Historical Figure #8: Thomas Paine

What you know about Thomas Paine:

He was an American colonist just prior to the Revolution who wrote Common Sense along with a few other pro-revolution materials.

What you don’t know about Thomas Paine:

He was born and grew up in England, where he failed at almost everything he tried.  First he failed out of school.  Then, worked for a time as an apprentice in his father’s corset-making shop, but he failed at that too.  For a while he tried being a sailor and a school-teacher, but that didn’t work out so well for him either.  Later, Paine became a tax officer, but he was fired from that job not once but twice for embezzeling.

So, after randomly meeting Benjamin Franklin, Paine decided to move to America.  There he became a journalist, which actually worked out pretty well for him.  His writings were widely read by American colonists, and works like Common Sense played a huge role in the Revolution.

Eventually, Paine returned to England, but there his writing got him into trouble.  Considered an enemy of the crown, he escaped arrest by fleeing to France, where he played a part in the begining of the French Revolution.  Unfortunately, as was the case with many initial leaders of the Revolution in France, Paine was soon jailed for his beleifs.  James Monroe (of the newly formed United States) helped him out of that fix, and he returned to the U.S. on an invitation from Thomas Jefferson in 1802.  Sadly enough, some of his more radical ideas had caused the American people to fall out of love with Thomas Paine, and died in New York City in relative isolation in 1809.

 

This post is largely paraphrased from:  http://www.ushistory.org/PAINE/

Historical Figure #6: Friedrich Nietzsche

Okay, so I know Nietzsche is pretty mainstream, but I just found this part of his theory so interesting I had to share it!

Neitzsche had a big problem with just about everything we value in American culture today:  democracy, the notion of natural rights, equality, and Christianity, among other things.  His problem with Christianity is the part I found so funny.  Essentially, Nietzsche believed that Christianity was founded by a bunch of losers.  They had nothing, and they were meek, weak, and bleak.  Their lot in life was considered BAD.  Meanwhile, the winners of society had everything- power, money, strength, influence, and the like.  These things, because the winners had them, were considered GOOD.  So the answer that Paul and the early founders of the Christian church came up with was:

Oh yeah?  Well our God says all those things you guys have are really EVIL.

Somehow this caught on, and our notions of GOOD and BAD were inverted.  Power and money are bad, and the meek will inheirit the Earth.  Nietzsche actually admired the way Christians got nearly everyone to believe something he thought was so obviously wrong.  His problem was with what Christianity had turned into.  He wrote that Christian society was still based on resentment about being less powerful even though that had already won that struggle.  (This is where he came up with his famous idea that “God is Dead”, and we don’t even know it.)

Something to think about, eh?

I learned this in a lecture here at school.  To learn more about Nietzsche, try this site:

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nietzsche/

Historical Figure #5: Auguste Comte

Auguste Comte was a French philosopher following the Revolution.  His major thing, apart from basically inventing sociology, was positivism, but that’s not what I want to talk about.  I’d rather talk about his religion.

In 1812, at the age of fourteen, Comte told his strictly Catholic family that he had “naturally ceased believing in God.”  They didn’t take it too well.  (He also took political stance rather the opposite of theirs at this time.  Little Auguste and his family didn’t get along very well after that.)

Much later, in keeping with his positivist ideas, Comte took it upon himself to construct a “positive religion”, or a “religion of humanity”.  That’s right- he just up and created his own religion.  The religion focused itself on humanity and society, and was atheistic.  It was something like mysticism, but with a Catholic structure.  Comte named himself high preist, naturally, and he went on to create a catechism, set holy days, and canonize saints.  Among Comte’s saints were Isaac Newton, Dante, Shakespeare, Saunt-Simon, Frederick the Great, and Adam Smith.  All-in-all, it sounds pretty cool to me.

 Source:  http://www.historyguide.org/intellect/lecture25a.html

Historical Figure #4: David Wilmont

You may have heard of the Wilmont Proviso, an ante-bellum era ammendment that proposed to ban the practice of slavery in the West.  The ammendment was never passed, because it was shot down by the South, but Northern States have been immortalizing it ever since as a noble attempt to keep slavery at bay.  The proposal for the Wilmont Proviso was made to Congress August 8th, 1846 by David Wilmont, a congressman from Pennsylvania who no one had quite realized existed.

The interesting part is that Wilmont was not the champion of abolition you might think.  In fact, to put it bluntly, Wilmont was a big racist.  His goal in keeping slavery out of the West was not to end slavery; it wasn’t even to halt the spread of slavery.  Wilmont hoped to prevent black people from entering the Western territories.  All black people, slaves and free blacks alike.  In his own words, Wilmont had no “morbid sympathy for the slave”.  He announced, “I would preserve for white free labor a fair disgrace which association with negro slavery brings upon free labor.”

Other famous probably-racists from American History include:  Christopher Columbus, Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Roger Taney, Woodrow Wilson, and COUNTLESS OTHERS.

Source:  Nation of Nations:  A Narrative History of the American Republic fifth edition by Davidson, Gienapp, Heyrman, Lytle, and Stoff

An Apology

I would just like to apologize for how stunningly boring my last entry was.  I didn’t realize until after I posted it that it really isn’t interesting to anyone who is not me.  So I’m sorry about that.

My goal is to be a history teacher and make history interesting.  I can’t afford to make mistakes like that.  I could say the trouble is that history is personal.  That in order to attack history from a perspective you can understand and enjoy, I’d have to know you personally.  But that is no excuse at all, really.  So once again, I’d like to express my deepest regrets.

~Emily

Historical Figure #3: Henry Clay

Jenny thinks I am in love with Henry Clay and really, there may be some truth to this.  (Though as I told her, if I were going to fall for someone from history, it would be Thomas Jefferson hands down.)  I tell you this, because my first two Historical Figures were, shall we say, slightly off the mainstream, whereas you may have heard of Henry Clay before.  If you haven’t, that’s okay too.  I’ll tell you all about him.

Henry Clay was a man who served as a US Congressman, was elected Speaker of the House at the very young age of thirty-four, headed more than one political party, ran for president numerous times, engineered a few pieces of major legislation, helped to postpone the Civil War, and lived forever.  Ahem.  Well, he… eh… did nearly all of those things, anyway.

 Clay started out as a strong political leader of the new Republicans that followed the administrations of presidents Jefferson and Madison.  Strongly nationalistic, this party advocated economic development and westward expansion.  These new Republicans were eager to go to war.  We’ll fight anyone.  No, really, we mean it.  War is good for the economy… uh… and things.  These aggressive Congressmen helped to push the young republic into the War of 1812.  They were known, quite rightly, as the War Hawks.  Henry Clay was their leader.  After the war was over, Clay proudly proclaimed  “Let any man look at the degraded condition of this country before the war.  The scorn of the universe, the contempt of ourselves… What is our present situation?  Respectibility and character abroad- security and confidence at home.”

The next time Clay appears in the history books is when he arranged the Missouri Comprimise.  You may have heard of it, because it is vitally important to American history.  It admitted Maine to the union as a free state, Missouri as a slave state, and drew a line across the country between the Northern (free) states and the Southern (slave) states of the west.

In the election of 1824, Clay ran for president, winning a disapointing 34% of the popular vote.  There was some tricky business with the election that year, and the top three candidates had to be presented to the House of Representatives, who would choose a winner.  Though Clay was out of the race by then, he was still Speaker of the House, and that pretty much gave him the power to choose the next president.  Good old Henry convinced the House to elect John Quincy Adams, and two days later Adams named him Secretary of State.  (Incidentally, Secretary of State is a great stepping-stone to the presidency.)  When Adams decided not to run for re-election, Clay stepped up and led the Republican party, but in the confusion, the Democrats won the election.  Clay ran for president again in 1832, this time gaining the party vote, but he lost to the popular returning candidate, Andrew Jackson.

By the time Jackson’s term was done, the Republican party had fallen apart.  Henry Clay, however, had not.  Clay was now leading the Whigs, a new party to oppose the Democrats.  He came up with the idea of an “American System” that would support the economy through bolstering manufacturing.  When he ran for president again in 1844, he was unanimously nominated among the Whig party.  And he very nearly won that time.  Honestly.  Just not quite.

Clay’s next acheivement was to engineer the Compromise of 1850.  He became well-renowned for his sectional compromises, which is almost ironic for someone who formerly headed the War Hawks.  The secret to this was his strong feelings of Nationalism, which supported both war with outsiders and internal connection and wholeness.  Though the Compromise of 1850 was not accepted all at once, it was eventually taken on, and it kept the Civil War at bay once again.  At this point, Henry was seventy-three years old, suffering from a habitual cough, and nearing the end of his political and natural life.  You could say the Compromise was his last huzzah, though his strong influence on Abraham Lincoln should be taken into account.

Henry Clay was a true politician.  Not afraid to change his position if it meant getting ahead, always willing to enter an election, even one he couldn’t win.  His entire life was devoted to politics, and he influenced greatly almost four decades of American political life.  The sad thing is, many people don’t know about his existence.  Rachel tells me that the Regents US History courses at her High School don’t even talk about Henry Clay.  Perhaps such a complicated man is too much for them, but it is sad to think that a person so devoted to the United States doesn’t even merit a place on the bulleted list of Important People.  It really makes you wonder what kind of influence you will have in your lifetime and beyond, doesn’t it?

This mini-biography is summarized from several chapters of Nation of Nations:  A Narrative History of the American Republic, Volume I:  To 1877, Fifth Edition.  Authors listed are Davidson, Gienapp, Heyrman, Lytle, and Stoff.

Historical Figure #2: Gabriel Thomas

Gabriel Thomas was a friend of William Penn and an early settler in Pennsylvania.  He lived there for fifteen years or so before going back to England.  It was there in his homeland that he wrote a bit of promotional literature about Pennsylvania titled (I kid you not):

An Historical and Geographical Account of Pensilvania; and of West-New-Jersey in America.  The Richness of the Soil, the Sweetness of the Situation, the Wholesomness of the Air, the Navigable Rivers, and other Improvements there.  The strange Creatures, as Birds, Beasts, Fishes, Fowl, with the several sorts of Minerals, Purging Waters, and Stones, lately discovered.  The Natives, Aboroqmes, their Language, Religion, Laws, and Customs; The first Planters, the Dutch, Sweeds, and English, with a New Religion, in his second Change since he left the Quakers, with a Map of both Countries.  By Gabriel Thomas, who resided there about Fifteen Years.

Propaganda essays like this were common tools to encourage settlement in the British colonies in North America.  And if you think the title is long and tedious, you should read the essay!  No, on second thought I’ll just summarize it for you: 

Pennsylvania is better than England.  No, really.  Pennsylvania is WAY BETTER than England.  Seriously.  England has nothing on Pennsylvania.  The food is better in Pennsylvania, the money is better, the people are nicer, the crops are better, the animals are healthier, the wildlife is cooler, heck the children are even born better.  I’m not even lying to you.  I saw it with my own eyes.  Really.

This begs the question- Well then, Mr. Smarty-Pants, what are you doing in England?  Thomas seemed to realize this himself, so he moved back to Pennsylvania.  He had a fight with William Penn when he arrived, because Penn didn’t give him special treatment for writing such a wonderful (*yawn*), err, persuasive document.  If this seems unfair, I must remind you that Penn has a state named after him, while Gabriel Thomas is not famous at all.  Which is really a shame, because Gabriel is such a cool name.

Historical Figure #1: Samuel Each

I’ve decided to start an ongoing group of posts about some great characters in history. This is the first in the series, about a man called Samuel Each:

Way back in the day when Virginia was a newly formed colony of England, most of the settlers in Jamestown were greedy, greedy people. In fact, they were such misers that they wouldn’t do anything that wouldn’t make them money. (Including, incidentally, planting food. Food is not lucrative. Instead, they demanded that the natives feed them for many years.)

It got to be so bad that eventually the safety of the community was at stake. No one bothered to spend time working for the common defense, because it was time wasted they could have spent working in the tobacco fields, where the real money was made. A series of men, seeing this mutual need, actually tried to make money in military escapades. One of these was Samuel Each.

Each started out as a sea captain. His actual military credentials are unclear, if in fact he had any at all. In 1622, he attempted to convince the Virgina Council to pay him to build a fort which would protect the delta of the James River. Out of seashells. Yes, you did read that right. He wanted to build a fort out of oyster shells. The best part is they actually agreed to pay him. Each was promised a good amount of capital for his project. The Council seemed to think the fort would be a good way to guard their colony’s exporting and shipping interests from foreign vessels. (Alison and I are of the opinion that Each must have gotten the elders drunk before they agreed to this, but this is pure conjecture.)

In the end, Each was not reimbursed for his work. The Council found they were less inclined to pay him after discovering that the location he proposed was “at low water with everie wynd washed over by the surges.” In other words, at high tide it was completely underwater. Each died before his “Castle in the aire” was finished. Perhaps this was a good idea, as one colonist pointed out, it may have been “to save his Credit.”

As far as I know, no pictures exist of Each or his seashell fort, so we can only imagine how glorious they must have been.

This story was paraphrased from “Looking Out for Number One: Conflicting Cultural Values in Early Seventeenth-Century Virginia” by T. H. Breen