputation as a brawler). Friends and foe alike knew Benton to be a “rough and tumble fighter off and on the Senate floor, not with pistols but with “stinging sarcasm, vituperative through learned oratory and bitterly heated debate,” according to Kennedy’s Profiles. (see below) With just one year at the University of North Carolina under his belt, Benton was said to carry the Congressional Library in his head, easily correcting other Senators when they forgot a name, date, or incorrectly quoted a passage from the Classics or Shakespeare.
The Senator belonged to the 1840s Democratic Party helping to orchestrate the nation’s westward expansion, now referred to as “Manifest Destiny.” Benton foresaw a nation that would stretch from the Atlantic to the Pacific oceans. A man of boundless energy, Benton pushed through legislation for the Pony Express moving mail service westward and extending the telegraph lines to eventually tie the coasts together and promoted the development of highways (such as they were) that drew a path across the nation for the heroic settlers to follow. He shared Lincoln’s dream of a transcontinental railway to carry merchandise and people betwixt and between the nation’s settlements.
Benton wrongly believed that the Missouri Compromise of 1820, which brought his state into the Union, also took the issue of slavery out of politics. He reigned supreme as the Kingpin of Missouri politics from 1821 to 1844. Then he broke with his Party by engineering the defeat of the annexation of Texas. He believed John Calhoun from North Carolina (vice president from 1824-1832) had cooked up a political plan to loop the Texas territories in with the slave state to increase Congressional votes in favor of slavery. His courage came as Benton did not hesitate, even on the eve of an election, to denounce his party’s policy. He managed to be re-elected but at the same time a pro-slavery candidate won to fill an unexpired Senate term by three times his tally. Benton continued his struggle against bringing Oregon and California into the Union as slave states—an opposite stance of Calhoun and President Andrew Jackson. Despite Senator Benton’s near defeat in 1844-45, he would not join the Whig party, saying the group “are no more able to comprehend me . . .than a rabbit, which breeds 12 times a year, could comprehend the gestation of an elephant, which carries for 2 years.”
In 1832, President Jackson and Benton faced a serious challenge from Henry Clay, who supported nullification. Under nullification the individual states could veto individual laws to meet the desires of individual states. But Jackson pointed out that the Union would have been dissolved in its infancy, during the War of 1812 with such a policy. “Nullification,” he wrote, “was incompatible with the existence of the Union, contradicted expressly by the letter of the Constitution, unauthorized by its spirit, inconsistent with every principle on which it was founded, and destructive of the great object for which it was formed.” It became an issue claimed by the South to win freedom from Washington. Here again, Benton did not side with the South, but with the Union.
Home in Missouri became his respite, but the death of two sons early in life and the long physical and mental illness of his wife, made this relief short-lived. Benton’s son-in-law, John Fremont, explored the West and became the original governor of California. Benton’s daughter, Jessie Benton Freemont, a well-educated and well-spoken force of nature herself, would later seek support from Lincoln to get her husband out of a jam during the Civil War. (Like most things in politics, it was complicated, suffice to say. Lincoln had bumped Fremont up to General rank, based on his expeditions, despite his lack of military training, which created some problems due to Freemont’s failure to respect the chain of command.
Benton met his waterloo on February 19, 1847, when Calhoun read to the Senate his resolution insisting that Congress had no right to interfere with the development of slavery in the territories. Calhoun called for an immediate vote. Benton rose from his chair, accepting his fate.
Mr. Calhoun: I certainly supposed the Senator from Missouri, the representative of a slave state, would have supported these resolutions. . .
Mr. Benton: The Senator knows very well from my whole course in public life that I would never leave public business to take up firebrands to set the world on fire.
Mr. Calhoun: Then I shall know where to find the gentleman.
Mr. Benton: I shall be found in the right place . . . on the side of my country and the Union. (An answer Benton noted later he “will wish posterity to remember.”
When the Missouri Senator was warned not to deliver a eulogy in appreciation of John Quincy Adams, a foe of slavery, Benton marched up and delivered a tribute for the ages.
Coming to the end of a challenging year, let’s see if there were also some shining lights to help us trudge forward. Here is a list of 20+ reasons to celebrate:
OneGoal is helping teens in Chicago tofinish high school and complete a year of trade school. The program started as an afterschool program for 23 students and now serves 15,000 nationwide.
Women came back into the labor force in 2023 after 800,000 left at the height of the Pandemic—moving into higher-paying jobs. The gender pay gap is at an all-time low. American women working full time still earn just 84 cents for every $1 men earn, but that’s up from 78 cents a decade ago.
The Camfed program haseducated 1.8 million African girls, including 8,000 girls in sub-Saharan Africa in 2023. Women are the kick-starters of home-based small businesses in their countries.
Finland joined the North American Treaty Organization (NATO), which will give Ukraine another ally thanks to the agreement with Turkey to let the Scandinavian country join. Sweden’s request is next up, but no doubt Russia will put an even stronger squeeze on Turkey and others in an attempt to prevent another pro-US entry. Who knows what piece of bounty Turkey might have gotten to achieve this important strategic goal?
The hole in the ozone layer is shrinking. (Slowly, don’t go crazy and drive faster; set your heat higher in the winter or at a lower temperature in the summer!) The CHIL United Nation’s trackers indicate by mid-century—that’s 26 years away—it could recover to 1980s levels.
The United States expected a recession in 2023 to take away jobs in exchange for a drop in inflation. Instead, over 2.5 million jobs were added while inflation slowed (not enough to please everyone). Egg prices are back to $2 a dozen after soaring to $4 at one time due to a disease that infected hens but impacted shoppers needing this kitchen table staple.
In the 19th century, nearly 50% of children worldwide died before they reached age 15. In 2023, the United Nations Population Division projects the world reaches a low in global child mortality, with just 3.6 percent of newborns dying by the age of 5. While this is excellent news, serious work remains to address the causes, care, and delivery of pregnant black women, who die in childbirth at 2.6 times the rate of white mothers.
Polio is expected to be eradicated worldwide by 2024, thanks to the efforts of Rotary International over decades. There were just 12 cases in 2023. The polio vaccine helped my generation avoid paralysis, living in steel iron lungs, and walking on crutches. This generation might need a reminder of the scourge they missed.
CRISPR, a gene-editing technique, has begun to treat sickle disease and blood disease. Sufferers require hospitalization and blood cell transfusions, often when the temperature outside changes to hot or cold. Researchers are now looking to apply what they have learned to other gene-based diseases.
Four Columbian kids survived 40 days in the jungle, aged 13, 9, 4, and 1. They survived a plane crash that killed their mother and were rescued by the Columbian military on June 9.
Beyonce’s Renaissance Tour is expected to draw $2.1 billion worldwide. Taylor Swift’s Era Tour: $1.4 billion from touring and merchandise, enlarging their status as an American icon. Both women have been recognized, along with Alicia Keys, for writing eight #1 songs on the Billboard 100.
Americans are traveling again—the number of air passengers—domestic and international are at pre-pandemic levels.
The leading cause of blindness worldwide, Blinding trachoma, is near 0. In 1996, the United nations aimed to eradicate the disease by 2020 by helping provide clean water, relieving overcrowding, and improving sanitation. The numbers were 189 million sufferers in 2014 and 105 million in 2022. Now, the target has been set for 2030.
Another win over disease has come with just 13 cases of the painful Guinea worm disease in 2022. This water-borne, sub-tropical disease removed disabled village workers from the farms, sending children to the fields, away from school. In 1986, the disease infected 3.5 million people. Former President Jimmy Carter fought to defeat the disease, wanting to end it in his lifetime. We’re hopeful he will, making it the second after smallpox to be eradicated by cleaning water supplies and digging deep wells.
Runners will commend the ability of Kevin Kiptum, a Kenyan runner, who set a new official record at the Chicago Marathon in October: 2 hours and 35 seconds. Or lament the bar has gone even lower!
American diners are selecting climate-conscious meals that are good for them as well as the planet. They’re called “climatarians” or “climavores.”
Many looted antiquities were returned. The Metropolitan Museum of Art is returning objects to Cambodia, Thailand, Turkey, and Greece. Thirty looted objects are being sent back to Italy by the California man who took them. The Museum of the Bible and Cornell University packed up 17,000 pieces and returned them to Iraq. The Smithsonian has agreed to give back to the families the “racial brain collection” acquired during the 19th century.
Gymnast Simone Biles came back and dominated the 2023 world championships and got a new fault named after her (The Biles II) so hard that nearly no one else, male or female, can complete it.
California is drought-free for the first time in years after snow and tropical storms—the reservoirs are filled.
We’re off the couch and back to the theaters! Thanks to movies like the pink-infused comedy “Barbie” and the less light-hearted “Oppenheimer,” a three-hour sit-down about the creation of the atomic bomb.
You may disagree with the ranking. Let me know or write your own list between watching football, eating tamales or lighting firecrackers!
Thanks to the Washington Post’s December 27, 2023: “No, 2023 wasn’t all bad, and here are 23 reasons why.” And Nicholas Kristof, New York Times, December 23, 2023“This Was a Terrible Year, and Also Maybe the Best One Yet for Humanity.”
Secular Christmas came alive in America in the late 1840s. A picture of Queen Victoria’s Christmas tree, complete with ornaments, appeared in the U.S. via telegraph. Other British seasonal traditions that made their way across the pond include Christmas cards, Charles Dickens’s “Christmas Carol,” and Clement Clark Moore’s poem, “A Visit from St. Nick.”
Someone dressed as St. Nicholas appeared in Concord, Massachusetts, on Christmas Eve in 1853. Two years later, in New Orleans, St. Paul’s Episcopal Church set up a Christmas tree aglow with candles and credited the German tradition. In Philadelphia in 1857, immigrants who’d become citizens said they were “naturalizing” the tree. An electrified tree did not appear until the 1880s, created by an employee of Thomas Edison. Yet the White House did not have a Christmas tree until 1889, when President Benjamin Harrison had a tree placed in an upstairs bedroom of the White House, maybe to please his grandchildren. Christmas became a federal holiday in 1870. Earlier, when Lincoln served in Congress for one term, he voted against making Christmas a holiday. He said state workers did not need another paid day off that regular workers would not receive.
Ah, but how did the Lincoln’s celebrate? In the 1860s souvenir hunters visiting the White House were so intent on collecting mementos (they cut scraps from the velvet drapes and swaths from the European carpet) that any decorations would be gone within a day. So, no tree went up at the White House.
Christmas as Unifying Force
Before the Civil War, Americans celebrated Christmas with their relatives from Europe or following their own religious traditions. These continued, but during and after the war a unique celebration of the family coupled with the yearnings of soldiers for home and for those left behind on the battlefield. The desire for peace and goodwill spoke to the immediate prayers of the nation.
Lincoln Christmas Traditions
Abe Lincoln and Mary, the Christmas before they left for the White House, probably would have joined other Springfield parents putting garlands of pine, evergreen boughs, and holly over the mantles and doorframes on Christmas Eve after their boys went to bed. Likely, Mary would be certain there would be Mistletoe and the chandelier would swing with the bough, spraying its scent throughout the dining room. Several bright red Poinsettia would grace the room. An array of culinary treats would include chicken salad, oysters, glazed fruit, venison, eggnog, and, of course, Southern biscuits. An orange and citrus tower would center the table with its fragrance, and a macaroon pyramid would be nearby for dessert. We recognize the turkeys and fruitcakes they expected at Christmas. (We will ignore the outcry of those who wonder if the fruitcakes are leftovers from that time.
Lincoln Family Christmas
The store registry at John Williams Co. store in Springfield had Abe Lincoln stopping by on Christmas Eve 1860, after his election but before the family left for Washington, to purchase four linen handkerchiefs, three gentleman’s silk handkerchiefs, and four children’s silk handkerchiefs. We know he also purchased fancy perfume for Mary. We hope he made sure the boys also had some sweets!
The Lincolns were known for their hospitality–once, months before an election, they invited 500 people to a gathering. They did a much smaller get-together in 1861, a Christmas party at the White House before the beginning of the war. The Lincolns did not send out Christmas cards during the Civil War. In 1862, the Lincolns visited soldiers at the many hospitals in Washington, D.C. Then the following year, Abe took his son to visit the troops with gifts of books and clothing with a tag: “From Tad Lincoln.” The President held a reception for his cabinet along with the White House Historical Society that, to this day, celebrates Christmas with special White House ornaments celebrating the Lincolns and other Presidential families.
Lincoln’s Winning Ways
The 16th President had a sixth sense of positive publicity. He knew Thomas Nash, the famous political cartoonist known for his work with Harper’s Weekly in the 1860s, created the elephant as the symbol of the Republican Party. For the New Year in 1863, Nash had drawn a picture of Santa visiting the troops on January 3.
Then, Lincoln asked Nash to create an image for December 31, 1864, entitled: “Union Christmas,” featuring Lincoln at the door offering cold and frost-bitten Southerner soldiers an invitation to join the Union. A second one featured Lincoln offering a Christmas Box to Jeff Davis, the Southern leader, with the message: “More war or peace and union?” In a few months, the surrender would be signed.
I hope the women of Texas and the men who love them have long memories. The next general election for Texas attorney general is a long way off, and it appears the State’s Leadership Triumvirate is banking on it.
Texans are suffering under a multi-year dictatorship over our minds and bodies. Our Triumvirate of “leaders” lack the equipment to understand a key issue vital to half the population of the Lone Star State and now are second-guessing the doctors who do.
In this case, Texas leaders appeal to a political faction clinging to the right wall, carved to fit nicely into gerrymandered sections of the state’s political landscape, thus far bringing reliable access to power for the Triumvirate.
Following this pattern, in 2021, Texas passed one of the most restrictive state bans that prohibits abortion after six weeks if the cardiac activity (the “heartbeat” law) of the fetus can be detected. In 2022, the Texas legislature passed the “trigger law” that prohibits abortion after fertilization, only granting exceptions for cases in which a pregnant patient risks death or “substantial impairment of a major bodily function.” The Texas language is the most restrictive language, first used in Texas and now being copied in other states.
The most recent stretch of Texas Attorney General Paxton’s power has impacted the life of Kate Cox, pregnant with a fetus suffering from trisomy 18, a fatal genetic disease. She appealed to the Texas district court to block the state’s enforcement of the ban, which cleared her for the procedure under an exception. In her appeal, Cox explained she risks losing her fertility and could lose her life if she continued to carry the fetus. Doctors told her the disease leaves an unborn child “virtually no chance of surviving,” and 95 percent of the fetuses with the disease do not live until birth, according to the Cleveland Clinic.
The Texas District Court cleared Cox for the procedure on Friday, but that night, the 9-GOP-member Texas Supreme Court, encouraged by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, put that decision on hold. On Monday, that court issued a seven-page opinion tossing out the District Court’s temporary restraining order, which would have blocked the state’s enforcement of the ban and cleared Cox for an abortion in Texas.
Expecting that ruling with her health deteriorating, Cox left Texas to have an abortion.
Ken Paxton bullied his way out of impeachment in September by threatening to find primary opponents for those in the House and Senate who voted against him, then following up on it. (The Texas House voted to impeach by 121-23, and the Texas Senate voted against by 16-14 (21 being required). His anger has him spending more time working against Republicans who voted against his deeds and pleasing the anti-abortionists than fulfilling the activities of a state’s legal leader.
Now, he’s stretching that tactic to bend doctors and even hospitals to his will and that of those who fund his political campaigns. His Texan constituents should be aware of the extent he will go to ensure his will is fulfilled.
Not Just Politicians Receive His Bullying
Before Cox left the state, Paxton released a letter threatening legal action against her doctor and other doctors and hospitals if they performed her (or any) abortion, pledging “civil and criminal liability including first-degree felony prosecutions.” He went further to say that the case did not fall into the exception of the Texas abortion law, and the (district court) judge was “not medically qualified to make this determination.” So, Paxton is? And the Texas Supreme Court, also made up of lawyers, is more qualified?
In a letter to Texas hospitals early this week, Paxton threatened to prosecute hospitals, doctors, and anyone who would assist in an abortion procedure. He threatens doctors with first-degree felonies and five years, up to life in prison. He goes so far as to discuss a review of hospital certification (which would threaten the hospital’s ability to serve the entire community, not just pregnant women) for those going against HIS will in their effort to deter a desperate, seriously ill pregnant woman from requesting an abortion.
“Even before winning an appeal (from a 9-GOP court),” Mary Ziegler, UC-Davis law professor, said, “This reflects his (Paxton’s) ultimate goal of wanting to go after abortion providers and supporters at all costs.”
Earlier, he went so far as to send out an advisory in 2022 to local prosecutors encouraging them to pursue criminal charges against abortion doctors with the threat of five-year prison sentences and offering the services of the AG’s office in assisting their prosecutions.
The court ruling appeared to endorse Paxton’s specific constructions on reproductive rights, according to Lara Portuondo, University of Houston law professor. “(This ruling) permits a green light precisely to the kind of intimidation campaign that you saw Ken Paxton doing here.”
Dr. Rick W. Snyder II, Texas Medical Association president, expressed a need for “legislative clarity to protect physicians so they don’t have to go to court (in these cases).”
Joanna Grossman, a professor at the Dedman School of Law at SMU, noted this current behavior is a continuation of what Paxton has done for three years and beyond enforcement through fear.
A few months ago, a group of 20 Texas women who had difficult /life-threatening pregnancies and experienced difficulty determining if their case would allow them to receive medical treatment in Texas petitioned the Texas Supreme Court for a determination of what is “reasonable medical judgment” in these cases. The Texas Medical Association has also asked for clarification so that, as the women’s case states, ” doctors do not have to wait until a mother is within an inch of death” before acting. A decision is expected in June.
I have avoided writing about the chaos created in Congress during the selection of a House Speaker. I hoped once the selection occurred, sanity might return. But with eight days until a government shutdown on November 17, newly elected Speaker, Mike Johnson, excused the House for the weekend. I felt bound to address the situation. I don’t see the House earned a trip home because their work isn’t done.
Speaker Johnson complicated the possibility of finding a compromise to the debt crisis before the deadline. He appears more intent on pushing his religious beliefs on the country than fulfilling his responsibility to bring forward a successful budget resolution. Now it has been suggested that Johnson released House Members on Thursday, so he could fly to Paris, France to speak on Friday at the worldwide Freedom Initiative Conference. (Correction: the New Republic, not sourced in the original article, retracts this report and Johnson’s spokesperson, Raj Shah, said Johnson did not leave the country this weekend.)
When Johnson assumed the Speaker role on October 25, after a three-week stalemate in identifying a new leader, he slid into place as a stealth candidate, despite being #5 in the House hierarchy. At that time, he knew the most pressing order of business would be to avoid a government shutdown by November 17. Instead, he scheduled a series of unnecessary votes to appease his Right Wing. He scheduled a vote to set the annual salary of the White House Press Secretary and the DOT Secretary at $1 to punish political opponents.
Threat of Losing AAA Moody’s Rating
Just after the markets closed on Friday, Moody’s Investment Service issued a warning on the U.S. economy, saying it could lose its AAA rating. Moody’s concern is that Congress could fail to act in time to avert topping the debt ceiling. As of January 19, the debt sat at $31.4 trillion, augmented by Covid-19 spending. S & P already downgraded the U.S. in 2011 during that budget stalemate. Earlier this year the third rating company, Fitch Group, also expressed disfavor with the status of the U.S. economy. This investment rating process began in 1917. Since 1960 the U.S. has raised the debt ceiling 78 times.
Typically, Congress begins consideration of the nation’s annual spending bills the day after the debt ceiling is approved the year prior. Former House Speaker Pelosi, who had more experience wrangling her caucus, scheduled spending bills so they were passed in August, before the deadline. Lately, we have been white knuckling the decision until the very last minute. The debt ceiling only approves funds that have already been appropriated. The discussion provides a grand-standing moment for the GOP’s Hard-Right Wing to flex their will in a House where the majority is razor thin.
This procrastination in the House requires federal agencies to spend time, money, and effort preparing for the possibility of a shutdown. At the same time, Congress votes to push the debt ceiling decision into the future instead of legislating a solution. Amid their efforts to purchase housing and vehicles, Americans cross their fingers, hoping their interest rates will not hike due to market instability, sending their purchase out of reach.
Polarization Adds to Concern
Some Members of Congress appear unworried about the consequences of their failure to act—appearing unconcerned about the impact on financial markets or on America’s reputation around the globe or the ability to borrow money. They seem to welcome the chance to blame Democrats, while the Democrats blame the GOP for the legislative chaos. As they engage in a fierce game of pickleball, the interest rate on cars, houses, and personal debt threatens to rise. This situation is more like a hot potato than a casual backyard picnic. It should be taken seriously.
Some point to the Democrats, saying the deficit is their responsibility, while Trump kept the deficit in check. But the federal debt rose from $14.4 trillion in 2016, his first year in office, to $21.6 trillion in 2019, his last. The Office of Management and Budget estimated the debt would rise between $1 and $1.2 trillion per year (rather than drop to nothing or decrease as the Hard Right suggested it should.)
But Trump’s signature tax cut, enacted in 2017, will cost $1.7 Trillion by the end of this fiscal year 2023. The cuts permanently lower the corporate tax rate, increasing annual losses to the U.S. Treasury far into the future. Expenditures during Covid-19 have helped balloon the deficit. But by the end of 2023 the Trump and the Bush tax cuts have cost the Treasury Department $10 trillion. According to the Treasury Department, the cuts are responsible for a 57 percent increase in the debt ratio (total debt to total assets).) They represent more than 90 percent of the debt ratio or trajectory of the U.S. debt if you exclude the one-time costs for responding to Covid-19 and the Great Recession.
Entitlement programs, like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid continue to rise with the aging and ailing population but cutting tax revenues without an eye to the future, only passed around dessert before managing bread and butter issues. Now it’s unlikely Congress can take away the corporate sweets in order to serve public citizens in the future.
Clean, Easy-to-Pass Bill Unlikely
When the House returns on TUESDAY, there will be three days to resolve the debt issue. Even if the speaker intends to kick the debt issue into 2024, there’s scant time to identify a bill with language able to pass the House and receive final approval in the Senate before the deadline.
The bill will need to be “clean” of any poison amendments (like prior legislation) that contain language related to abortion or shorting the IRS of already approved funding (Just before tax time- maybe a treat for the tax-collection haters in the GOP?). Current history in the House does not suggest a “clean” bill will be forthcoming.
The new House Speaker faces a forced vote on a last-minute “solution.” Or he will pray to kick the decisions again into 2023 or 2024. Attempting to starve the government of already approved funds to continue essential services–like disaster relief, soldier pay, air traffic control, food safety inspection, and border security–appears not to be a problem for the GOP.
Legislating the future of the nation’s 355.7 million Americans (Census Clock) is serious business. We need a House Speaker who works for all of us!
Landscapes around Willow City Loop, Texas at sunset
Texas’s current trio of government leaders, we’ll call them the Triumvirate because the three usually rule as one. During Ken Paxton’s impeachment trial, we heard repeatedly that Ken Paxton got 4.2 million votes in the mid-term election. They neglected to notice that there are 30 million people living in Texas. The State has 17.7 million people eligible to vote. But just 45.7% of those potential voters went to the polls to tell Texas who they wanted to represent them. They’re busy working, raising children, living life, unconcerned about all the confusion that politics seems to represent today.
But it’s not just being busy that keeps Texans from the polls. In Texas the GOP gerrymanders political maps — ripping them and rejiggering them in key precincts and counties so only the Republicans have a chance of winning, which discourages people from registering and voting. And now they’ve devised a plan to ensure that they win every battle, even those they could lose in court.
Texas leaders have managed to wrangle votes and personnel so Republican judges make political rulings. Where a Texas judge manages to rule for the citizens of Texas, the once impeached attorney general can now supersede the judge’s order. In essence the people of Texas have no way to win through avenues normally open in a democracy with functioning legislative, executive and judicial branches.
The provision known as the supersede rule prevents legal challenges from upending the status quo desired by the Attorney General before a full legal case can play out. [Kind of like what happened in the AG’s impeachment trial when the Lt. Governor (#2 in the Triumvirate) sat as judge in the AG Ken Paxton’s trial before the Senate and decided when to wind up the testimony, allowing the Senators to meet together Saturday night before making their final judgements Sunday. This timetable offered an opportunity for texts from Lt. Gov Dan Patrick’s and his minions to reach the Senators with incentives and plenty of stick (by threatening to “primary” those who voted for impeachment by sending another Republican candidate into their districts to run against them for 2024.)]
Rule by One Party corrupts. When there are no checks and balances, no compromise, one Party seeks to serve only those most fervent followers, no longer fulfilling the needs of the majority of the state. Opportunities for corruption abound. Ask the Chinese living under the Communist Party. Texas has had one-Party rule since 1994.
Likewise, fake speech that spreads lies, like the “stolen 2020 election,” threatens democracy. When fake speech was used in Congress in the 1950s under Senator Joe McCarthy, it pitted Americans against each other. During the Cold War with Russia, McCarthy spread fears of Communist subversion, charging Soviet spies infiltrated the federal government, universities, the film industry, and across the country. The term “witch hunt,” was applied to his “invstigations,” which spread falsehoods using television coverage of the hearings to spread his “fame’ throughout the country. The reference traces back to the witch trials in Salem centuries earlier.
We know how tight AG Paxton is with Far-Right Conservatives. He filed 48 cases on behalf of Trump’s false assertion that he was cheated in 2020. Rumors of a leak prior to the Supreme Court’s overturning the Roe decision seem plausible given that Paxton ruled in Texas the DAY OF the decision that a woman could not get an abortion. Immediately he put in place 50-year-old pre-Roe statutes, mimicking those on the books in Texas since before the Civil War. Very forward looking. The woman denied an abortion that day was in septic shock, had spent three days in the ICU, and her doctors said a miscarriage was inevitable. But they could not induce her because there was a still a fetal heartbeat. (Note: The legislation passed in Texas threatens doctors with up to 99 years in prison and up to $100,000 in fines for avoiding the strict rules. Does that sound like language written by people concerned with protecting the health and welfare of Texans or those ensuring that they “win” in a political battle?
The couple had gone through multiple rounds of in vitro to conceive this child and hoped to eventually be able to conceive again. They found the infection she suffered while waiting medical treatment prevents a future pregnancy.
Now that the impeachment trial is behind them, TX Governor Abbott is using a similar tactic to squeeze passage of the school voucher plan he’s promised to his far-right base, even though it went down in flames in the last special session, not being considered. Now because Gov. Abbott isn’t happy with the results of the earlier Texas Legislative session; he’s vowed to continue to call special sessions until his beloved school vouchers/public funding for religious schools is passed. This despite the fact that the rural school districts are smart enough to know siphoning money from the meager education pot will threaten funding for their public schools. What happened to one and done? It would be comical if these repeated sessions weren’t stealing funds from the Texas budget, like the public schools, who still have not gotten relief? Texas should not go any further into mimicking dark times in American history.
Preserving the Soul of Texas
Texas has a soul, though some might doubt. No one person or Triumvirate carries the burning core of a state way bigger than its 268,596 square miles. A state always in motion from the farmers working the flat plains of Amarillo to the climbers overwhelmed by the pin-drop quiet in the vast mountains of Big Bend, to those whose ancestors landed their make-shift canoes to found Nacogdoches, to those who fought at the Alamo and all the other battles within and without Texas, plus those millions in Houston, now the fourth largest city in America. Some are more concerned about how the next storm will impact their families and their jobs than they are worried about politics.
Ah, but there’s the rub—it’s all connected. Let’s not forget the hearty bunch in West Texas who have ridden the roller coaster of feast and bust that is the oil business. Across the state future generations of football and baseball and basketball players sweat and practice their game, while wind generators and sunshine gatherers and electric vehicle manufacturers push forward. A state of contrasts, but under it all, the soul of Texas remains. Let’s have a government worthy of these Texans.
Past Becomes Present.Blog 