The Argument of Tyrants

Lima News (Lima, Ohio) Apr 19, 1956

A Daily Thought

“Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves! — William Pitt

New Castle News (New Castle, Pennsylvania) Jun 30, 1928

“How Liberty is Lost”

Insofar as the present dictatorships in Europe are concerned, Mr. Lippmann demonstrates satisfactorily that they have been caused by the knuckling in of people who surrendered to tyrants because of their fear, fear concerning their individual futures, fear about their jobs, fear of their truculent neighbors, always fear, fear, fear.

That sort of a condition cannot arise in a country that keeps its mind upon a fair distribution of wealth. Such a distribution does not mean, and can never mean, the ladling of money out of the public coffers to the undeserving. It does mean a wide distribution of jobs and of opportunities and a careful husbanding of the savings or accumulations of those who are smart enough to keep an eye out for the future.
…..

The American citizen of today who is blinded by constant sobbing references to his condition, to the “goodness” of the present administration, needs cast his attention upon the methods employed which have resulted in continued and widespread fear, the fear that grows on the tree of insecurity.

And there is no greater insecurity than to depend for one’s life upon the nod of an ambitious man looking for more power.

Appleton Post Crescent (Appleton, Wisconsin) Jul 20, 1938

Sen. Goldwater may be a super, right-wing Republican, but that has not kept him from some fundamental points in what follows:

To understand the importance of the federal Constitution, we must recognize that it is primarily a system of restraints against the natural tendency of government to expand in the direction of absolutism.

We all know the main components of the system. The first is the limitation of the federal government’s authority to specific, delegated powers. The second, a corollary of the first, is the reservation to the states and the people of all power not delegated to the federal government. The third is a careful division of the federal government’s power among three separate branches. The fourth is a prohibition against impetuous, alteration of the system — namely, Article V’s tortuous but wise, amendment procedures.

Was it then a democracy the framers created? Hardly. The system of restraints on the face of it, was directed not only against individual tyrants, but also against a tyranny of the masses. The framers were well aware of the danger posed by self-seeking demagogues — that they might persuade a majority of the people to confer on government vast powers in return for deceptive promises of economic gain.

And so they forbade such a transfer of power — first by declaring, in effect, that certain activities are outside the natural and legitimate scope of the public authority, and secondly by dispersing public authority among several levels and branches of government in the hope that each seat of authority, jealous of its own prerogatives, would have a natural incentive to resist aggression by the others.

But the framers were not visionaries. They knew that rules of government, however brilliantly calculated to cope with the imperfect nature of man, however carefully designed to avoid the pitfalls of power, would be no match for men who were determined to disregard them.

In the last analysis of their system of government would prosper only if the governed were sufficiently determined that it should.

“What have you given us?” a woman asked Ben Franklin toward the close of the Constitutional Convention.

“A republic,” he said, “if you can keep it!”

We have not kept it. The system of restraints has fallen into disrepair. The federal government has moved into every field in which it believes its services are needed.

The state governments are either excluded from their rightful functions by federal pre-emption, or they are allowed to act at the sufferance of the federal government. Inside the federal government both the executive and judicial branches have roamed far outside their constitutional boundary lines.

…..

The Constitution is not an antique document. It is as pertinent today as it was when it was written. Our great error has been in departing from the Constitution as a document to restrain the concentration of power.

How do you stand, sir?

Daily Chronicle (Centralia, Washington) May 9, 1960

Delaware County Daily Times (Pennsylvania) Feb 22, 1966

Go Fly a Kite

Ben Franklin’s Experiment — June 10, 1752

From History.com:

On this day in 1752, Benjamin Franklin flies a kite during a thunderstorm and collects a charge in a Leyden jar when the kite is struck by lightning, enabling him to demonstrate the electrical nature of lightning. Franklin became interested in electricity in the mid-1740s, a time when much was still unknown on the topic, and spent almost a decade conducting electrical experiments. He coined a number of terms used today, including battery, conductor and electrician. He also invented the lightning rod, used to protect buildings and ships.

Image from NOAA History – The Kite Stations

Kite flying like a great many other sports is fast becoming of practical use. The Boston Advertiser says that a number of scientific men have turned to the kite as an economical means of taking meteorological observations, which may prove of great benefit to science, by securing an accurate and constant record of the conditions of the atmosphere at altitudes where observations have already been taken. For example during a recent kite ascension at Blue Hill, a maximum height of nearly 9,400 feet was attained, while a meteorgraph record was kept of the atmospheric conditions for more than three hours about a mile from earth. If such records were constantly obtained, the science of forecasting the weather might prove to be much benefited.

Image from Illuminating Lake County, Illinois History – George Lawrence Photographer

The work of the photographing from kites has already been tried in this vicinity with much success. This has led to an interesting experiment by the war department with an idea of utilizing the modern kite for military purposes. In an experiment at Governor’s Island in New York harbor last week, a large kite was sent up bearing a dummy soldier. It is understood that is was so successful that within a few weeks a real soldier will be sent up in the air in one of these kites, to show the feasibility of substituting the modern kite for the war baloon.

Image from Wikipedia

The use of war baloons in Europe has now become general in the military departments of the continent. These baloons are sent up for the purpose of keeping watch upon the movements of an opposing army The test made by the United States was department, however, seems to show that kites can be employed for the same purpose with about the same success. It is still possible that the modern kite will supplant the balloon for this purpose of taking observations from a considerable altitude, for both as regards convenience, and as regards economy, the kite seems to be preferable to the baloon for such purpose.

Austin Daily Herald (Austin, Minnesota) Nov 7, 1896

Kite flying seems to be becoming almost as popular in Maine as in China, judging by the newspaper reports. But the meanest of all kite flying tracks was that of a New Orleans man, who sent up one at Cooper’s Beach, near Rockland, the other day, with its tail decorated with sharp pieces of assorted glass which cut the strings of the other flyers, and caused a shower of kites that for a time was incomprehensible to their owners.

Bangor Daily Whig and  Courier (Bangor, Maine) Sep 4, 1897

Image from Hargrave – The Noble Inventor

JERSEY KITE FLYING

Temperature Taken at a Height of 2,973 Feet.

Bayonne, N.J., Nov. 9 — Kite flyers Eddy, Hotchkiss, Allen and Mitchell sent a self registering thermometer to a height of 2,937 feet yesterday. Dr. Eddy says that this was the highest altitude ever reached by a thermometer at Bayonne and the highest ever made without the use of piano wire as the kite line.

Five other ascensions followed during the day, and it was found that it was abnormally warmer aloft. In one instance, at a height of 1,505 feet, the temperature was found to be 63 degrees, both aloft and at the earth.

According to previous kite records the observations indicate warm weather. Triangulations were made with a 600-foot base line and two angles. The wind was very strong from the south. It was two degrees cooler at a height of 2,973 feet than on the ground.

The Arizona Republican (Phoenix, Arizona) Nov 10, 1897

KITE FLYING FOUND TO BE DANGEROUS

CHICAGO, (UP) — Kite-flying has entered the ranks of dangerous pastimes the National Safety Council reported.

A number of fatalities to children flying kites were recorded during the last year, the council said.

Most of the deaths were due to electric shock caused by kite wires or wet strings falling across high tension wires. Other children were killed by cars while flying kites in the streets.

Albuquerque Journal (Albuquerque, New Mexico) Mar 8, 1931

Albuquerque Journal (Albuquerque, New Mexico) Mar 14, 1933

Man or Ass?

Image from Old and Welsh

Reconstruction, Negro Suffrage, &c. [excerpt]

Our fathers, in the adoption of the Constitutions of most of the States, required a property qualification before granting the right to vote. But this was a very mistaken and mischievious distinction, and experience soon convinced all reflecting men that there were thousands of intelligent and very worthy citizens, who from one cause or another, never acquired sufficient property to entitle them to vote, and who where, therefore, denied that privilege, while on the other hand, there were multitudes of those who possessed wealth, who were so depraved and ignorant that they were totally disqualified to vote understandingly, even on the most common and simple political issues of the day.

Benjamin Franklin explosed this humbug most thoroughly when he asked the question, if a man could not vote without owning an ass, and could vote if he did — whether it was the man or the ass which really voted?

Alton Weekly Telegraph (Alton, Illinois) Jun 16, 1865

Franklin – The Home of his Boyhood

Image from the ThinkQuest page, Humble Beginnings: Franklin in Boston

FRANKLIN: — THE HOME OF HIS BOYHOOD.

There are a few places yet left in Boston, of universal interest. Do you see that old house on the corner of Hanover and Union streets, with a gilt ball protruding from its corner, diagonally into the street? It has no architectural pretensions to arrest a passer-by. It is a plain brick house, of three stories, with small windows, close together, and exceeding small panes of glass in them, the walls of a dingy yellow. Yet it is a house warming in associations interesting to well-nurtured minds throughout the civilized world. Read the name upon the bell, and you will get an inkling of my meaning — JOSIAS FRANKLIN, 1698. Yes, that is the very roof under which Benjamin Franklin grew up. He was not born there, but his father removed there when he was but six months old, so that all his recollections of home must have been connected with those walls. The side of the house on Union street remains as it was in the days of Franklin’s boyhood; but that on Hanover street has been shamefully treated. Nearly the whole front has been cut out to make room for two monstrously disproportioned show-windows. And this house, so full, as I have just said, of associations, is fuller yet of bonnets! Yes, by the head of the Prophet, of Bonnets! It is a bonnet Warehouse, and from the inordinate windows, aforesaid, bonnets of all hues and shapes ogle you with side-long  glances, or else stare you openly out of countenance, while mountain piles of bandboxes tower to the ceiling of the upper story, eloquent, like Faith, of things unseen. Heaven, forbid that I should say anything in derogation of bonnets, any more than of the fair heads that wear them, but I would that they had another Repository.

It was my good fortune to go over the house before it had undergone this metamorphosis. It was occupied in part at least, some eight or ten years ago, by a colored man, of the name of Stewart, a dealer in old clothes, who thought of buying the premises, and wanted my advice about it, I gladly availed myself of the opportunity to view them. The interior of the house was then, I should judge, in the same condition that it was when the worthy old soap-boiler and that sturdy rebel (in youth as in age) his world famous son, lived there. There were the very rooms in which the child Franklin played, the very stairs up and down which he romped, the very window seats on which he stood to look out into the street. The shop on the street was unquestionably the place where he used to cut wicks for candles, and fill the moulds, and wait upon the customers. I pleased myself in imagining which room it was in which the father sat, patriarch-like, at his table surrounded by his thirteen children, all of whom grew up to years of maturity, and were married. And you may be sure I did not fail to take a peep into the cellar, where poor-Richard, in his infantile economy of time, proposed to his father that he should say grace over the whole barrel of beef they were putting down in the lump, instead of over each piece in detail, as it came to the table. A proposition which inclined the good brother of the Old South Church to fear that his youngest hope was given over to reprobate mind, and was but little better than one of the wicked.

Image from the Historical Society of Pennsylvania

And I would have given a trifle to know which of the chambers it was that was Franklin’s own, where he educated himself, as it were, by stealth, Where he used to read ‘Bunyan’s Works, in separate little volumes,’ and ‘Barton’s Historical Collections,’ — ‘small Chapman’s books, and cheap; forty volumes in all’ — and Plutarch’s Live, not to mention ‘a book of De Foe’s called An Essay to do Good,’ and where too, his lamp (or more probably his candle’s end) was ‘oft seen at midnight’s hour,’ as he sat up the greatest part of the night, devouring the books which his friend the bookseller’s apprentice, used to lend him over night, out of the shop, to be returned the next morning. How the rogue must have enjoyed them! Seldom have literary pleasure been relished with such a gusto as by that hungry boy.

It will not be many years before this monument of the most celebrated man that Boston, not to say America ever produced, will be demolished, and the place that knows it will know it not more, unless something be done to save it. It will be a burning shame, and lasting disgrace to Boston, with all its pretensions to liberality, and its affections of reverence for its great men, to suffer the most historical of its houses to be destroyed, when the rise of real estate in that neighborhood shall seal its doom. It is a shame that it has been left so long to take the chances of business. It should have been bought years ago, and placed in the hands of the Historical Society, or some other permanent body, in trust, to be preserved for ever, in its original condition. It is not late to restore it to something like its first est???e, and to save it from utter destruction. If it be not done, it will be a source of shame and sorrow when it is too late.

The house in which Franklin was born has been destroyed within this century. That house stood in Milk street, a little below the Old South Church, on the other side of the way, and the spot if marked by a ‘Fortunate Warehouse’ five stories high, which forms a fitting pendant to the Bonnet Warehouse, in Hanover street. The printing office of James Franklin, where Franklin served his apprenticeship, where he used to put his anonymous communications under the door, where he used to study when the rest were gone to dinner, and where he used sometimes to get a flogging from his brother — was in Queen, now Court street, nearly opposite the Court house on the corner of Franklin Avenue, which, if I am not mistaken, derives its name from this curious circumstance.

American Freeman (Prairieville, Wisconsin) Dec 15, 1847

Georgia’s Traitor and the Patriots of Liberty

John Zubly, the American Patriot Who Turned Traitor

“A REPUBLIC is little better than a government of devils!” So declared John Joachim Zubly, a man on  whom our country had relied, and whom the Revolutionists had trusted. He was a patriot who suddenly turned traitor at a time when America and liberty needed every true man’s aid.

The colonies had long groaned under British oppression. When they rose against England, in 1775, it was less with an idea of breaking loose from the mother country than of showing resentment by force of arms where argument and appeal had failed. They simply wished to bring England to her senses and to obtain relief from injustice. Even George Washington in later years confessed: “The idea of independence was at first abhorrent to me.”

But soon he and all the rest of the patriots realized that the time for half-way measures had passed. There must be either dumb submission or open defiance. And, should they choose defiance, they must free the colonies wholly from the British yoke and declare our country free and independent.

It was to discuss this that the continental congress met at Philadelphia in 1776.

We are apt to think that congress was a collection of ardent patriots, panting for liberty at any price. This was not wholly true. While the majority of the delegates were firm in their resolve to declare for independence, several of them threatened to balk at so rash a step.

Nor can they be severely blamed for hesitating. They were men of property and importance. They had more to lose than had most Americans. Should the Revolution fail their goods would doubtless be seized by the British government and they themselves would be hanged. As Benjamin Franklin said, in grim jest:

“We must hang together or we’ll hang separately!”

But, to their eternal credit, these wary delegates at last yielded to the popular voice. The Declaration of Independence was drawn up, and on July 4, 1776, was adopted (although it was not signed until the next month). The grave step was taken. The congressmen stood committed. They had “crossed the Rubicon” and were ready to take the consequences.

There was one exception to this band of patriots. He was John Joachim Zubly, a Swiss, who had emigrated to America in early life and had settled in Georgia. Zubly was not only prominent as a scholar and a statesman, but was a preacher as well. He had shown great indignation at the colonists’ wrongs and had both written and spoken in protest against tyranny.

So patriotic was he that Georgia chose him as one of its five delegates to congress in 1775. There he worked hard for the people’s cause and even drew up a petition to King George III, “upon the present unhappy situation of affairs.” Altogether, he was looked upon as an ardent patriot. Indeed, it is hard to understand the sudden and terrible change in the man.

As soon as Zubly found congress was determined to adopt the Declaration, he fought the proposition most bitterly and utterly refused any part in it. He denounced the idea of a republic and did everything in his power to stem the tide of opinion. Had this been all he did no great shame need to have been attached to him. But he was not content with refusing to vote for the Declaration. He actually entered into secret correspondence with the enemy, betraying to the British the patriots’ private plans and giving warning that the Declaration was about to be adopted. What further harm he might have done the cause of liberty cannot be guessed, for a fellow congressman (Samuel Chase of Maryland) found reason to suspect him. A treasonable letter from Zubly was intercepted. Chase exposed the man’s whole black treachery to congress.

Zubly fled in hot haste from Philadelphia to escape punishment. He went at once to Georgia. There, utterly casting away his cloak of patriotism, he sided openly with America’s foes. For this he was banished from Georgia and half of his property was declared forfeit. He rushed to the British for protection.

After a few years of misery and disgrace he died, in 1781, while the Revolutionary war was still at its height.

Adams County News (Gettyburg, Pennsylvania) Aug 10, 1912

The colonial ball, which was given at the Kimball house last Friday evening, has developed the amusing fact that nearly everybody in Atlanta is provided with a great ancestor.

To the strains of old colonial music, which might have soothed the ear of George Washington, when that distinguished patriot was a dashing cavalier, these ancestors in their knee breeches, powdered wigs and fluted shirts, marched out in gay procession before the assembled lookers-on. The customs in vogue before the revolution were revived in all of their quaint and amusing comedy and not a few of the old ancestors, as they skipped about the ballroom, gave refreshing evidence of the fact that age and long imprisonment in their respective places of abode had not impaired their ease of locomotion. In fact, their long retirement had seemingly lubricated their joints and prepared them, as it were, for greater exhibitions of agility.

This ball will serve a beneficial purpose if it kindles a renewed interest in the old colonial era. It is a foolish idea which many have acquired, because of the rapid growth which has characterized this country during the present century, that our fathers were very simple men. There are many respects in which they far surpass us, and we could set at their feet, so to speak, and drink in many valuable lessons of social and political wisdom. After all, we only surpass them in the enlarged development of the inventive faculty, as applied to the practical aspect of life. We have steam engines, electric telegraph and sewing machines, all of which our fathers might have given us had they lived in an age of peace and tranquility, but they had no time for such thinking. From the science of war they emerged, without a moment’s rest, into the science of government, and began to study the problems that would shape the destiny of the new world and promote the happiness of their posterity.

There is much to be gained from the study of past events, for wisdom lies in review as well as in progression, and the prophet’s vision is often clarified by looking backward. Americans have no reason to be ashamed of their simple and patriotic ancestry. A grander federation never met in solemn caucus than the continental congress of 1776, which proclaimed the principles of the American declaration and in the streets of Philadelphia kindled the flaming bonfires of liberty.

An Old Story Reviewed.

To widen the retrospective area thus opened by the social events of the week, it may be of interest to the readers of The Constitution to know that Georgia was entitled to five signers of the declaration.

Instead of this number, however, only three names appear in her behalf on the scroll of independence. The other two have been omitted from the document, which is still preserved in Washington city.

Behind the apparent oversight there hangs an interesting story and one with which only a very few, at this time, are familiar.

The declaration of independence was signed by the members of the continental congress, which met in the spring of 1776. In this congress Georgia was represented by a delegation of five representatives. These were Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton, John Houston and Rev. John Zubly.

The latter member, although a wearer of the sacred cloth, was guilty of an act of perfidy which has eternally blighted his reputation.

Why Mr. Zubly Fled.

During the early part of the session of congress a few of the members had privately discussed the subject of drawing up a declaration of independence, Zubly opposed the efforts of the delegation, on account of the strong political affinity which bound him to the English government.

Although a member of the continental congress and Georgia’s accredited representative, he was not as ardent in his championship of liberty as the other members of the delegation. He was not in favor of any radical measure by which the colonies would be wholly separated from England.

Finding, however, that his ardor was unavailing, he secretly dispatched a letter to the British governor, acquainting him with the nature of the situation and advising him to adopt, in Georgia, a speedy measure of prevention.

A copy of this letter, by a fortunate accident, was obtained from one of the clerks, and Mr. Chase, a representative from Maryland, openly brought against Mr. Zubly the charge of improper conduct in betraying the interests of liberty. Seeing that his perfidy had been discovered and apprehending the action of congress, which he knew would blight his reputation, he cowardly betook himself to flight.

Mr. Houston, a member of the Georgia delegation and a colleague of the clergyman, who had thus violated the sanctity of his high oath, was appointed by congress to go in search of him and to counteract any evil that might result from his disclosure of the situation.

In addition to the search for Mr. Zubly, which occupied a considerable portion of his time, other important business detained Mr. Houston in Georgia for several weeks, and for that reason he was not present when the document of liberty was signed. There were only three of the Georgia members in their places, at this time, and these were Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall and George Walton.

The protest of Georgia, therefore, against the tyranny of England and her solemn declaration in favor of a total severance, was couched in the strong, manly and characteristic signatures of this illustrious trinity.

In Augusta, Ga., a handsome granite monument has been erected to the signers, and three counties have been named for them, as a tribute to their exalted memory. A braver, bolder or more devoted trio never served the cause of liberty, and their glory, like Orion’s belt, illuminates the misty background of our colonial history.

Button Gwinnett

Image from The New Georgia Encyclopedia website

On the Field of Honor.

The first of these signers, Mr. Gwinnett, was the unfortunate victim of the code of honor.

His antagonist was Colonel Lackland McIntosh. A feud of long standing was the cause of their fatal meeting. The failure of Mr. Gwinnett, in 1777, to be re-elected to the continental congress, after a warm fight, exasperated him no little and the taunts of Colonel McIntosh, who was greatly pleased with the result, prompted him to send a challenge to that gentleman.

The challenge was accepted. They agreed to fight with pistols at a distance of only twelve paces. In exhange of bullets both principals were wounded. Colonel McIntosh however, recovered, while Mr. Gwinnett was mortally wounded and died on the 7th of May, 1777, in the forty-fifth year of his age.

Mr. Gwinnett was an Englishman by birth and for several years was engaged in mercantile pursuits in Bristol. After his marriage he came to America, in 1770, and settled on St. Catherine’s island, near the coast of Georgia.

At first Mr. Gwinnett was not an ardent friend of liberty, because of the exposure of his property. He doubted the ability of the colonial government to cope with England in a fight for independence. When he was afterwards convinced, however, that independence was a possibility, he entered into the revolutionary protest with great enthusiasm. His property was seized and totally destroyed by the British and yet he was loyal in affliction to the cause which he espoused.

Dr. Lyman Hall was a devoted patriot from the beginning of the movement which resulted in the overthrow of English tyranny.

The remaining signer, George Walton, was the most distinguished of this colonial group. He was six times a member of the continental congress, a soldier of the revolution, the first governor of the young commonwealth, the chief justice of the supreme court, and for nearly fifteen years prior to his death a stainless wearer of the judicial ermine. His home is yet standing near the city of Augusta, in plain view of the Carolina hills. Here he entertained Washington and LaFayette, during the days of the revolution, and dispensed his lavish hospitality. Colonel Walton was a man of great genius and his memory is the precious heritage of all Georgians. A subsequent article may touch upon his services at greater length. His grave is on the Sand Hills, near Augusta, Ga., where he has slept, under the overhanging foliage, since the first faint glimmering of the century.

L.L. KNIGHT.

The Atlanta Constitution (Atlanta, Georgia) May 20, 1894

Franklin’s Famous Toast

Image from the Why Benjamin Franklin Was So Much Better Than You article on the Zen College Life website.

Franklin’s Famous Toast.

Franklin was dining with a small party of distinguished gentlemen, when one of them said, “Here are three nationalities represented — I am French, and my friend here is English and Mr. Franklin is an American. Let each one propose a toast.”

It was agreed to, and the Englishman’s turn came first.

He arose, and, in the tone of a Briton bold, said, “Here’s to Great Britain, the sun that gives light to all nations of the earth.”

The Frenchman was rather taken aback at this, but he proposed, “Here’s to France, the moon whose magic rays move the tides of the world.”

Franklin then arose, with an air of quaint modesty, and said, “Here’s to our beloved George Washington, the Joshua of America, who commanded the sun and moon to stand still — and they obeyed,”

Lima News (Lima, Ohio) Feb 20, 1899

Webster’s Right, Times Are Tite

So  let’s skip the cake and presents, and celebrate Noah Webster’s birthday (Oct .16th) with words from the past:

A Philadelphia paper has ascertained that Noah Webster used to play euchre and steal eggs.

Nevada State Journal (Reno, Nevada) Jan 31, 1874

The ghost of Noah Webster came to a spiritual medium in Alabama not long since, and wrote on a slip of paper: “It is tite times.” Noah is right, but we are sorry to see he has gone back on his dictionary.

Nevada State Journal (Reno, Nevada) Apr 17, 1875

THE HARM THAT WEBSTER HAS DONE THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.

In the estimation of many, the next book in the world to the Bible is Webster’s unabridged Dictionary! It is found everywhere, and has done much good and we think much evil. It is not generally known that Dr. Webster‘s great work was in its inception a conspiracy against the English language.

The first issue of his system, more than half a century since, was received with hoots and laughter. But the Doctor, having the capital of great learning, industry and obstinacy to back him, kept hammering on the public until his revised and less offensive later editions were received with favor. all this can be abundantly proved. Webster started out with the idea to spell by sound as nearly as possible, as h-a-z for has and w-o-o-d for would, and was only induced to withdraw such radical changes, because he perceived that they never would be received. He then compromised with the difficulty and made all the changes he dared in the orthography and orthoepy of the language.

His dictionaries, even as thus revised called forth immediate and persistent denunciation from the most able scholars in the Union and the jeers of the English people.

But the Doctor subsidized a power which is more powerful than learning orthodoxy and pride of race — he advertised largely in the newspapers, and canvassed the entire Union by well paid and able agents.

He succeeded. By degrees familiarity with the unauthorized liberties he had taken with the language grew into the usages of life and the education of the young, and now we find ourselves face to face with the strange anomaly of professing to speak and write the English language, and chiefly using as a standard a work which is utterly repudiated by the entire English people and the best portion of our own scholars, as subversive of etymology, as revolutionary, as partisan and unauthorized by the masters of the English tongue. Webster’s dictionary was a bold and clever commercial adventure, and a successful one; but that should not blind every lover of the integrity and history of his language to its arrogant mutilation of that which we should most carefully conserve.

Again, we have been depended so long upon the North for our books and our literature that it took all the terrible lessons of “the war” to open our eyes to the criminal supineness, and to inaugurate measures looking to a purer, truer and more local publication of educational works.

And just here we affirm that we are under shackles to Noah Webster and his successes, in so far as we receive the palpable alterations his later editions give in the meaning of important words bearing on politics and governmental relations.

The dictionary as left by Dr. Webster, was bad enough, but since his death it has been deliberately “doctored” by his literary executors until now it stands forth as radicalized, not only in literature, but in politics. This can easily be proved.

Why, then, do we submit to this imposition?

Is it because there is no peer of Webster to be found in our book stores?

By no means. In the official declaration of Harvard University; of the University of Virginia, of Washington and Lee College, and and many other  first-class institutions, Dr. Worcester’s dictionary is preferred, and is stated to be equal in every respect, and superior in its adhesion to English purity, and in its entire freedom from sectarian bias.

With this opinion thousands of our most enlightened and influential scholars coinside, and we hope soon to see the day when we will find a Worcester in the place of the Webster now so common on the editor’s table, the merchant’s desk, by the teacher’s elbow and in the hands of our children.

Galveston Daily News (Galveston, Texas) Mar 30, 1873

Noah Webster made a voyage to England, before the days of steam in ocean navigation, to hear how the best educated men in that country pronounced their own language; but found neither greater uniformity nor perfection on the other side of the water than on this, and so gave up the idea of a pronouncing dictionary. He found it equally hard, though he made the attempt, to introduce uniformity in spelling. The Dictionary which he spent a long life in preparing, gives a list of more than a thousand words,  in the pronunciation of which such high authorities as Perry, Walker, Knowles, Smart, Worcester, Cooley, and Cull differ, in some cases to such a degree as would scarcely enable the hearer to recognize the identity of the same word pronounced by the different standards. In a free country like this, every man is supposed to have the right to spell and pronounce according to his own notions. The principal trouble is to keep the peace between the ambitious young sophmore, when he begins to write for the press, the intelligent printer, the methodical proof reader, and that scapegoat of the whole, the printer’s devil.

Galveston Daily News (Galveston, Texas) Mar 16, 1877

 

Noah Webster

 

Franklin as a Writer.

His pen was as ready as his purse in the service of all human kindness. And what a pen it was! It could discourse metaphysics so clearly and lucidly as to make them seem plain moralizing. It could tear a sophism to pieces by a mere query. It could make a simple tale read like a subtle argument. He could be grave and he could be gay in a breath. He could spend as much wit and humor on a “Craven Street Gazette” — which was meant only to amuse an old landlady, away from home, and probably out of joint before her return from Rochester — as on a State paper designed to fire America and sting England. In another tone, he translates into human language, for the amusement of a court lady, the reflections, in the garden of her house, of a gray-headed ephemera, full seven hours old, on the vanity of all things.

His “Petition of the Left Hand,” might have been composed by Addison. In it, the left hand bewails the partiality which educated the right hand exclusively. Some of Franklin’s fables and tales have been so absorbed into the thought of the world that their source is absolutely forgotten. Only in this way can we account for what was doubtless an unconscious plagiarism by an eminent sanitary authority, last year, of Franklin’s “Economical project for Diminishing the cost of Light.”

The economy consisted simply in rising at six o’clock instead of nine or ten. Ideas such as Franklin’s never become superanuated. Not every one who uses the expression, “to pay dear for one’s whistle,” knows that the dear whistle was a purchase made by Franklin, when seven years old, with a pocketful of pence. Franklin’s store was too abundant for him to mind, though some of his fame went astray. “You know,” he tells his daughter, “everything makes me recollect some story.”

But it was not recollection so much as fancy. His fancy clothed every idea in circumstances. When the illustration had served its turn, he was indifferent what became of it. Franklin did injustice to himself when he fancied he wanted any such mechanical aid. His English had been learned from the “Pilgrim’s Progress,” and the “Spectator.” It had the force of Bunyon without his ruggedness. It had the serene light of Addison with tenfold his raciness and vigor. It sparkled with sarcasms as cutting as Voltaire’s, but all sweetened with humanity. Many of his inventions or adaptions — such as “colonize” — have been stamped, long since, as current English. But he did not covet the fame of an inventor, whether in language, in morals, or in politics. In language, he was even declared a foe to innovation.

Writing to Noah Webster, in 1789, he protests against the new verbs “notice,” “advocate,” and “progress.” He had as little ambition to be classic as to be an innovator in English. He wrote because he had something at the moment to say, with a view to procuring that something should at that moment be done. —Edinburgh Review.

The Daily News (Frederick, Maryland) Nov 20, 1883

The Thorp Springs Christian is a critic. It says:

In a primer, which is common in the schools of our country, is a picture of a sow and six pigs, and under it is this reading: “A big pig and six little pigs.” What language is this? It is not good English, and yet it is in a school book. As well say of a woman and children, a big child and six little children; of a goose and goslings, a big gosling and six little goslings; of a large fish and minnows, a big minnow and six little minnows.

The Christian knows more than Noah Webster. He says: “Pig, the young of swine, a hog.” The former is regarded as the more elegant term. The writer once heard a little boy say “give me some hog,” when he wanted to be helped to roast pig. It did not sound well.

Galveston Daily News (Galveston, Texas) Sep 14, 1887

 

John Clark Ridpath (Image from http://radicalacademy.com)

 

RIDPATH ON FREE COINAGE.

John Clark Ridpath, the historian, in an interview on the financial question says:

“According to my way of thinking our Government has been steadily drifting away from the people and getting into the power of special interests. The circle of government has narrowed and narrowed until it appears to me the height of absurdity to call it any longer a Government of the people, for the people and by the people. I want to see this process completely reversed. I want to see the Government restored to the people. I believe precisely what Webster and Theodore Parker and Lincoln said, viz” ‘That our republic is, or ought to be, a government of the people, for the people and by them.’

RIGHT TO GOVERN THEMSELVES.

“How can there be any harm in such a doctrine? In the name of common sense has it come to pass that patriotic citizens of the United States of American cannot advocate the right of the people to govern themselves? Has it come to that when we have, sure enough, a lot of self-constituted masters who shall tell us what is good for us and how to obtain it? Are we Americans a lot of younglings who are unable to lead ourselves, but must be led rather with a string and fed on porridge as with a spoon?

“Among the methods as it seems to me by which the Government is to be recovered by the people is, first of all, as the matter now stands, the restoration of our currency. We want our currency system put back precisely where it was under the statutes and constitution for the first eighty-one years of our existence as a nation. Our statutory bimetallic system of currency was taken from us [in 1873] by a process which I do not care to characterize in fitting terms. Now we propose to have it back again. The restoration of our silver money to the place it held before is the people’s cause, and the people in this contest are going to triumph.

They are going to triumph in the open light of day in the clear gleam of light and truth.

“The silver dollar was of old the unit of money and account in the United States. That dollar to this hour has never been altered by the fraction of a grain in the quantity of pure metal composing it. Every other coin, whether of gold or silver, has been altered time and time again, but the silver unit never. The silver dollar was the dollar of the law and the contract. It is to this day the dollar of the law and the contract. To the silver unit all the rest, both gold and silver, have been conformed from our first statutes of 1792 to that ill-starred date when the conspiracy against our old constitution order first declared itself. The gold eagle of the original statute, and of all subsequent statutes, was not made to the $10, but to be of the value of $10. The half-eagle was not made to be $5, but of the value of $5. The quarter-eagle was of the value of $2.50, and the double-eagle was of the value of $20. Even the gold dollar of 1849, marvelous to relate, was not $1, but was made to be of the value of $1. The subsidiary coins were all fractions of the dollar and the dollar was of silver.

NEW MEANING FOR “DOLLAR.”

“Not a single dictionary or encyclopedia in the English language before 1878 ever defined dollar in any terms other than of silver. In that year the administrators of the estate of Noah Webster, deceased, cut the plates of our standard lexicon and inserted a new definition that had become necessary in order to throw a penumbra of rationality around the international gold conspiracy.

“The way to obviate the further disastrous effects of this international gold conspiracy is to stop it. We want the system of bimetallism restored in this country. Bimetallism means the option of the debtor to pay in either of two statutory coins, according to the contract. This option freely granted, the commercial parity of the two money metals will be speedily reached, nor can such parity ever be seriously disturbed again as long as the unimpeded option of the debtor to pay in one metal or the other shall be conceded by law and the terms of the contract. The present commercial disparity of the two metals has been produced by the pernicious legislation which began twenty-three years ago and which has not yet satisfied itself with the monstrous results that have flamed therefrom.

“What do we propose to accomplish by free coinage? We propose to do just this thing — viz: to break the corner on gold and reduce the exaggerated purchasing power of that metal to its normal standard. Be assured there will be no further talk of a 50-cent dollar when the commercial parity of the two money metals shall have been reached. Every well-informed person must know that the present disparity of the two money metals is bu the index of the extent to which gold has been bulled in the markets of the world. It is not an index to the extent to which raw silver has declined in its purchasing power as compared with the average of other commodities in any civilized market place of the whole globe. No man shall say the contrary and speak the truth. This question is hot upon us. It can be kept back no longer. It is a tremendous economic question that ought to be decided in court of right, reason and of fact. My judgement is that the American people, in spite of all opposition, are going to reclaim the right of transacting their business, and in particular of paying their debts according to a standard unit worth 100 cents to the dollar, neither more nor less, and that they will not accept the intolerable program which declares in fact if not in words that they shall henceforth transact their business and in particular discharge their debts with a cornered gold dollar worth almost two for one.”

Nevada State Journal (Reno, Nevada) Aug 8, 1896

Title: The American Spelling Book: containing the rudiments of the English language : for use of schools in the United States
Author: Noah Webster
Edition: 90
Publisher: Johnson & Warner, 1816

A Great Book.

There is in Utica an old man of unusual intelligence who is known to have graduated from no college, and yet whose perfect English, including syntax, orthography and pronunciation, would stamp him as an educated man in any company. One night this old man was seated in the rooms of the Cogburn club, when he consented to be interviewed as follows:

“From whom did you get the foundation of your education?”

“From Webster.”

“Daniel Webster?”

“No, but Noah Webster, through his spelling book. When I was 12, I could spell every word in that book correctly. I had learned all the reading lessons it contains, including that one about the old man who found some rude boys in his fruit trees one day, and who, after trying kind words and grass, finally pelted them with stones, until the young scapegraces were glad to come down and bet the old man’s pardon.”

“Webster‘s spelling book must have been wonderfully popular.”

“Yes.” And a genial smile lighted up the ancient face. “There were more copies of it sold than of any other work ever written in America. Twenty-four millions is the number up to 1847, and that had increased to 36,000,000 in 1860, since which time I have seen no account of its sale. Yes, I owe my education to the spelling book.” — Utica Observer.

Lima News (Lima, Ohio) May 27, 1898

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This image comes from the Eightface website. He has an interesting video (about 8 minutes long) of how he made this book. It even shows him using an old printing press.

From his website:

Pictorial Webster’s features over four hundred original woodcut and copper engravings from 19th century editions of the Merriam-Webster dictionary. The fine press edition features a letterpress interior, leather binding and a hand-tooled cover. A trade edition of the book is now available from Chronicle Books.

This video offers a behind-the-scenes peek at the making of the book. You get a good sense of what’s involved with production and the amount of effort that goes into it.

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NOTE: I provided definition links to a few words in the articles above, and would have used the Merriam-Webster dictionary website as the link source, but their site seems to take forever to load.