When John Adams was still a young attorney, the Boston Massacre took place. No lawyer wanted to defend the British soldiers that were accused of murder in the case. John Adams eventually learned that the whole matter would probably end with the British being found guilty. Because his cousin Sam Adams was there, John knew some of the facts. He also knew that no one would defend the soldiers.
John Adams then determined that he would take the case to insure that no injustice would be done. His friends all told him that would be the end of his career as a lawyer. He took it. He won. It wasn’t the end of his career. He gained the admiration of the city folk as a lawyer who was honest and fair.
Alexander Hamilton was a favorite of General George Washington. Few remember that Hamilton was with Washington as he crossed the Delaware and captured the Hessian fighting force at Trenton in December, 1776. Hamilton actually lit the touchholes with the flames that fired the canon at the Hessian barracks that night. James Monroe, the future President, was in charge of the charge. You remember, they won that battle and much later went on the win the Revolutionary war.
Some say that whatever a man has decided to have placed on his tombstone says a lot about what that man considered to be of greatest importance in his life. Knowing that you would think that a man who accomplished as much in his life as did Thomas Jefferson would need a large grave marker. Or perhaps he’d need several tombstones to give the full story.
There is still some opposition to the Electoral College. Some people are advocating that it be done away with and we go to a strictly popular vote. That would move us more towards Democracy. If you’ve read any of the words of the Founding Fathers, you’ll remember that they taught that a Democracy is one of the worst types of government. It eventually results in the control by the masses and tyranny.
James Monroe, while not considered one of the Founding Fathers directly, did serve with and was influenced by them. Monroe was in the camp with George Washington in December, 1776. You recall that was the month that Washington directed the assault across the Delaware River in a snowstorm to attack the British and their hired warriors, the Hessians. The Hessian were considered the most mighty and brutal of all the fighting armies at the time.
“I must soon quit this scene. But you may live to se our country flourish, as it will amazingly and rapidly after the war is over; like a field of young Indian corn, which long fair weather had enfeebled and discolored, and which in that weak state, by a thunder gust of violent wind, hail and rain, seemed to be threatened with absolute destruction; yet the storm being past, it recovers fresh verdure, shoots up with double vigor, and delights the eye, not of its owner only, but of every observing traveler.”