Thomas Jefferson: A Historical Overview

The subject Founding Father of this paper is the historical dichotomy named Thomas Jefferson. This paper will take a look into several areas of Jefferson’s life. His youth, where he grew up, educational background, his plantation lifestyle, his political and religious leanings and finally what led him to be one of the Founding Fathers of this great nation. Jefferson is one of the most intricate of the Founders; he is considered a Renaissance man by modern historians because he was one of the few people who knew something about nearly every subject known at the time. He saw the infancy of a nation and helped nurture it into adolescence. He was an avid Architect, Engineer, Enlightenment thinker and Biblical Scholar as well as his total wealth of general knowledge. He was the first Secretary of State under Washington, Vice President under Adams and finally the third President of the United States allowing Ohio into the Union and doubling the size of the United States by way of the Louisiana Purchase. All of these things helped create the duplexity and enigma that was Thomas Jefferson. (1, 2, 3, 5)

            The third of ten children, Thomas Jefferson was born on April 13, 1743 at the family home, in a one and a half story farmhouse in Shadwell, not far from Richmond and the Virginia wilderness. He was born to Jane Randolph, daughter of Isham Randolph, a ship's captain and sometime planter. His father was Peter Jefferson, a planter and surveyor. Before the widower William Randolph, an old friend of Peter Jefferson, died in 1745, he appointed Peter as guardian to manage his Tuckahoe Plantation and care for his four children. That year the Jefferson’s relocated to Tuckahoe, where they lived for the next seven years before returning to Shadwell in 1752. Peter Jefferson died in 1757 and the Jefferson estate was divided between Peter's two sons, Thomas and Randolph. Thomas inherited approximately 5,000 acres of land, including Monticello which would become his architectural vision and playground, and between twenty and forty slaves. He took control of the property after he came of age at 21. The precise amount of land and number of slaves that Jefferson inherited is estimated but thought to have been one of the largest inheritances of the area at the time for his age. (1, 2, 3, 5)

            His education began on the Tuckahoe Plantation with tutors hired by the family for William Randolph’s children as well as the Jefferson children. Jefferson was an introspective child, not confident with public speech, but well versed in the arena of writing. He began his formal education at the age of nine, studying Latin, Greek and French at a local private school run by the Reverend William Douglas a Scottish Presbyterian minister at the Tuckahoe Plantation. Jefferson learned to ride horses, and began the study of nature. He studied under Reverend James Maury from 1758 to 1760 near Gordonsville, Virginia whom Jefferson later described as "a correct classical scholar". While boarding with Maury's family, he studied history, science, and the classics. The classics at the time were Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, and some more ancient writers like the Roman Aulus Gellius, a 2nd-century Roman writer who was the first to use the words “Classicus scriptor, non proletarius” (“A distinguished, not a commonplace writer”) when in reference to great writing for all time and not just the average writer. At age 16, Jefferson entered the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg and first met the law professor George Wythe who became his influential mentor. He studied mathematics, metaphysics, and philosophy under Professor William Small, who introduced the enthusiastic Jefferson to the writings of the British Empiricists, including John Locke, Francis Bacon, and Isaac Newton. He also improved his French, Greek, and violin while there. Being a diligent student, Jefferson displayed an avid curiosity in all fields and graduated in 1762, completing his studies in only two years. Jefferson read law while working as a law clerk for Wythe. There were no law schools at this time; instead aspiring attorneys "read law" under the supervision of an established lawyer before being examined by the bar. Wythe guided Jefferson through an extraordinarily rigorous five-year course of study (more than double the typical duration); by the time Jefferson won admission to the Virginia bar in 1767, he was already one of the most learned lawyers in America. During this time, he also read a wide variety of English classics and political works. In 1770, Jefferson's home as well as family library (consisting of 200 volumes) in Shadwell, Virginia, was destroyed by fire. By 1773 he again amassed 1,250 titles. By 1815, his collection had grown to almost 6,500 volumes. He collected and accumulated thousands of books for his library at Monticello. When Jefferson's father Peter died Thomas inherited, among other things, his large library. A significant portion of Jefferson's library was also bequeathed to him in the will of George Wythe, who had an extensive collection. After the British burned the Library of Congress in 1814 Jefferson offered to sell his collection of more than 6,000 books to the Library for $23,950. After realizing he was no longer in possession of such a grand collection he wrote in a letter to John Adams, "I cannot live without books". He intended to pay off some of his large debt, but immediately started buying more books. He was a man of education throughout his entire life and sought to learn as much as he possibly could by way of books and personal study during his years. He was a man who read and wrote until his final days. (1, 2, 3, 5)

            After early graduation, Jefferson became a law clerk for George Wythe. He started work on Monticello in 1768, and he worked for roughly ten years as a law clerk and lawyer before he married his third cousin the 23-year-old widow Martha Wayles Skelton on January 1, 1772. She was the daughter of John Wayles who was an attorney, slave trader, business agent for Bristol-based merchants Farrell & Jones, a prosperous planter and left Martha one of the richest women in the country at the time. Later in life with deaths and inheritances, Thomas Jefferson and his wife were bequeathed Elizabeth Hemings (Betty). Who bore ten mixed race children fathered by John Wayles, Martha’s father. Meaning Betty Hemings’ ten mixed children were eventually inherited by Martha Wayles their half sister and her husband, Thomas Jefferson. The youngest of which was Sally who became famous in her own right by way of Thomas Jefferson himself. Once he graduated and married Martha the Jeffersons spent two weeks at The Forest (her father's plantation in Charles City County) before setting out in a two-horse carriage for Monticello (Jefferson's plantation in the Piedmont). Martha bore Thomas six children, only two of whom survived to adulthood, Martha and Mary, with only Martha outliving her father. (1, 2, 3, 5)

            A few years prior to his marriage to the widow Wayles, he began trying cases in Virginia courts and was a successful attorney. He practiced law from 1767 to 1774 and was very successful. While studying and practicing law his political ideals began to form. After the Stamp Act of 1765 Jefferson started to “think” about American Independence. On December 16, 1773, colonists protesting a British tea tax dumped 342 chests of tea into the Boston Harbor in what is known as the "Boston Tea Party." In April 1775, American militiamen clashed with British soldiers at the Massachusetts towns of Lexington and Concord, the first battles in what developed into the American Revolutionary War. Thomas Jefferson was one of the earliest and most radical supporters of the cause of American independence from Great Britain. He gained election to the Virginia House of Burgesses in 1768 and joined its radical bloc, led by Patrick Henry and George Washington. In 1774, Jefferson penned his first major political work, "A Summary View of the Rights of British America," thus establishing his reputation as one of the most eloquent advocates of the “American ideal”. A year later, in 1775, Jefferson attended the Second Continental Congress, which created the Continental Army and appointed Jefferson's fellow Virginian, George Washington, as its commander-in-chief. However, the Congress's most significant work fell to Jefferson himself. (1, 2, 3, 5)

            The Declaration of Independence became Jefferson’s baby for lack of better terms. In June 1776, the Congress appointed a five-man committee (Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman and Robert Livingston) to draft a Declaration of Independence. The committee then chose Jefferson to author the declaration's first draft, selecting him for what John Adams called his "happy talent for composition and singular felicity of expression." Over the next seventeen days, Jefferson drafted one of the most beautiful and powerful testaments to liberty and equality in world history. As Lincoln said of Jefferson, ‘we are a nation built on a single proposition that all men are created equal, and Jefferson wrote that proposition.’ (George Will TJ doc) better put in Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address as “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” Several changes were made to the original draft which grated on Jefferson a bit since he was known for being thoughtful in his writings. Consulting with other committee members, Jefferson also drew on his own proposed draft of the Virginia Constitution, George Mason's draft of the Virginia Declaration of Rights, and other sources such as Locke and Paine. The other committee members made some changes as well. Most notably Jefferson had written, "We hold these truths to be sacred and un-deniable..." Franklin changed it to, "We hold these truths to be self-evident." Franklin wanted the change because they were not writing a religious document. (1, 2, 4) A final draft was presented to the Congress on June 28, 1776. The title of the document was "A Declaration by the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress assembled." After voting in favor of the resolution of Independence on July 2, Congress turned its attention to the declaration. Over three days of debate, Congress made changes and deleted nearly a fourth of the text, most notably a passage critical of the slave trade and the King. On July 4, 1776, the Congress ratified the Declaration of Independence and the delegates signed the document. The Declaration would eventually be considered one of Jefferson's major achievements; his preamble has been considered an enduring statement of human rights. The passage “All men are created equal” came to represent a moral standard to which the United States should strive. This view was notably promoted by Abraham Lincoln, who based his philosophy on it, and argued for the Declaration as a statement of principles through which the United States Constitution should be interpreted. Jefferson viewed the Independence of the American people from the mother country Britain as breaking away from "parent stock", and that the War of Independence from Britain was a natural outcome of being separated by the Atlantic Ocean. Jefferson felt English colonists were compelled to rely on "common sense" and rediscover the "laws of nature". According to Jefferson, the Independence of the original British colonies was in a historical succession following a similar pattern when the Saxons colonized Britain and left their mother country Europe hundreds of years earlier. (1, 5)

            After authoring and finalizing the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson returned to Virginia, where, from 1776 to 1779, he served as a member of the Virginia House of Delegates. There he fought to revise Virginia's laws to fit the American ideals he had outlined in the Declaration of Independence. Jefferson successfully abolished the “Doctrine of Entail”, which dictated that only a property owner's heirs could inherit his land, and the “Doctrine of Primogeniture”, which required that in the absence of a will a property owner's oldest son inherited his entire estate. In 1777, Jefferson wrote the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, which established freedom of religion and the separation of church and state. Although the document was not adopted as Virginia state law for another nine years, it was one of Jefferson's proudest life accomplishments. (1, 4, 5) On June 1, 1779, the Virginia legislature elected Jefferson as the state's second governor the low point of Jefferson's political career. Torn between the Continental Army's pleas for more men and supplies and Virginians' strong desire to keep such resources for their own defense, Jefferson sat on the fence and quit stealing my paper from my blog pleased no one. As the Revolutionary War progressed into the South, Jefferson moved the capital from Williamsburg to Richmond Virginia, only to be forced to evacuate that city when it, rather than Williamsburg, turned out to be the target of British attack. On June 1, 1781, the day before the end of his second term as Governor, Jefferson was forced to flee his home at Monticello, only narrowly escaping capture by the British cavalry. Although he had no choice but to run, his political enemies later pointed to this incident as evidence of Jefferson’s cowardice. Jefferson declined to seek a third term as Governor and stepped down on June 4, 1781. Don't steal my paper for your educational purposes. He then claimed that he was giving up public life for good. He returned to Monticello, where he intended to live out the rest of his days as a gentleman farmer surrounded by his family, his farm and his books. (1, 4, 5)

            Retirement for Jefferson was a short lived idea. He began to feel bored and to fill his time at home, in late 1781; Jefferson began working on his only full-length book, the modestly titled “Notes on the State of Virginia”. While the book's purpose was to outline the history, culture and geography of Virginia, it also provides a window into Jefferson's political philosophy and worldview. (1, 3, 5) In “Notes on the State of Virginia” is Jefferson's vision of the society he hoped America would become: a virtuous agricultural republic based on the values of liberty, honesty and simplicity and centered on the self-sufficient farmer. However, this book also sheds a bit of light on the dichotomy spoken of earlier. Jefferson wrote against slavery, however had no intention of giving his up and knew full well the only way to remain a “gentleman farmer” was to keep those he had in servitude as such. Famously he wrote, “We have the wolf by the ears, and we can neither hold him nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation in the other.” He did in fact believe that blacks were innately inferior to whites in terms of both mental and physical capacity. Nevertheless, he claimed to disdain slavery as a violation of the natural rights of man. (1, 2, 4) Following the United States victory in the Revolutionary War and subsequent peace treaty with Great Britain in 1783, the United States formed a Congress of the Confederation (a.k.a. the Continental Congress), and Jefferson was appointed as a Virginia delegate. After several works on the exchange committee where he suggested adopting the decimal system for U.S. money, to chairing committees deciding the fate of land north of the Ohio River. (2, 3, 5) Martha Jefferson passed away in September of 1782, while Sally Hemmings was in the room and heard Jefferson promise to his passing wife that he would never marry again. (1) This put Jefferson in a mental breakdown which lasted for months. He spent several days locked in his room alone, then wandered about on horseback and alone thinking and not really saying much. (1, 2, 5)

            The unfortunate passing of his wife at 34 years of age left him hungry to do something, and he was talked back into politics. By June 1783, Jefferson returned to Philadelphia and he led the Virginia delegation to the Confederation Congress. In 1785, that body appointed Jefferson to replace Benjamin Franklin as U.S. minister to France. He accepted the position even though he loved French architecture and style; he hated the separation of class and wealth there. "I find the general fate of humanity here, most deplorable," he wrote in one letter. (1, 3) Jefferson developed a written friendship with John Adams again. The two were such powerful personalities in their own way and each wanting their own share of what they considered righteous rule, they butted heads often and had not spoken much in several years. Jefferson's official duties as minister consisted primarily of negotiating loans and trade agreements with private citizens and government officials in Paris and Amsterdam. While in France Jefferson aligned himself with Lafayette who had returned from the United States with news of his child’s death, Lafayette was a Republican and Jefferson lent himself and his Hôtel de Langeac spaces to French Republican meetings. He was in France for the revolution and the storming of the Bastille. (1, 3, 5, 6)  Jefferson left Paris in September of 1789 intending to return after a brief return to his home. Before leaving Paris he famously wrote from on August 30th, “the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants. It is its natural manure.” After nearly five years in Paris, Jefferson returned to America at the end of 1789 with a greater appreciation for his home nation. He wrote to James Monroe, "My God! How little do my countrymen know what precious blessings they are in possession of, and which no other people on earth enjoy?" (1, 2, 5, 6)

             Upon returning in September 1789 from France with his two daughters and slaves, President Washington wrote to him asking him to accept a seat in his Cabinet as Secretary of State. Jefferson accepted the appointment. (1, 2, 6) This entire time he spent fighting Hamilton over banks. Jefferson believed Central banking was evil by nature and Hamilton believed that was the only way to succeed. He tired quickly of the fight and believing he had lost any of the President’s confidence, Jefferson resigned in December 1793. He claimed he was leaving public life for good. (1, 3, 5, 6,)
            Monticello got a great working over during this time. He kept himself busy with constant work on the Monticello estate. It was his obsession to try to make it what he wanted. He designed apparatus’ like the 4 sided book stand that don't steal my paper for your educational purposes could accommodate multiple open books at once, and the polygraph which was the first copy machine, copying to another page as he wrote. He studied medicine, astronomy and philosophy. He played music and sang ballads while there. It seemed to rejuvenate him to delve into other things beside what he had previously done. This was his home of science and discovery. (2, 5, 6)

            By 1796 he and the rest of the men who always spoke of Cincinnatus and his morals of giving back power seemed to want a bit of power himself. Jefferson believed Adams wanted the United States to be more like a Monarchy, and Adams believed Jefferson’s love for Democracy would have us in perpetual revolution. The Sedition Act was created due to this election. The long friendship between Adams and Jefferson had deteriorated due to political differences (Adams was a Federalist), and Adams did not consult his vice president on any important decisions. Jefferson believed that the Federalists were totally against the Constitution and wanted legislation drafted against them whether he was Vice President or not. Even coming up with specific drafts for states to leave the Federal Government, even Dumas Malone argues this could be one time he could have been held for treason. (1, 5, 2)

            By 1800 a mini revolution was taking place. In the presidential election, Hamiltonian Federalists refused to back Adams, clearing the way for the Republican candidates Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr to tie for first place with 73 electoral votes each. After a long and tough debate, the House of Representatives selected Jefferson to serve as the third U.S. president, with Burr as his vice president. This election was a landmark of world history, the first peacetime and peaceful transfer of power from one party to another in a modern republic. Delivering his inaugural address on March 4, 1801, Jefferson spoke to the fundamental commonalities uniting all Americans despite their partisan differences. "Every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle," he stated. "We have called by different names brethren of the same principle. We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists." (1, 3, 5, 6) Jefferson won. Oddly a man who fought his entire political life to decentralize government was now at the head of government.

            During his first term President Jefferson was remarkably successful and productive. In keeping with his Republican values, Jefferson stripped the presidency of all the trappings of European royalty, reduced the size of the armed forces, government bureaucracy and lowered the national debt from $80 million to $57 million in his first two years in office. He immediately began to dismantle Hamilton's Federalist fiscal system. His Secretary of Treasury, Albert Gallatin, claimed that, “if this administration shall not reduce taxes, they never will be permanently reduced.” Jefferson advanced the idea of Separation of Church and State, believing that the government should not have an official religion while at the same time it should not prohibit any particular religious expression. He first expressed these thoughts in an 1802 letter to the Danbury Baptists in Connecticut answering their letter requesting special protections against the Congregationalists of Connecticut stating,

“To Messers, Nehemiah Dodge, Ephraim Robbins, & Stephen S. Nelson, a committee of the Danbury Baptist association in the state of Connecticut.

Gentlemen

The affectionate sentiments of esteem and approbation which you are so good as to express towards me, on behalf of the Danbury Baptist association, give me the highest satisfaction. My duties dictate a faithful and zealous pursuit of the interests of my constituents, & in proportion as they are persuaded of my fidelity to those duties, the discharge of them becomes more and more pleasing. Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” thus building a wall of separation between Church & State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties. I reciprocate your kind prayers for the protection & blessing of the common father and creator of man, and tender you for yourselves & your religious association, assurances of my high respect & esteem.” Jan. 1. 1802. (1, 4, 5)

He opened West Point Academy. He even declared the first United States war, the Barnaby War which put an end to the centuries-old problem of Barbary pirates disrupting American shipping and taking slaves of American citizens in the Mediterranean by forcing the pirates to capitulate by deploying new American warships. (1, 5, 6) Jefferson's most significant accomplishment as president was the Louisiana Purchase. In 1803, he acquired land stretching from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains from a broke Napoleon in France for the bargain price of $15 million ($.10 an acre), thereby doubling the size of the nation in a single stroke. He then devised the Lewis and Clark Expedition to explore, map out and report back on the new American territories. It was a huge success.

Even though Jefferson easily won re-election in 1804, troubles seemed to start prior to the election when On July 11, 1804, Vice President Aaron Burr mortally wounded Federalist Party leader Alexander Hamilton in a duel at Weehawken. Jefferson replaced Burr with George Clinton of New York on the 1804 ticket. Burr immediately made plans for a military adventure, headed west plotting to separate the Western territories from the United States. Jefferson’s second term in office proved much more difficult and less productive than his first. International tensions surrounding the Spanish in North America preoccupied much of 1805 for the Jefferson administration, revolving around the exact boundaries of the Louisiana Territory with Mexico, and the fate of the “Floridas”, which Spain refused to cede to the United States. Add to that Aaron Burr, in 1806 spreading numerous rumors of military adventurism, recruiting men, stocking arms and building boats on the upper Ohio River. Joining Burr in the conspiracy was U.S. General and Louisiana Territory governor, appointed by Jefferson, James Wilkinson and it is obvious Jefferson had his hands full from the start of his second term. He even had the European issues at the time as Napoleon became more aggressive in his negotiations over trading rights, and American consolation efforts failed. Jefferson responded with the Embargo Act of 1807, directed at both France and Great Britain. Even though Jefferson abandoned the policy a year later, the move wrecked the American economy as exports crashed from $108 million to $22 million by the time he left office in 1809. The embargo also led to the War of 1812 with Great Britain after Jefferson left office. (1, 3, 5, 6)            

March 4, 1809, after watching the inauguration of his close friend and successor James Madison, Jefferson returned to Virginia to live out the rest of his days as "The Sage of Monticello." Jefferson's favorite pastime was continuously rebuilding, remodeling and improving his beloved home and estate of Monticello. A Frenchman, Marquis de Chastellux, remarked, "it may be said that Mr. Jefferson is the first American who has consulted the Fine Arts to know how he should shelter himself from the weather." He even rewrote the bible again after his first attempt in 1804 with “The Philosophy of Jesus of Nazareth”, the predecessor to “The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth.” He described it in a letter to John Adams dated October 13, 1813:

“In extracting the pure principles which he taught, we should have to strip off the artificial vestments in which they have been muffled by priests, who have travestied them into various forms, as instruments of riches and power to themselves. We must dismiss the Platonists and Plotinists, the Stagyrites and Gamalielites, the Eclectics, the Gnostics and Scholastics, their essences and emanations, their logos and demiurges, aeons and daemons, male and female, with a long train of … or, shall I say at once, of nonsense. We must reduce our volume to the simple evangelists, select, even from them, the very words only of Jesus, paring off the amphibologisms into which they have been led, by forgetting often, or not understanding, what had fallen from him, by giving their own misconceptions as his dicta, and expressing unintelligibly for others what they had not understood themselves. There will be found remaining the most sublime and benevolent code of morals which has ever been offered to man. I have performed this operation for my own use, by cutting verse by verse out of the printed book, and arranging the matter which is evidently his, and which is as easily distinguishable as diamonds in a dunghill. The result is an octavo of forty-six pages, of pure and unsophisticated doctrines.”

He may have believed in a Jesus, but he didn’t seem to believe in the “magic ascribed him by the writers of the Holy books. (1, 4, 5)

      Finally Thomas Jefferson and his friend John Adams began their writing campaign together again as friends prior to their deaths. Some of the most beautiful, heartfelt political, life and respectful discussions came in the form of these letters between two men who had seen it all from birth to celebration of the nation. The tortured soul that seemed to be Thomas Jefferson didn’t free his slaves when he died, however after his death, Sally Hemings then left Monticello with her sons. They were counted as free whites in the 1830 census so they must have had some type of agreement. He detested slavery, but understood his life and his nation were built on the backs of a “lesser people”. Jefferson also dedicated his later years to beginning the University of Virginia, the nation's first secular university. He personally designed the campus, envisioned as an "academic village," and hand-selected renowned European scholars to serve as its professors. The University of Virginia opened its doors on March 7, 1825, one of the proudest days of Jefferson's life. Jefferson died on July 4, 1826. The 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence and only a few hours before John Adams also passed away in Massachusetts. In the moments before Adams passed, John Adams spoke his last words, eternally true if not in the literal sense in which he meant them, "Thomas Jefferson survives." A scholar, an Engineer, a lawmaker and Founder of our great nation, Thomas Jefferson will live on forever. (1, 3, 4, 5, 6)

 

Reference Page

1. Thomas Jefferson the Author of America - Christopher Hitchens - 10/13/2009. ISBN: 9780061753978 - HarperCollins e-books - Pages: 208 Hitchens discussion of the book and Jefferson. (this is an hour plus long academic discussion of said book)
2. The American Experience PBS Documentary – Part 1.
3. The American Experience PBS Documentary – Part 2.
4. "Jefferson and Darwin: Science and Religion in Troubled Times". Yale Lecture Series on Jefferson – Dr. Keith S. Thomson (Professor Emeritus Oxford University) delivers the first of four Terry Lectures at Yale.
5. Jefferson and His Time: Volumes 1 - 6 – 1974 by Dumas Malone – 3,349 pages Publisher: Little, Brown and Company ASIN: B000JMA6IA
6. Ken Burns PBS Jefferson 2

Identity of Atheism

Identity of Atheism

            America today has an identity issue of which there is seemingly no end, the belief that Atheism is somehow beneath Religion or organized Religion. There is a thought amongst some that without a Creator, there wouldn’t be any creation to be had. The religious hold the belief that no person can or would have morals if not laid out in front of us by a creator. The idea that none of us could take care of each other without mandates from religious books stating we must do so, and the belief there is an entity, a being above our knowledge who operates just outside the realm of the known universe who can control and does demand control of people, events and governments in their name. Roughly 60% of America’s population identify as Christian, leaving a paltry 12-15% Muslim, 5-7% Jew, 5% or less Hindu Sikh and coming in with a tie with Muslims is “not prescribing to anything” which may not necessarily be Atheist, but the statistics shows more people are thinking outside America’s faiths. (Hitchens – Dawkins) People who identify as Atheists in America and all over the world face daunting challenges when confronted with the issue of religion versus the Atheist stance there is nothing of substance on which to base a religion and even less evidence of a need to create Gods. Atheists, Agnostics and Humanists want to know what the world they see, feel, touch and hear has to offer and try to investigate those realities in total by way of scientific processes of investigation. Atheists, Agnostics and Humanists want things to be as good here on this planet as possible, because their prevailing thought process is; this is all we have, so you better do your best while here in this imperfect shell. Does one identify with logic, science and observable facts, or does one’s personal identity come from mysticism, fantasy and unfounded “truths”? The pages ahead shall touch on a few of these ideals and some of the arguments between those who identify as religious believers and those who do not.

            One of the first ideas put forth by those who identify as “religious” or “believers” amongst us is that the Universe in all of its spectacular glory can’t be a thing of “just random events and happenstance” (Hitchens - Turek) but must have had a creator. The argument of the watchmaker put forth by William Paley in 1802 was somewhat shot down by Charles Darwin’s evolutionary studies in “On the Origin of Species”. Paley believed, as even Sir Isaac Newton believed; that a thing of precision and beauty such as human kind had to have a maker. There had to be a designer, if you will, with the intent and volition to design something special. A known scholar who identifies as Christian, Frank Turek, tries over and over again to make this point, however as Christopher Hitchens puts it, “that is the God of the gaps”. (Turek - Hitchens) At each phase of human learning, there has been a similar God. Gilgamesh was the first known creation myth in Mesopotamia. Most of that creation myth was stolen by the Jews for their creation story of Adam and Eve later in the Torah. Even the Quran uses the same or near same myth in their holy books. Most who identify as religious believers in America do not believe in a Big Bang, however those who do not identify mostly understand mathematically and scientifically the beginning has been figured out. During a discussion with the Pope, where the Pope said he hoped Stephen wasn’t trying to disprove God, Steven Hawking himself said that if God had anything to do with the Big Bang it was only to light the match. (Hitchen - Dawkins) God of the Gaps is a normal progression of the human experience and limits of knowledge at that time. Most of history shows famous thinkers, inventors and others figuring out vast parts of problems, however when they run out of ideas, they credit God for controlling what they cannot figure out. (Hitchens Dawkins) This “gap” has been closing more and more over time. When man was afraid to sail out of sight of the mainland, it was because unseen Gods and Devils resided in the ocean’s depths and were waiting for sailors to fall off the earth into their realm, an early example of the God of the Gaps. Ancient Greeks and Romans who were generally not zealots of their worship had fears of the unknown and would blame the Gods for mishaps and problems facing the greater good. Even one of the most enlightened minds of his time, Sir Isaac Newton, once he created Calculus to show the evolution of planetary movement, space time and gravity, attributed the parts he was not able to figure out to a God who just must have a hand in everything. (Hitchens) Unfortunately as Evolutionary Biologist Richard Dawkins, who identifies as an Atheist points out there is no more mystery about from where humans came, but it is now a Scientific conclusion that humans, through DNA (Deoxyribonucleic acid), came to be with mutations and additions in the genetic code. That all life on this planet shares a single set of DNA basics no matter how much those of religion want to “believe” otherwise. Humans share brain DNA and neurotransmitters with Mollusks in the Ocean. (Dawkins) We naturally identify with the smallest and least developed life forms on the planet. How is that for a design? Was it a design performed on the cheap, meaning whatever was lying around the shop was used in the next design as a cost savings measure? No, more than likely, we share these DNA because we evolved from creatures much like those simple creatures are now. This sometimes leads people who define their identity as Christians in America as Creationists to ask “so, if we evolved from Monkeys, how come there are still Monkeys?” Unfortunately, a few pages of Darwin, Dawkins or Hitchens and a person may quickly note that we didn’t “evolve from Monkeys” but we had a “common ancestor” with those same monkeys, thus the reason we share 99% of the same DNA as a Chimp. (Dawkins - Hitchens) Both Hitchens and Dawkins note in their respective books the chant from Creationists about the eye and how wonderful a creation it is and how hard or impossible it would have been to get one created or formed randomly. They say this because even Darwin himself called the eye a problem of design as it is intricate and would leave that to future science. They took his statement as meaning a God of gaps again. In reality though, Darwin was right and “future science” as he called it has figured out through DNA studies and creation of the photo cell that all eyes evolved in the same way and specialized for purposes used by that particular animal. (Dawkins - Hitchens) Even the “eye” that Creationists love to point at is a failed design by the creator if it indeed is such. The eye developed millions of years ago in single celled organisms as photo lenses, or optic sensors. They could tell if light was hitting them in case they needed to hide and not get burned by the sun or eaten by predators. (Dawkins- Hitchens) In the last 50 or so years we have found that human eyes miss about 85% of the light spectrum, we can’t see in Gama Rays or any type of radiation and have a very limited spectral range on the visible prism. The best we can see is the change in heat from hot asphalt to the air with waves because our detectible light spectrum has been “bent” by heat. We can’t see the UV rays creating the hot asphalt. This idea is the same with the ear, if this design was so perfect, why can humans not hear in the same frequencies as dogs? Why can we only hear in about the same range as a Bullfrog, but a Cow can hear things far above and below our auditory spectrum? Did the Creator not foresee the need for all animals to hear equally? Why can a Tuna or Whale hear almost 100 times the frequencies of a human? Because the creator didn’t take into account design flaws, evolution or needs of future animals? The designs are wrong, so the designer should be fired. These are questions those who identify with science have mostly answered, but for some odd reason remain mysteries to most who identify as Christians, Muslims and some Jews, or Theists in general. However a person who would identify as Atheist would hopefully understand these things occurred because each evolved to have what was needed for their specific lives on this planet and what would be best for their survival, but not all animals on whole. This idea brings a more profound personal feeling of wonderment at the Universe and our place within: Humans will forever be part of life on this planet through genetic codes and hand downs to new species. Whatever species watches our sun die in four to six billion years will be just as different from us as we are from the amoeba from which we came four to six billion years ago. (Hitchens Wolpe) Science has proven human genes will be there as genes from lost species are within humans; they just may not be contained within the human shell currently housing our species when that sun burns out.

            The next problem believers’ face is when confronting nonbelievers with this seemingly innocuous “question”; from where would we get our morals if not for a God of the Bible or some other higher power in our lives? First I will quote Mr. Hitchens from “God Is Not Great”, “Don’t tell me we made it all the way to the Sinai before we learned it was wrong to rape and kill in mass or we never would have made it there as a species.” Next I will quote Richard Dawkins from “The God Delusion”, “If you suddenly knew there was no God, would you start committing murder, rape and theft that minute?” Both obviously are making the logical point that those people would be psychopaths and ostracized from normal tribes who worked together and most likely were left to die of exposure, loneliness and or starvation without the rest of the tribes’ assistance. Religions like to point out they give charitable benefits to the sick and poor, when in reality they use their power to get that money from the poor to begin with and only spend a pittance to help those in need. They spend more on spreading false ideologies like “condoms are sinful” leaving many Africans who identify as Christians to die from Aids. Or spend on making headways into world politics with very little help for the sick and dying. Even genital mutilation occurs just as often in African nations who identify as Christian as they do anywhere else in the world. As Christopher Hitchens points out to Bill Donohue even Mother Teresa who totally identified as Christian didn’t understand or really like religion, and had major questions about it in total, but being a poor girl from Albania, she liked the spot light the Catholic Church could provide and her celebrity within the church. (Hitchens - Donohue) She worked in death clinics, some called hospitals she helped set up in India. People think of this as a wonderful thing, but they are really places for the poor to be scooped up off the street, kept out of sight, given no medical attention and left to die the good death of a poor person while suffering through agony in the name of God and Jesus. (Hitchens - Donohue) She spent more time in photo ops with Princes Di who identified as Christian, or any other would be savior or contributor like Charles Keating who also identified as Catholic, of the Savings and Loan scandal fame than she did actually comforting the sick and dying for which she received so much credit. Mother Teresa didn’t question the fact Mr. Keating had stolen from the poor and those of meager means in life to support the church with pilfered funds. She gladly accepted them and took her photo with him so he could feel like a proud “giver” to the poor. She accepted money from Princess Diana’s foundations. This money was given by large donors or by tax payers who support the royal family. In England you must pay tax to The Church of England. The Churches, Synagogues and or Mosques collect money on the ideal that the poor should give to help others or lose their souls to damnation. None of those places are taxed in this nation leaving billions of uncollected property taxes each year in the name of religion which could actually be used to feed the poor and take care of the sick. This should seem like an odd dichotomy indeed. Some Mosques do good works for strictly Muslim peoples, then turn around and have groups behind them like Hezbollah who hand out things to the poor, while bombing people who have different beliefs on the side. (Hitchens) How is it that the God of Christendom can’t work with or create his own money if he needs it to be so? It doesn’t make logical sense to be an all-powerful deity who can command the sun, moon and stars yet not able to handle money or create places of worship where “they” indeed want them. Isn’t it much more awe inspiring to know we understood we needed the tribe to help us live, thrive and move forward as a species? Much like Ant colonies, we live for the greater good. We naturally moved toward agrarianism. This emotion was in us as animals 100,000 years ago, and not bestowed upon us by burning bush, or by Muhammad riding his horses to heaven.  It has even been observed these same processes of caring go on in almost all species on this planet. (Dawkins - Hitchens) It doesn’t seem plausible that a species lived for roughly 100,000 years on the low end of evolution or 250,000 on the high end, then suddenly God appeared to an illiterate desert people who identified as religious and had them of all people’s pass down the stories of creation, being and morality. When the Old Testament is full of killing in mass of men, women and children some do not see it is a true book of morality from which to draw any life lesson beyond how NOT to treat your neighbor. Why did God not visit the Chinese who had writing, language and Science at the time? Why not the Indus Valley where several great civilizations had already come and passed? Because it is a false narrative propagated to control men. Those who do not identify as religious don’t understand why they must live under these beliefs or be shunned by those who identify as religious.

People who identify as Christian in this nation persecute any other religion which rears its “ugly” head. America had issue with the Irish, they were Catholics and would ruin the nation by the amount of babies they had. Italians were dirty and Catholic and also not to be trusted because of their voodoo church ways. We stopped Jews from entering America in the late 1930’s and early 1940’s knowing they were going back to Nazi Germany for the slaughter if we refused them. The Catholic Church turned a blind eye to Hitler because he funneled stolen Jewish Gold to the Catholic Church. People have tried to blame secularism for the rise of the Nazis, however all Nazi servicemen who had state issued belts had the words “GOTT MIT UNS” (God is with us), kind of shooting down the secular idea of Nazis in total. (Hitchens- Turek – Donohue - Hitchens) Even the Soviet Union was called Atheist, and in fact was not. The Greek Orthodox Church resides there after running from the Ottoman takeover of the Byzantine Empire. (Hitchens) In Fact Stalin created a cult of personality. No God before him or the government. The same idea lies with North Korea today. Now in America those who identify as religious would deny passage of people who need help due to religious persecution in their home land, because fear of a new identity scares those with the current and accepted practice of Christianity.

            This brings the subject of free choice as those with religious identity in this nation describe it to be. You are born sick, but commanded to get well. You are born in the world with sin you didn’t create or bring upon yourself, and by no fault of your own you are told you have to get right with a God or suffer eternal consequences of damnation and hellfire, or the Jewish hell which is darkness and being kept out of the light of God’s sight. (Hitchens - Dawkins) This equates to having children with severe mental issues, and demanding they get fixed in some way even if they don’t understand what is wrong, or how to go about fixing the issue they don’t understand. Who as a parent would make a child as the God of the Bible did, and then command him to go as a “lamb” to be sacrificed for others? Why is this God so “scared” of competition if he indeed is the right choice for all the people who identify with those ideals? Many who do not identify as Christian would like to know why it was accepted for nearly 1,000 years that limbo is where babies who were not baptized before death went, and then suddenly there was no more limbo. What was the need for the religious leaders of those who identify in the same manner to make believers feel such shame for their children who they couldn’t will to live longer than they did and make it to a church for Baptism? It makes those who do not identify question. Eight of the Ten Commandments are about things God wants personally. Not things to make life better for those who share this identity, but things like no God’s before him, and no graven images. If not for coveting other’s things, we would not work in a Capitalist world. Would a loving God really command Abraham as a test to bind his son and kill him, then as if it were a game suddenly say, “No, I was kidding, you can go now… this was just a test.” all just to verify his religious identity? (Hitchens - Dawkins) Visit these ideals again as they are important to the identity of those who want to be servant versus those who do not. Does anyone enjoy the thought of living in a perpetual North Korea? Waking each day to give love to the blessed ruler who provides all food, clothing, housing and life to you, giving thanks for the mercy your family has been given by being able to eat and survive. You can’t have an ill thought or show it in any way toward the leader or “God” or you will be punished. At least North Koreans can look at death as a way out of this hell created on earth of perpetual servitude. They truly do not have to identify as anything but can take that way out and be done. If your identity is of faith based anything, oh no, death is when the real fun begins. You get to go in front of a judge after going through the transition of death and having no idea what might meet you on the other side. By judgment you could be sent to an eternal damnation if you didn’t find it within yourself during life to succumb to all wants and needs of an unseen, unknown deity who prescribes an odd set of rules. Those who identify as religious seem to get some solace in this idea of feeling as if they know something or are going somewhere no one else is going. (Hitchens - Turek - Hitchens – Wolpe) The problem to psychological professionals and those who do not identify as believers is that those who do identify seem to have an extreme psychosis. There seems to be a need to be better than their brother or sister in humanity. To have an inside track if you will to a better place only a select few may be invited to enjoy. Unfortunately the nation that is a secular beacon to the world, The United States even appears to have developed a litmus test that is against the law to vet a Presidential candidate, or any candidate for that matter and it makes those who do not identify angry.

            For those who identify as religious in this nation to declare there is any war on any religion by those who do not classify themselves as followers is preposterous at best, and in its worst farcical and childish. There is an endless inundation of Christmas from September to January. There are Nativity scenes, trees, lights and Merry Christmas is everywhere. For the most part those who do not identify as believers do not complain unless it is on a secular Government property. Those who do not identify would like a bit more respect given to Science. After all if not for Science people would still be living in huts and going to the bathroom right outside of their door. People who do not believe do not care that others do believe, but also do not want to be held to believers’ standards in the least. Keep religion in the home where it belongs, no matter which one it may be. Stop the bigotry and xenophobia perpetrated by those who identify as religious that would allow the United States to deny more religious refugees a home. People can live together and if the greater good is the predominant thought process then those who do identify can get along wonderfully with those who do not. If there is a continued pointing of fingers at those who do not identify the numbers will continue to grow. 15 years ago, 5% of people were non-believers or didn’t closely follow; now it is at least 15%. The number will grow as Science continues to make life easier, prophecies of doom come and go, bigotry is allowed on the airwaves in the name of righteousness and those who identify persecute those who do not. Not identifying as a religious believer in this nation is hard at best and downright scorned as a practice. Hopefully one day those who identify as religious will learn the ways of their teachers and become more accepting of those around them by either becoming more confident in their own beliefs or by letting the stories that could have been switched for Jack and the Bean stalk as children, go by the wayside.

 

 

Works Cited

Hitchens, Christopher. God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. New York: Twelve, 2007. Print.

Dawkins, Richard. The God Delusion. Reprint ed. N.p.: Mariner, (January 16, 2008). Print.

Donohue, Bill, Christopher Hitchens, and John Pericon. "Chesterton Beloc Debates Bill Donohue Debates Christopher Hitchens." YouTube. YouTube, 18 Nov. 2012. Web. 10 Nov. 2015.

Turek, Frank, and Christopher Hitchens. "Does God Exist? (Frank Turek vs Christopher Hitchens)." YouTube. YouTube, 21 July 2015. Web. 10 Nov. 2015.

Hitchens, Christopher, and David Wolpe. "Christopher Hitchens and Rabbi David Wolpe - The Great God Debate." YouTube. YouTube, 6 Aug. 2012. Web. 10 Nov. 2015.

 

History a Genre

             History is a genre, and whether handed down by memorized oral traditions, through ancient or new religious and other writings found throughout the world, cave paintings in Lascaux France from 30,000 years ago all the way to modern magazines, books and internet are all examples of historical documentation; History is a genre with which all people should be familiar. As George Santayana stated, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. In the first stage of life the mind is frivolous and easily distracted; it misses progress by failing in consecutiveness and persistence. This is the condition of children and barbarians, in which instinct has learned nothing from experience.” (Santayana) History is currently taught as an art form in college but it is also a study of from where we have come and possibly a roadmap to where we are going in the future. From the early chants and oral traditions handed down through religious ceremonies in Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity and a litany of forgotten religions such as The Greek and Roman Pantheons, or the Babylonian and Mesopotamian Gods. These traditions eventually crossed into and became written secular histories given us by Greeks such as Homer, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. In Mesopotamia Hammurabi’s code, “penned” in one of the first known forms of writing, Cuneiform, to the Torah, the Bible, The Quran and many other newly written religious traditions are some of the first histories of moral laws and codes by which people should live. Beyond religion, to what has become secular writings by people such as Josephus to modern times with people such as Dumas Malone, John Meacham, and Christopher Hitchens history is a vibrant and living record of all that has come before and the only way by which we humans can learn or remember anything about those who preceded us.

History as a genre has been around since the beginning of human abstract thought as Neolithic peoples. Upwards of 30,000 years ago man put the first known forms of historical writings in caves near Lascaux France (among others across the world). Many Anthropologists, Historians and Archeologists have pointed to these cave paintings as one of a few things: Recorded histories of animals and life they hunted and gathered, records of animals that humans hunted which appeared to be dying off during the latest ice age that had just begun, training tools for the next generations or abstract “ideals” of the animals they had seen and representations of those animals left for future generations to discern. At this point in history man was still a hunter gatherer, he had not settled into the Agrarian standard of city building to come with later settlements in the known ancient river valleys and beyond. Each group within those river valleys, The Indus, The Yellow and Yangtze, the Nile, the Tigris and Euphrates developed during the Axial Age; their own languages, as well as written and verbal histories to be passed on to the next generation and generations to come. (Sivers, Desnoyers, and Stow) The first forms of religion; also considered a type of historical documentation, were developed as cities and permanent settlements sprung forth from the fertile valleys.

As Paleolithic man evolved into Neolithic man, roughly 10,000 years ago he settled into the area known now as ancient Mesopotamia, developing the first crops, beer, irrigation and organized religion around the city of Ur. (Sivers, Desnoyers, and Stow) Abstract thoughts came and man questioned from where he spawned and to where he might be going. As mankind moved forward, he found ways to record his thoughts and ideas on permanent storage devices like clay tablets. The first known writing to develop was Cuneiform; a series of hashes and angled marks placed on those clay tablets for storage purposes. The first use of these historical devices was keeping records of taxes and Agriculture outputs, another form of historical record keeping. Shortly after this time different types of writing were coming to fruition in other key parts of the world. China began with Pictograms, while there were Hieroglyphics in Egypt, in the Indus region Harrapan’s began Indus script, and later in Mesoamerica more Pictograms with the Olmec tribes. (Sivers, Desnoyers, and Stow) Through time many ancient Chinese, Egyptian and Mesopotamian scripts have been deciphered and it has been seen that people recorded the same events of daily life or historical events that we do today: Costs to do business, jokes, parables and teachings from religions, orders from the governments, all the way to what you did on a daily basis if you could afford said writing implements and a scribe, or trained writer. Modern people may do it with a photo or short note, they had a Cartouche.  Most of these ancient scripts have not yet been deciphered. However, if you look at the rhyme and reasoning, or pattern behind those which have been unlocked it is not a far jump to see these other forms of writing were to record events of life as well as religions, weather, planetary and other historical events to those peoples.            

As time marched on newer and “better” ways of communication were happened upon and used to relate the historical information known; things changed. Phoenicians created the first Phonetics, or spoken language known to have specific sounds related to characters and words. Arabic peoples created an alphabet and number system and the world of record keeping or “history” was never the same. (Sivers, Desnoyers, and Stow) In quick succession the world gained Greek and Latin, each recording some of the greatest known historical events with some of the biggest names to cross the pages of any historical reference books. Socrates began Philosophical thinking as it is now known and recorded many of his ideals. Socrates taught Plato to think for self and understand the world around you as you sense it to be, or by your own ideals. Plato is thought to have described one of the first possible historical places lost to the ages, “Now in this island of Atlantis there was a great and wonderful empire which had rule over the whole island and several others, and over parts of the continent and, furthermore, the men of Atlantis had subjected the parts of Libya within the columns of Heracles as far as Egypt, and of Europe as far as Tyrrhenia.” (Plato) Aristotle learned from Plato and expanded on the idea of sense running the human cause and is thought to be the father of logic who also taught Alexander the Great. There was Homer’s Odyssey and Iliad for the Greeks giving explanation of the historical events of war as well as the wants, needs and human characteristics of the Pantheon of Gods. This was purloined by the Latin group; or Romans after the Punic Wars and turned into the Aeneid, or Virgil’s books, basically coopting Greek history, giving a slight rewrite in favor of Rome by saying Rome was with the Gods roughly 1,000 years earlier (or the Gods were with Rome). Josephus was a Jewish man with an education in the Torah, considered a history as well as religious book by some. Also, he was a Roman scribe during the time shortly after Jesus supposedly lived. He is credited with making claims to Vespasian about Jewish Dogma calling for the rise of a man like Vespasian to rule over the known world thus becoming a royal scribe and translator for Vespasian. He reported on the uprisings of the Jews in Galilea, and was squarely known to be in the corner of the Pharisees, or Jewish ruling class. He is considered a point of reference for the First Jewish wars as well as knowing all the players including Jesus from the later known Bible “Gospels”. However, it is very unlikely he actually lived during the same time as Jesus and was reporting second and third hand accounts at best, but that was considered known history due to the oral traditions in the area at the time. (Hitchens)

After Rome’s long and illustrious course ran as the major world power, the Dark Ages befell the world, and religious peoples became the sole historians of the day. Along with the purposeful burning of the Library at Alexandria, this is probably the worst time for historical referencing beyond the time of Paleolithic man. Rome and all of its ways beyond language were forgotten, and the language was only remembered by a select few who were tasked with reading and conveying the messages from the new Holy Bible ordained by the Catholic Church and used to control the masses. Histories of medicine, engineering, monetary systems, ancient peoples, agriculture, political systems and more were all purposely wiped off the books so to say and replaced with the God of the Bible in lieu of really knowing from where humans came. (Hitchens) Not until the Enlightenment Era and heavy use of the printing press was documentation of actual records and not mythological stories about God or Gods considered to be true history, or should it be said that History became a Genre. In other words, man was going back to the ideals of Aristotle after a long intermission and looking to logic and testing to see the world around in its true form.

Over the course of time after the Enlightenment Era the genre of history evolved to include documentation of just about every category known to man as the printing press came to be. Not only are writings and books considered to be historical, but also painting, archeological finds, ancient graffiti, people, photographs, newspapers, magazines, machines, types of textiles, foods and now Tweets, Blog posts and Internet Memes... the list is nearly endless of things our Smithsonian Institute saves in the name of historical preservation. In modern times people seem to understand that everything is woven into the tapestry of history. Not only the newspaper from 1945 is historical, but the car used to get that paper, where said paper was purchased, the cost of the paper, even the ads inside said paper and so forth are all considered historical features worth remembering to one group or another.

Now-a-days due to the open nature of media and in particular Social Media the old line of history being written by the victors is not the way things go. Following World War II media opened in some manners and closed in others. Fear of the Red Scare and a propensity to “force” American consumerism to boost American power economically throughout the world had Americans walking in lock step around ideals of anti-Communism, Socialism and any “ism” that wasn’t based on our ideal of Democracy. By the time of the Vietnam War some people started to openly question our hold on the world and a different “history” was beginning to emerge. No longer was everything done by the victor the “best” or most historically accurate thing, but now voices of dissent were being heard and the victor was no longer able to propagandize history for themselves. There had formed a greater world community to which the victor must answer for his deeds in war. Man had moved from, in the case of Rome, history being written to promote and uphold the victor’s ideals and partially used as propaganda to keep conquered peoples under rule with proclamations about the greatness of the conquerors. Suddenly history was being written in various parts of the world discussing the same events but from opposing views. The world has grown a voice, and where it may have taken millennia in earlier times to find out a truth or “what really happened” with an historical event, now those events could be broadcast live into homes all over the world for people to surmise for themselves.                                                

Discourse languages within history vary widely due to history being an all-encompassing genre. A Historian must be able to take documents written in ancient or dead languages and find ways to decipher them. The Rosetta Stone is a perfect example. The stone was a record, Egyptian hieroglyphs (a long dead language), translated to the Demotic script (used in Egypt prior to Ptolemy’s rule) and finally Ancient Greek at the bottom of the stone. This stone is a perfect example of how history moves with time, and through time and as things change people want to record the past the way they could currently understand, in a language they could understand. A Historian must also be able to figure out through accompanying texts, archeological finds, architecture and more how people lived thus giving a historian a better grasp on how things were perceived at various times throughout the historical timeline. The discourse language only changes as languages change and evolve, but it is for the historian to make connections between all of them, as humans are pattern seekers.

The conventions of history have changed with time as touched on previously in this paper. As languages opened, more people became literate and other sources have been found. Historical documentation has changed and become open to all who can cite a source or witnessed specific events. No longer left in the church’s hands, or to only those who could afford a scribe or person able to record a “specific history” given by a rich person, family, ruler or religious leader history was opening to the greater population. No longer are only a few in charge of what is to be remembered by the people; or history. As Universities opened, scholarly debates and talks came to light, preservation tactics have gotten better, and more archeological finds have been saved for posterity. As deciphering of languages and patterns of historical change has gotten more detailed, man has been able to update the conventions from single huge entities like the churches or known writers like Josephus and have expanded it to include the average Joe on the street if he was indeed witness to a great event like 9/11.

In the past we had to take a man like Josephus’ words that a Jesus did exist and was not indeed made up by the Flavians to control the Roman and outside populations. That was a one source horse, and the other sources are verbally handed down stories that do not match each other throughout the four gospels, so a lot of the historical evidence has been lost and allegory takes the place of an actual event. In modern times if a man such as Jesus existed and was performing such miracles and deeds, there would be a blog, a Twitter feed, Snapchat photos and constant live updates from cable news organizations. There would be no mystery about the man from Galilea. 

Atlantis would not be a “magical and mythical” place only spoken of briefly by an old Greek in one or two phrases. It would not be a place of fantasy or farce but would be forever concrete in our understanding of the historical world by way of creating an amusement park; a magazine dedicated to it and constant Internet travelers posting ad-naseum photos of it from every perspective imaginable. There was a time when you only had limited sourcing of information and how that information was to be disseminated amongst the general population. When populations were illiterate for the most part as in early England, biblical history was given through a sermon for those of means within the church walls and outside the church on the street would be a play acting out the sermon of the day so the layman could get the underlying parable or moral instruction to take away from the lesson. Today with a more informed and literate populous, the actual sermon would be on giant jumbo screens for the whole population to hear and discern for themselves what to take away. This is the “change” in historical discourse and convention. No longer is the information forming history and its’ events based on the knowledge, writings and ideals of a few, but it is now open for all to see and contribute toward on the fly as we move forward in time.

In summary, history as a genre has evolved over time to reflect the changing peoples, languages, religions, technologies and thoughts over the course of years. At one time a history could be wiped away with a single battle and the conquered people’s former lives forever lost to the ages as a new history was given them by their conquerors. Now, with the advent of film, telephones and instant communication, it is highly unlikely that anyone is totally forgotten or left to the underbelly of history. If it had an effect, someone will write, picture or record it in some manner if at all possible. No longer does history need to be found on hidden walls painted by peoples from 30,000 years ago. Now it happens and is logged in front of our eyes. No longer do we have to hope the person telling us a story about specific peoples or actions was actually there to witness it, we no longer have to trust that a person is not writing from 100 years past the event from oral traditions, but we can now see it in action.  As with a few of the biggest historical events of my lifetime, I was able to view them in live action. The Challenger Disaster broadcast live into my science class, 9/11 on my PC screen at work then my television at home and many more events happened and were broadcast to each of us who were alive at the time, making anyone who lives in modern times their own personal historian for now and into the future.

 

 

 

                                                                  Works Cited

Santayana, George. The Life of Reason [or] the Phases of Human Progress, Volume 1, 1905. The Classics.us, 2013. PrintUS (Spanish-born) philosopher (1863 - 1952) 4 October 2015

Sivers, Peter Von, Charles Desnoyers, and George B. Stow. Patterns of World History. Vol. 1. New York: Oxford UP, 2015. Print. 7 October 2015

Plato, Benjamin Jowett, and Plato. Gorgias and Timaeus. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2003. Print. 10 October 2015

Hitchens, Christopher. God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. New York: Twelve, 2007. Print. 8 October 2015

Articles of Confederation vs. The U.S. Constitution - Compare and Contrast

            There is a stark contrast between the two documents in question and the difference begins with the first lines of each. As this essay is written, we shall hit on several key points of variation between the two documents. What political motives or events drove the latter to be written? As well what in the political winds led to The Articles abandonment?  What is Sovereignty? Finally describing The Articles’ weaknesses compared to the strengths of the Constitution.

            In the very first phrases of each Document, The Preamble, you can see a huge difference between them. The articles read as follows: “To all to whom these Presents shall come, we the undersigned Delegates of the States affixed to our Names send greeting. Whereas the Delegates of the United States of America in Congress assembled did on the fifteenth day of November in the Year of our Lord One Thousand Seven Hundred and Seventy seven, and in the Second Year of the Independence of America, agree to certain articles of Confederation and perpetual Union between the States of New Hampshire, Massachusetts-bay, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, in the words following…” Those words stink a bit of rich land owners having rights others will not by way of “to all those whom these presents” as if the nation had just been split for the wealthy alone. Also the mention of “plantations” is probably the first example of “corporate personhood” I have seen. They are not recognizing the people in out-lying communities, but plantations from which great wealth came to the colonial elites. The articles also lay out state by state sovereignty vs. national sovereignty of the United States as a whole. John Dickenson was a bit short sighted it appears. As this seems to be more of a document by those who were privileged under British rule and wanted to regain that status by centralizing power.

 By contrast we have the Preamble of the U.S. Constitution, a lot more inclusive speech it seems, “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” This is a bit more inclusive for all who fought to gain this nation. No speaking of delegates, plantations or other business interests, but the people and how this will be a land of equality and opportunity. Finally instead of referring to the document as a loose collection of states, they called it The United States of America. Implying we had overcome the first state by state isolationist sentiment held by some.  

            Some of the perceived weaknesses of the Articles were as follows: Each state has one vote toward anything regardless of population. Congress had no taxation power (and we all know that is the main reason Government is ever created). Congress had no powers over commerce; either interstate or international meaning one part of the nation could tank another by dropping prices on a product. There was no executive branch for enforcement, probably because we feared another king situation. There was no national Court system to insure even justice. Amendments required all members to vote yes, and laws required a 9/13ths majority (not really accounting for future growth).             The Congress had full power over foreign affairs, questions of war and peace and disputes between the states, Indian affairs, and the postal service, as well as government of the western territories. They could actually print money and decide the weights and measures. However, it had no power to enforce resolutions or ordinances. Administrative duties were often assigned to committees, members were often overworked; John Adams served on 80 different committees for example.

            The political turmoil at the time was the Revolutionary War. Considering it was fought between 1775 and 1783 The Articles of Confederation seemed to be more a Document to show a bit of togetherness without much legal teeth to enforce it in the long run. Agreed to by Congress November 15, 1777; ratified and working by March 1, 1781. This all occurred while boots were on U.S. soil and trying to force the colonies back under the crown. The Colonies had been through battle after battle; Thomas Paine had released Common Sense, and after many defeats at the hands of the British it seems after the second Battle of Saratoga in October of 1777 when General Burgoyne surrendered his army may have played a role because within a few short months the articles appeared and were ratified. It seems as though a fair document was drafted for the first attempt, and it tried to show there would be teeth in the new Colonial Government even if they could not tax for war efforts or conscript fighters but had to requisition (Bill or ask) monies for the standing army. Washington posed his issues with an inactive Congress many times and especially in during his time at Valley Forge when a significant amount of soldiers were lost to illness, disease, freezing to death and just leaving because they were starting to believe this was indeed a lost cause. As the General tasked with feeding and arming a force trying to defeat what amounted to the greatest military forces on earth at the time was tantamount to suicide without Congress helping with supplies and moneys. These circumstances even led Washington’s army to have to steal from locals wherever they went; calling it “helping the effort” they took livestock, food, supplies and anything else they needed including the boats for the famous Delaware ride.

            By 1778 and the Alliance Treaty with France, things were turning in a different direction. Many battles all over the nation made people everywhere get involved. By 1780 most of the major battling in the North had settled down, and by 1783 we signed the second Paris Treaty ending the war. This may surely be speculation but I often wonder if the Shay’s rebellion (and the many like it during this time) or the Annapolis Convention had anything to do with the changes being expedited. I know Shay’s brought to the forefront the Federal Governments inability to call troops into action on a needed and fast basis.  I also wonder if the State meetings at Annapolis’s failure to come to any resolution were a big reason another Philadelphia Congress was called to get a “new” way started immediately that would be more inclusive and give the Fed more power to both help and tax the nation. Those seem like legit reasons to scrap an idea and start fresh, beyond the obvious one that we had just earned our independence and it was time for us to write a set of laws JUST for us.

            Now we discuss the topic of Sovereignty. As a definition we have discussed it is a government setting up and controlling things inside its own borders without outside interference from others. I would hope anyone who has looked in the least bit at the two documents in question, would understand the differences in the call for Sovereignty between them. First the Articles of Confederation, “Article 2: Each state retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every Power, Jurisdiction, and right, which is not by this confederation expressly delegated to the United States, in Congress assembled.” I am not sure I can put it into more layman’s terms than that which is stated in plain words. The Federal Government structure of the Articles leaves everything up to the states and a set of judges for disputes. Unless of course you can obtain that 100% amendment level or that 9/13 ratification of new laws level, both of which are a bit heavy.

However, sovereignty is expressed in a few spots in the Constitution. Section ten and Section nine spell out in great detail what each has the power to do and who will answer to whom for each cause. Article two gives the newly create “President” powers. Article three lays out our Judiciary. Article four is full faith and credit, along with how new states will be admitted to the union. Article six says the Fed does Treaties, not individual states. Then you have a Bill of Rights promising people within those states “certain unalienable rights” to which they must agree to be part of the United States. Obviously the Constitution was a more thought out Document to cater to the whole of the nation, and not just the singular idea of one man. We would be United, or as Abe stated in the Illinois State House “A house divided against itself surely cannot stand” Springfield, Illinois. June 16, 1858.

Finally, the organizational principles of each Document were pretty well covered above, but we can revisit. The articles lay out a lose nit group of “States” and how they are agreeing to some basic rules with not a lot of teeth behind them. This move seems to have been more out of a necessity to show the wealthy and those of “stance and substance” there indeed was a plan when this whole Revolution business started and it was just 12 colonies following one to total disaster with nothing in mind for the greater good. However, to convince pocket strings as you must now, you must play to their needs as well as the needs of others and often times put them ahead of others… we see this with the “Providence Plantation” set of words. Plantations were where the money was then, so leaders had to show “a heart for money”, especially since that is one thing both documents spell out, printing money. However, as you move to the United States Constitution, you can see some forethought, and time taken to hash out most of the really important ideals of the day. The Bill of Rights is for all states, they do not choose which. Articles two and three lay out the Presidential powers and obligations as well as the duties of a Judiciary branch. Four speaks of the relationship each state will have with the Fed collectively, and the Fed is to be trusted, along with crimes between states and how criminals will be treated, as well as extradition.  Five speaks to ratification of amendments with two-thirds/ National Conventions etc… Six speaks to Supreme Law, all treaties and national laws are iron clad. Number seven is how all this will be ratified. Then when you move into Amendment numbers nine and ten you see that we move into the unenumerated rights and reserved powers. Those seemed to be moved back into the Bill of Rights due to Anti-Federalist persistence in making these people’s rights and not governmental rights. The Supreme Court has found that unenumerated rights include such important rights as the right to travel, the right to vote, the right to keep personal matters private and to make important decisions about one's health care or body. Number ten tried to spell out “reserved powers” for Congress a few years after the initial signing reserved powers has been in question as well but has been determined by the Supreme court to be laws affecting family relations, commerce that occur within a state's own borders, and local law enforcement activities, are among those specifically reserved to the states or the people.

            In summary it should be seen that the Constitution was a great leap forward from the Articles of Confederation. One was a bit cobbled together to show certain groups of people there was a reason to continue to support a cause. The other was when said cause was won, and it was time to draft a new national document for all people to be able to look too for rights, laws and the ease of which we should be able to deal with and maintain a Federal Government. I sometimes think it would be nice if we harken back to this document once in a great while and just see what is written instead of putting our own politics on the Founders’ ideals.