Yes, it was Abe Lincoln who initiated the Secret Service. One of his last acts on April 14, 1865, was to found the division to be known as the Secret Service. It was a squad originally organized to prevent the counterfeiting of our currency.
Later that same night, Lincoln and his wife attended the play at Ford’s Theatre. The non-observant guard outside his door, apparently left for a drink at the neighboring pub. John Wilkes Booth pushed his way into Abe’s Presidential box and assassinated him!
Yesterday I wrote about the amendment amending an amendment to the Constitution. I hope you read about it. Today more about Amendments.
You’ll probably remember that the Equal Rights Amendment was not ratified in the time required by the Amending process in effect. There was just too much uncertainty about how it would affect certain parts of our normal lives—so in the wisdom of the original Signers of the Constitution it was not approved.
What you may not know concerns the most recent Amendment. That is Amendment 27. This Amendment requires that “No law, varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives, shall take effect, until an election of Representatives shall have intervened.”
There have been 27 Amendments to the U. S. Constitution since it was ratified in 1787. That’s pretty remarkable when you stop to think about it. Twenty-seven changes to a document creating a new Nation!
And one of those amendments was to revoke a prior amendment. There’s been only one time in the history of our country when one amendment was confirmed in order to strike out an earlier change. That, of course, was in 1933 when the twenty-first amendment was adopted in order to repeal the eighteenth amendment.
The story is told of how the Liberty Bell sounded on July 4, 1776, to celebrate the signing and announcement of the Declaration of Independence. However, no announcement was made on that date, so no celebration or bell ringing was held to get the ball rolling, so to speak.
That myth, or old folk tale, was started by an article printed in 1847, in a book titled “Washington and His Generals: or Legends of the American Revolution”, by George Lippard, a Philadelphia journalist. It is now apparent that Mr. Lippard concocted the whole story of the bell’s involvement in the Revolution. He therefore forged one of the greatest mythical symbols of the Freedom of America.
I’m sure you’ve heard some of those strange stories that claim that my hero, George Washington got himself appointed Commander in Chief so that he could amass more wealth! Not at all true.
Instead of increasing his wealth, he actually lost much of it. As you will recall from your high school history class, he asked only that his actual out of pocket expenses be reimbursed. He wanted not pay, no salary.
It has been estimated that “Washington’s cumulative financial losses from the war—from neglect of his lands, noncollection from delinquent debtors and tenants, stoppage of exportation, and rapid depreciation of paper money—rose to some $120,000.00.” That’s more than $1 million in today’s money. Think about that.
Back when the Eastern coast of America was only an unofficial assemblage of British colonies, there were some major disturbances in Boston. Because of communication between some of the leaders, some individuals decided to do something.
When the King’s appointed governor of the Colony of Virginia confiscated the gunpowder magazine, the building containing the colonist’s gunpowder, some of the leaders objected. The building was in the capitol of Virginia at Williamsburg.
One of those leaders was Patrick Henry, who assembled a group of farmers, merchants, and yes, even lawyers, to march on Williamsburg and recapture the magazine. With guns. As they marched toward Williamsburg the group of “militia” grew in size. It grew to a troop of about 5,000 men.
James Callender was the publisher of the Richmond Examiner and a friend who helped Jefferson get elected to the Presidency. But Callender wanted a job in Jefferson’s administration. Tom, however, knew his background, that he’d been run out of Great Britain for sedition and libel, and had been charged in America under the notorious Alien and Sedition Act, and that he was not a particularly honest person.
Calllender reminded Jefferson of all the hard work and writing he had done to assure Tom of his election. But Tom refused him as a member of his cabinet nevertheless. James reminded Tom of his control of the newspaper and threatened to print stories about Jefferson that would do him damage.
Or this article could be headlined “How the Newspaper Got Bigger.”
I’ll have to report on the Jefferson story later. But his caught my eye.
The first official newspaper in the Colonies, or at least the first one to print more than once, was the “Boston News-letter”. It printed news in the order that it was received from the European news sources. The length of the stories and articles became so large, that this newspaper had to expand its size. The information received soon exceeded the space allotted.
It’s not a tale usually told, but George Washington didn’t get along real well with his mother. He thought she was too controlling, too dominating, and too unpleasant around him. He always respected her and was honor bound to submit to her wishes.
George’s half-brother, Lawrence, was in the British Royal Navy. When he learned that the navy was looking for some more good men, he notified George. George thought that becoming a midshipman would let him engage in a life of adventure and would become glorious career.
I just finished making a freezer of home made lemon cream sherbet for our family get-together on Memorial Day. You see, it’s become somewhat of a tradition to have our family over to remember this holiday, and at that time have some good eats, like a bar-b-que, salad, and, of course home made ice cream.
The grandchildren who were here just had to see if the ice cream turned out OK, so we all had a little bowl to check it out. It was fantastic!
It got me to thinking of who we had to thank for bringing ice cream recipes to the United States. Do you know who it was?