James M. Redwine

Declaration of Independence

It Would Be An Honor, However …

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Jim Redwine July 4, 2019

Peg and I and several members of the Redwine family were fortunate to have been included in last week’s New Harmony, Indiana Fourth of July Celebration. It was a community effort with fine music, an excellent reading of the Declaration of Independence by our friend and neighbor Chuck Minnette and copious amounts of hot dogs and ice cream. I was honored to be included as a speaker.

Reporter and photographer Lois Mittino Gray of the Posey County News did an excellent job of capturing the essence of America’s Birthday celebration and I truly appreciated her kind remarks. I also understand how someone named Redwine who was born on the Osage Indian Nation in Pawhuska, Oklahoma and who wore an Osage inspired patriotic vest could be assumed to be a member of the great Osage Tribe. While such an honor would be a source of great pride for me, alas, while I have numerous Osage, and other Indian tribe friends, I am not a tribal member.

Growing up in Osage County I played sports with and against Osages. I attended church and public schools with Osages. I count Osages among my best friends and treasure our memories and current relationships. I have always felt accepted and respected as a friend, teammate, schoolmate and competitor by my Osage friends. But the great privilege of being an actual Osage must remain in the realm of desire, not reality.

Gentle Reader, should you wish to encounter a culture where the Osage Tribe and several other justly proud Indian peoples will welcome you as they always have me and my family, I recommend you plan an excursion to Pawhuska, Oklahoma. You will find buffalo (bison), miles of virgin prairie on the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve, the Osage Tribal Museum, the Osage County Historical Museum, Woolaroc Museum, cowboys of the non-drugstore type, rodeos and the Pioneer Woman’s Mercantile among just some of the fun and enriching things to experience. You may even encounter Peg and me and other members of the Redwine family as Osage County and Pawhuska may not officially designate us as Osage, but we all have always proudly claimed the culture and heritage of that special place.

Every Month Has A Fourth

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America’s court system has several purposes but, in general, they all amount to resolving controversies. Citizens need some place to help them settle their differences with other citizens so everyone can get on with their lives. And one of the most important thing judges can do to start the resolution of a court case is to encourage the competing parties to find common ground. If the competing parties recognize they have similar needs and if all parties can at least consider the possibility that an outcome that benefits their adversary may also benefit themselves, a path leading to a reasonable compromise may appear.

Our country has often struggled with competing strongly held beliefs even going so far as resulting in the Civil War. But short of actual armed conflict we have suffered through numerous periods where political issues at first appeared to be intractable but were assuaged by the parties finding common ground. Our current public debate over such issues as immigration or war with Iran or several other significant matters may feel as if the only solutions are pistols at ten paces. However, when Americans are reminded we have more and better reasons to agree than disagree, we can begin to accommodate, and even celebrate, our differences. Such is the beauty of our national birthday party. Perhaps we should consider having similar periods of healing every month.

Peg and I participated in one such Fourth of July celebration in New Harmony, Indiana last week. Because New Harmony is a small town we personally knew where many of the people attending and involved in the party stand on volatile issues such as immigration, global warming, military involvement, the Me Too Movement, Black Lives Matter and, especially, partisan politics. Many of our friends and family are well informed and passionate on these and other matters. Conversations have often seemed more like a contact sport than reasoned debate.

But for several hours on the Fourth of July we all found common ground in the Declaration of Independence, songs of praise and a First Amendment type respect for our hard won honorable common heritage. In our culture we have numerous monthly events that each of us enjoys and respect such as club and association gatherings, sporting events, birthdays and anniversaries. Maybe we should set aside some time every month to renew our common faith in America.

The Redwines at Maclure Park, New Harmony, Indiana
Photo by Lois Mittino Gray

Town of New Harmony 4th of July 2019

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Join the town of New Harmony and many visitors for a quintessential, small town, 4th of July Celebration. The day starts at the Atheneum for a speech by Senior Judge James M. Redwine, reading of the Declaration of Independence, and patriotic music followed by a golf cart parade that proceeds through town. The afternoon wraps up with a community picnic and games for kids sponsored by the Kiwanis Club at Maclure Park.

 

Sponsored by Friends of the WMI, USI/Historic New Harmony, and Kiwanis. For more information call 812-682-4488 or harmony@usi.edu
– 10AM patriotic program at the Atheneum
– 11 AM golf cart parade
– 11:30 picnic at McClure Park

The American Volksgeist

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During August and September this year, as for several years before, the National Judicial College will be presenting Internet courses to judges from across America. Other members of the NJC faculty and I will discuss with student judges via computer and telephone how to bring more just results in our courts.

The faculty is comprised of volunteer judges and staff in Nevada, Colorado, Indiana, Mississippi and Tennessee. My experience over several years of judging and continuing judicial education by both Internet and brick and mortar classes has led me to the conclusion judges should not concentrate on techniques but rather systems of thought, i.e., legal theory. “How to” knowledge is helpful but “why to” understanding is vital.

Friedrich Karl von Savigny (1779 – 1861) was a German legal philosopher who believed a nation’s legal system arises from the volksgeist or national spirit of a people, that is, law is determined by the unique character of a nation. Or, as put by the American legal philosopher Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (1841 – 1935):

“The law embodies the story of a nation’s development through many centuries, and it cannot be dealt with as if it contained only the axioms and corollaries of a book of mathematics.”

Common Law is a term used to mean judge made law, law developed through the courts, not the legislature or an executive such as a king.

America’s common law in the years before the Revolution of 1776 arose as an effort by American judges, lawyers and juries to curb the abuses of King George, III, and the British Parliament. The 1735 case of John Peter Zenger (1697 – 1746), a New York printer who published articles about the king and parliament, illustrates the national spirit of the Colonies. Zenger was charged by the Crown with seditious libel but a jury refused to find him guilty because what he published was true.

This American spirit of rebellion permeated the Declaration of Independence and is enshrined in our Constitution that was designed to keep government power in check and protect individual citizens.

Our volksgeist is our sense of a distrust of centralized power and the preservation of individual civil rights. America and her judges need constant reminders of where we came from and who we are. That’s what I plan to both study and teach.