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Julius Caesar

Do Not Cross the Potomac River

September 17, 2021 by Peg Leave a Comment

At the Rubicon

In 49 BC the Senate in the Republic of Rome ordered Gaius Julius Caesar to not bring his army across the Rubicon River into the city of Rome. Caesar said, “Let the die be cast”; that is, I’ll take my chances. He did, Rome as a Republic collapsed into civil war and instead of a representative government the Roman people got a dictator. Five years later, on the Ides of March, Caesar was deposed by force.

The people who founded the United States of America came from a tradition of great fear of military power over civilians. In fact, in our Declaration of Independence one of the main complaints against King George III was that, “He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to the civil power.”

This great fear of military control over the civilian populace of America was guarded against in our Constitution. Article I, section 8 endows Congress with the power and authority to declare war, and to raise armies and militias to suppress insurrections. Article II, section 2 establishes that the democratically elected President shall be in control of the armed forces as the Commander-in-Chief.

In his exhaustive and exhausting treatise, The Framer’s Coup, The Making of the United States Constitution, Professor Michael J. Klarman points out the vital importance to our Founders that “[I]n all cases, the military should be under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power.” See p. 330.

We Americans profess pride in and support of our military as long as we are assured our military remembers its place. That system has worked pretty well and we are likely to maintain it in spite of political pressure being brought upon the generals to undermine their Commander-in-Chief. As I recall from my service days, I did not always recognize as wise what my military superiors thought was wisdom. Joseph Heller in his prescient novel, Catch-22, had a pretty firm grip on the banality of much of the military. On the hand, our politicians sometimes also fall a little short of a full deck. Still, at least we have the opportunity to have some say in who our civilian leaders will be and we can fire them.

Therefore, for me, I’ll chose to bob and weave with the occasional civilian loser versus a palace military coup. Back off oh ’ye purveyors of a Banana Republic. As Scarlett O’Hara said, “Tomorrow’s another day” and as Annie said, “Tomorrow is only a day away.” I can wait. Elections, yes, coups, no.

Another look at the Rubicon

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Filed Under: America, Democracy, Gavel Gamut, Judicial, Law, Military, Presidential Campaign, Rule of Law, United States, War, World Events Tagged With: Annie, Banana Republic, Catch-22, Commander-in-Chief, Congress, Constitution, Declaration of Independence, Ides of March, James M. Redwine, Jim Redwine, Joseph Heller, Judge Redwine, Julius Caesar, King George III, Michael J. Klarman, Potomac River, Republic of Rome, Rome, Rubicon River, Scarlett O'Hara, Senate, The Framer's Coup, United States of America

The Ultimate Sin

July 20, 2018 by Peg Leave a Comment

NJC/Dred Scott Symposium

Joseph Campbell (1904-1987) was a professor of literature at Sarah Lawrence College in Yonkers, New York. Campbell was America’s recognized guru in the area of myth and religion. He postulated that the ultimate/unpardonable sin was to be unaware.

When Peg and I visited the just opened Equal Justice Initiative’s Legacy Museum and Memorial in Montgomery, Alabama earlier this month then participated in the Dred Scott convocation in St. Louis, Missouri last week, I was constantly made aware of Campbell’s admonition. I thought back to when I lived in an apartheid society of which I was barely conscious. When I saw the representations of lynchings and Jim Crow laws in Montgomery the stark reality of a separate and unequal daily life assaulted me. But when in St. Louis I listened to personal accounts of Black people who were on the unequal side of the equation, my own lack of alertness came into focus.

While you can anticipate the content of the displays at the EJI, when you walk through the hundreds of metal coffins inscribed with thousands of names of murdered Black people including several from Posey County, Indiana, you will naturally contemplate the evil we are capable of doing to one another just because someone may be an “other”. But when you hear directly from living persons who are still experiencing a denial of equal justice you are forced to confront your own previous lack of awareness.

The Dred Scott case was decided by the United States Supreme Court in 1857 and led directly to the Civil War four years later. It is only one of many wrong decisions of the Supreme Court but is probably the worst. Chief Justice Roger Taney (1777-1864) who sat on the Supreme Court for almost thirty years authored the 7 to 2 opinion. It held that Negroes could not be citizens of the United States and had no rights that white men were legally bound to recognize, and that Dred Scott must remain a slave.

On Monday, July 16, 2018 at Logan University in St. Louis descendants of Dred Scott (c.1799-1858), Confederate President Jefferson Davis (1808-1889) and Roger Taney along with one hundred and fifty judges, attorneys and academic scholars were brought together by Judge Judith Draper and her husband Justice George Draper in conjunction with the National Judicial College to engage in “reconciliation”.

NJC President Benes Aldana, NJC technology specialist Joseph Sawyer, Michael Roosevelt education specialist for the State of California Courts and I as an NJC faculty member presented the afternoon sessions after the descendants and audience members held an interesting and extremely positive discussion during three hours in the morning.

The relatives of Taney and Davis did not attempt to excuse slavery. They did, however, clearly and poignantly point out their ancestors had done many good things along with their egregious errors in moral and legal judgments. As Peg and I listened to them I was reminded of Mark Antony’s funeral oration for Julius Caesar:

“The evil that men do lives after them,

The good is oft’ interred with their bones.”

William Shakespeare, Act III, sc ii.

What the EJI and Dred Scott experiences did for me was force me to remember and dissect my experiences under the system of legal apartheid in my hometown of Pawhuska, Oklahoma. I had never given more than a passing thought as to why “Colored” boys could not enter the front door of the pool hall or come to the front part of the building. And now my home town is New Harmony, Indiana where, according to the book by William E. Wilson On the Sunny Side of a One Way Street at page 91 he wrote that when he was a boy in New Harmony:

“By the twentieth century New Harmony had lost the egalitarian faith on which it was founded a hundred years before, and Aunt Minnie’s Lizzie (Wilson’s Aunt’s Black servant) was the only Negro permitted to live in the town. She had a room in the hotel (owned by Wilson’s Aunt and Uncle) and never went out on the street, day or night. Uncle Harry and Aunt Minnie did everything possible to make Lizzie feel like one of the family, not only because she was an excellent cook but also because they loved her. Even so, I have often wondered since how Lizzie endured her ostracism in the town.”

And Wilson also writes of his father’s loss of his Congressional seat in 1925 because he refused to join the Ku Klux Klan.

Well, I am more “aware” now than I was before the visit to the EJI Museum and Memorial, the Dred Scott convocation and Mr. Wilson’s book, but realize there’s more I need to do while, I hope, there’s still time to do it.

I wish to sincerely thank the friendly and expert staff of our fine Alexandrian Public Library in Mt. Vernon, Indiana for providing me with several excellent reference works on Dred Scott and William E. Wilson’s interesting book on New Harmony.

 

For video of Peg’s pictures of the Convocation please go to: https://www.youtube.com/edit?video_id=qqOf6KZ7ZBw&video_referrer=watch

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Filed Under: America, Events, Gavel Gamut, Indiana, Mt. Vernon, National Judicial College, New Harmony, Oklahoma, Osage County, Posey County, Slavery Tagged With: Alexandrian Public Library, Chief Justice Roger Taney, Civil War, Confederate President Jefferson Davis, Dred Scott, Equal Justice Initiative, guru of myth and religion, James M. Redwine, Jim Crow laws, Jim Redwine, Joseph Campbell, Julius Caesar, Ku Klux Klan, legal apartheid, Logan University, lynchings, Mark Antony, Mt. Vernon Indiana, National Judicial College, New Harmony Indiana, On the Sunny Side of a One Way Street, Posey County Indiana, Sarah Lawrence College, slavery, The Legacy Museum and Memorial, The Ultimate Sin, William E. Wilson

Feet of Clay

August 25, 2017 by Peg Leave a Comment

Picture by Peg Redwine

William Shakespeare had Marc Antony preach these words at Julius Caesar’s funeral:

“The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones.”

Act III, Scene 2

Antony went on to list Caesar’s accomplishments in addition to his being ambitious. There was some good, some bad. Perhaps the citizens of Rome should have erected a partial statue of Caesar honoring just the good parts.

This could be a solution to our current controversy over monuments to historic figures. A committee could be composed of people who admire the works of a now dead leader and those who find the figure’s behavior flawed. A few examples might be helpful.

George Washington survived Valley Forge, presided over the Constitutional Convention and refused the opportunity to be named an emperor. On the other hand he owned hundreds of slaves and helped enshrine slavery into our legal system. The Committee might consider cutting the Washington Monument in half.

Thomas Jefferson was responsible for the Bill of Rights that guaranteed individual liberty but only to twenty-one year old white males. He also owned slaves and had children by one of them. Today such an employer/subject relationship would result in severe censure. Perhaps the Committee might recommend the Jefferson Memorial be closed every other week.

As we search for unblemished heroes to honor we could consider Abraham Lincoln who issued the Emancipation Proclamation. However, he at first averred slavery would be preferable to the disintegration of the Union and the Proclamation did not free all slaves just those in the states of the Confederacy. The Committee could maybe have a disclaimer added as a placard around his statue’s neck.

Andrew Jackson committed adultery, captured Seminole Indians under a flag of truce and as president created The Trail of Tears. On the other hand, he was a courageous and victorious military leader. A short bronze bust could replace his heroic sized statue.

As for Mount Rushmore the Committee would have to remove at least 3 of the 4 figures. Of course, Teddy Roosevelt had a penchant for shooting animals which might upset the ASPCA; so all 4 might have to be erased.

Right here in Posey County, Indiana we have a dilemma about what to do with our most famous citizen. Alvin Peterson Hovey was once Posey Circuit Court Judge, a Civil War general for the Union and our only governor. Unfortunately, he also was instrumental in helping to cover up the murders of seven Black men in October 1878. One of those Black men was shot and stuffed into a hollow tree on a farm owned by Hovey. Will the Committee have to remove the glowing patina from Hovey’s bronze in the Indiana State House?

One might look to Jesus as the paragon of virtue but even he got angry and threw the moneychangers out of the temple. He, also, voiced his hope that the cup of his great travail might pass from him. On the other hand, apparently no one knows what Jesus looked like unless one believes the Shroud of Turin is a clue. I guess the Committee would not be able to find any statues of Jesus to modify.

It appears that history has not provided us with any perfect examples to honor. Maybe the Committee will have to suggest that all statues be modified by substituting feet of clay.

Picture by Peg Redwine

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Filed Under: America, Circuit Court, Democracy, Females/Pick on Peg, Gavel Gamut, Judicial, Law, Males, Posey County, Slavery, War Tagged With: Abraham Lincoln, abuse of women, Alvin Peterson Hovey, Andrew Jackson, ASPCA, Bill of Rights, Civil War general, Constitutional Convention, Emancipation Proclamation, emperor, feet of clay, flag of truce, George Washington, governor of Indiana, Indiana State House, James M. Redwine, Jefferson Memorial, Jesus, Jim Redwine, Julius Caesar, Marc Antony, moneychangers, monuments, Mount Rushmore, murders of seven Black men in October 1878, paragon of virtue, Posey Circuit Court Judge, Posey County Indiana, Rome, Seminole Indians, Shroud of Turin, slavery, statues, Teddy Roosevelt, the evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones, The Trail of Tears, Thomas Jefferson, Union, Valley Forge, Washington Monument, William Shakespeare

© 2022 James M. Redwine

 

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