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Henry Clay

The World’s Greatest Deliberative Body

July 22, 2021 by Peg Leave a Comment

James Buchanan was the American president from 1857-1861 and is credited with that description of the United States Senate as a place for respectful, intelligent and impassioned debate. Such luminaries as Henry Clay, Daniel Webster and John Calhoun forged a senate known for its ability to get hard jobs done well. Those three served when the annual pay was $5,000. Today, Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky earns $174,000 per year as one of our one hundred senators.

Henry Clay represented Kentucky also. Clay was called the Great Compromiser due to his ability to get senate consensus on such volatile issues as war, then peace, with Great Britain in 1812-1814 and preservation of the union during ante-bellum days. Anthony Fauci is not a senator but he is our highest paid federal employee, $434,312 per year, as the Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and as the chief medical advisor to the President of the United States. On July 20, 2021 Senator Paul and Dr. Fauci sat in the hallowed chamber where Henry Clay used to orate. Their exchange about the Wuhan China laboratory funds received from America was notably different from issues concerning war and slavery. It went something like this, “You are a liar!” and “You are another!” If the famous Ohio River brawler Mike Fink (c. 1770-c. 1823) had been involved, either Paul or Fauci might have been challenged to knock a red feather off the other’s shoulder. Or if two twelve-year-old boys during a school recess had been at odds one might have shoved the other and kicked dirt on him.

For several hundred thousand dollars in salaries and such seeming trivialities as a world pandemic involved, one might expect the World’s Greatest Deliberative Body to be, well, more deliberative. As reported over the cable news networks, Paul and Fauci were each claiming the other was not just incorrect on the arcane science known as gain-of-function research; the direct accusations were that both public servants were deliberately misleading their employers, i.e., you and me, Gentle Readers.

Further, Paul accused Fauci of perjury before Congress and Fauci pointed a bony finger at Paul and yelled that Paul was intentionally confusing the facts. I do not know about you but I have found this Wuhan gain-of-function thing confusing enough on its own. Our leaders need not obfuscate things further. Research into how science can manipulate the genetic code of the coronavirus in order to create new more deadly ones sounds ominous enough. And according to some reports, the mysterious Wuhan Laboratory “Bat Lady”, Shi Zhengle, has already combined the genes of two bat viruses with genes from a SARS related strain to make a new and even more deadly virus. I am thinking we all might want to step back a way. Supposedly the good reason for such research is to prepare us for some future deadly disease. Unfortunately, history teaches us the altruistic motivations do not always win out.

Paul got his medical degree from Duke University and Fauci got his from Cornell University. They should know better than to bandy about with such concepts as world plagues, present or future. I respectfully suggest we may want to use the resources of the World’s Greatest Deliberative Body for good and not expend our precious and limited resources on schoolboy shouting matches while Washington, D.C. burns.

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Filed Under: America, COVID-19, Gavel Gamut, Legislative, War Tagged With: Bat Lady, Coronavirus, Daniel Webster, Dr. Anthony Fauci, Henry Clay, James Buchanan, James M. Redwine, Jim Redwine, John Calhoun, Mike Fink, president of the United States of America, SARS, Senator Rand Paul, Shi Zhengle, United States Senate, World's Greatest Deliberative Body, Wuhan China Laboratory

A Legal Revolution

November 13, 2020 by Peg Leave a Comment


Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859) was a Frenchman who studied American society during a nine-month tour in 1831 when the United States were still simmering with vitriolic political animus from the 1824 and 1828 elections between John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson. Adams was elected by the House of Representatives in 1824 and Jackson won via the Electoral College in 1828. After neither election did the United States fall into chaos, even though Jackson won both the popular vote and a plurality, but not a majority, of the Electoral College vote yet Adams grabbed the presidency in 1824.

Four men ran for president in 1824, John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, Henry Clay and William Crawford. Because the Electoral College vote was split in such a way that none of the four received a majority, as required to be elected President, under the Twelfth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution a “contingent” election was held in the House of Representatives. Each state’s delegation was given one vote and Adams was elected. Jackson and his supporters alleged that Adams and Clay had entered into a “Corrupt Bargain” to shift Clay’s votes to Adams. Regardless, Adams was elected by the House and the country moved on until 1828 when Jackson ran against Adams again.

In his treatise on American democracy de Tocqueville defined America’s presidential election as “a revolution at law” and described it as follows:

“Every four years, long before the appointed (presidential election) day arrives, the election becomes the greatest, and one might say the only, affair occupying men’s minds…. As the election draws near intrigues grow more active and agitation is more lively and widespread. The citizens divide up into several camps.… The whole nation gets into a feverish state.”

De Tocqueville’s ultimate verdict on America’s democracy was encapsulated in his general verdict on how political controversies were ultimately resolved. His observation was that:

“In America there is hardly a political question which does not sooner or later turn into a judicial one.”

De Tocqueville’s opinion was that the American manner of resolving political issues without bloodshed worked because, unlike European monarchies, the United States citizens respected the law and they did so because they had the right to both create it and change it. Since we get to choose our legislators who write our election laws and because we can change the laws by changing whom we elect if we are unhappy, we accept the laws as written including who is ultimately declared the winner of a current election.

The laws we have the right to create and the right to change include filing for an elected office, running for that office, who counts the votes, how they are counted, as well as how and when someone can legally contest an election. That legal procedure applies to all facets of an election cycle. Each state’s legislature has the authority to establish its own procedures in this regard as long as they do not violate federal law.

As an Indiana Circuit Court Judge I was involved in a recount of a congressional race, a county clerk general election, a county council general election, a town council election and a county council primary election. The Indiana legislature had enacted and published a clear statutory procedure for each type of election contest, including what role each public official should play in any recount. The statutes demanded total openness and media access to ensure the public could have confidence that if all involved followed the law a clear winner would be fairly determined. There were time limits, controls and transparency. After a recount result was certified in each contest life moved on and the eventual losers and their supporters accepted the results because they had had their “day in court”; that is, democratically enacted law was followed not the arbitrary or partisan activity of individuals.

De Tocqueville compared America’s hotly contested democratic elections to a surging river that strains at its banks with raging waters then calms down and carries on peacefully once the results have been properly certified. From my own experience with several elections and after the recounts of some of them, I agree with de Tocqueville’s analogy.

That is not to say I am for or against any type of recount for any office. I absolutely have no position on whether any candidate for any office should concede or contest anything. My position is simply that as long as the law is properly followed our democracy can handle either circumstance.

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Filed Under: America, Circuit Court, Democracy, Elections, Gavel Gamut, Indiana, Judicial, Law, Presidential Campaign Tagged With: Alexis de Tocqueville, Andrew Jackson, Corrupt Bargain, day in court, election recount, electoral college, Henry Clay, House of Representatives, Indiana Circuit Court Judge, James M. Redwine, Jim Redwine, John Quincy Adams, legal revolution, political controversies, presidential election, respect the law, United States, vitriolic political animus, William Crawford

Two Auspicious Days

April 6, 2019 by Peg Leave a Comment

The seven day period beginning April 08 and ending April 15 has two important days, one joyous and one sad. April 08 is Peg’s birthday. Please wish her happiness and strength as she deals with having me home a lot more now. As to the other significant anniversary, Abraham Lincoln died on April 15, 1865. As if paying our taxes on April 15 was not already sad enough.

Of course, there is a certain historic connection between federal income taxes and President Lincoln. He helped institute the first federal income tax to pay for the Civil War, which was fought to preserve the Union. However, after the Civil War ended the income tax was also ended until 1916 when it was made permanent by the 16th Amendment to the Constitution.

Kentucky, Indiana and Illinois claim Lincoln for our own but hardly anyone lays claim to the income tax. As Peg and I will wait until 11:59 p.m. on April 15 to pay ours we assume we will have a lot of fellow travelers. It is widely accepted that the major need for America to impose taxes on itself is to pay for wars or the preparation for potential wars. Oh, we expend a lot for various other things too such as salaries and expense accounts for Congress people, Executive Branch workers and judges, health care and the clean up after celebrations such as inaugurations and ticker-tape parades to honor sports teams. I am assured by those involved in these endeavors our hard earned money is well spent.

If you are like me you put Presidents George Washington and Abraham Lincoln in a separate rarified class from other presidents. And while George Washington never visited Posey County, Indiana as did Abraham Lincoln (thanks to my friend and historian Jerry King for this information), I note Washington managed to birth our nation without a federal income tax. Anyway, I forgive Lincoln since he took the time to dedicate a bridge in Savah, Posey County, Indiana in 1844 when he was campaigning for Henry Clay (1777-1852); Clay lost. Maybe those early Hoosiers suspected Abraham Lincoln might someday start an income tax.

Well, income taxes and the Civil War aside, Abraham Lincoln still has much to teach us about humility, compromise, mercy, justice and just plain decency. And as for Peg’s birthday, I am going to celebrate it by thanking you Gentle Readers who have been kind enough to commiserate with her as she has often served as a foil in these articles over the many years!

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Filed Under: America, Females/Pick on Peg, Gavel Gamut, Posey County Tagged With: 16th Amendment, Abraham Lincoln, April 15, April 8, Civil War, Gentle Readers, George Washington, Henry Clay, James M. Redwine, Jerry King, Jim Redwine, pay income taxes, Peg’s birthday, Savah bridge

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