Benjamin Franklin was one of the most successful diplomats in our nations early history. He was so good at making friends, and helping them to agree on lending money to the colonies that we won the Revolutionary War.
He made few speeches at the Constitutional Convention, but those he did make led to the approval of the final document. He learned to make friends even out of those who would want to argue.
He once put it this way: “The way to convince another is to state your case moderately and accurately. Then scratch your head, or shake it a little and say that is the way it seems to you, but of course you may be mistaken about it. This causes your listener to receive what you have to say, and as like as not turn about and try to convince you of it since you are in doubt. But if you go at him in a tone of positiveness and arrogance, you only make an opponent of him.”
There is something I just can’t understand—at all! Yesterday in my blog I gave some little bit of background about our U.S. Constitution. I mentioned that our Constitution has been amended only 17 times since the original Bill of Rights was adopted. Seventeen times since December 15, 1791. That’s more than 225 years.
Today my wife and I went to see the new movie titled “Risen.” As you can imagine, this movie is about the resurrected Savior—sort of. Naturally because of my book “The Illegal Trial of Christ” we just had to see this movie.
We discussed the War of 1812 just a few blogs ago. This was sometimes referred to as Madison’s war. It occurred during Madison’s second term as President, and the U.S. won, again. We later adopted the Star Spangled Banner as our national anthym. I hope you enjoyed the information.
There’s an old Peanuts comic strip which shows Snoopy on the top of his dog house making several severe or angry looking faces—in one panel after the other. In the last panel I have changed some of Snoopy’s words in his thought bubble to say: “I would have made a good presidential nominee candidate!”
In the last few blogs, I have focused a little on Washington and the Battle of Trenton. The miraculous battle was immortalized by that painting of Luetze of Washington crossing the Delaware. You’ll remember that in that battle Alexander Hamilton was one of the young soldiers who helped create the victory.
George Washington could teach all our politicians a thing or two—of course they’d have to listen. George was taught penmanship by a mentor or tutor when he was still quite young. His teacher taught him how to write in beautiful script which was plain and easy to read. George had good penmanship throughout his life.