In my latest National Post column I argue that if Donald Trump's "America First" slogan worries us, and it should, now is a great time to lead by example.
On January 31 of 1801, lame-duck U.S. President John Adams appointed John Marshall Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Such appointments often backfire; Eisenhower would later bitterly regret elevating Earl Warren to Marshall’s old job. And at the time it was largely seen through the partisan lens of Adams’ effort to stack the judiciary against his hated rival Thomas Jefferson. But it turned out to be one of the greatest appointments in American history.
Adams had originally offered the job to another leading member of what was fast becoming the Federalist party, John Jay. But Jay turned it down partly on the grounds that the Supreme Court had insufficient "energy, weight, and dignity." Which might sound like a weird thing to say given the importance of the judiciary in the American system of checks and balances. But it was in fact not clear in 1801 that the Court was an equal branch or that it could, in fact, invalidate statutes as unconstitutional.
It was Marshall himself, whose skilful and congenial guidance included changing the practice of each judge issuing his own opinion to the presentation of a majority or even unanimous consensus, who made the Court what it has been since. And the critical turning point was Marbury v Madison in 1803 in which a unanimous Court struck down portions of the Judiciary Act of 1789 as unconstitutional.
It was, interestingly, the only time in his 35 years as Chief Justice that the Marshall Court declared an Act of Congress unconstitutional. And it was one whose practical impact pleased the incumbent President and Congress even though they were Jeffersonian Republican foes of the Federalist Party, which probably helped it avoid becoming a focus for partisan wrangling. But however that may be, it was a crucial step in the evolution of the American system to the point that one prominent constitutional scholar declared that only when Marshall finished reading the court’s opinion in Marbury v Madison was the Grand Convention that wrote the Constitutional entirely adjourned.
As for John Adams, who spent a long and productive life in service of his country, he later said "My gift of John Marshall to the people of the United States was the proudest act of my life." It may also have been his most effective.
On January 30 of 1835 one Richard Lawrence staggered into the history books by becoming the first person to try to assassinate a sitting United States president. I trust it is clear that I do not think anyone should ever assassinate a U.S. president current or former, so I will not be misunderstood when I say that his choice of Andrew Jackson as his target was, from a narrowly practical point of view, extremely ill chosen.
Lawrence, described by acquaintances as a quiet if diligent house painter, seems to have gone insane in the early 1830s. As his behaviour spiraled out of control he became obsessed with the president, and on January 30 attempted to shoot Jackson as the latter was leaving the U.S. Capitol funeral of Congressman Warren R. Davis, using two pistols notorious for unreliability in the sort of damp weather Washington was then experiencing both of which misfired.
In response Jackson leaped at the would-be assassin and beat him severely with his cane before various Congressmen including Davey Crockett wrestled Lawrence into submission, after which he was put on trial with the prosecutor being Francis Scott Key, the author of "The Star-Spangled Banner". The jury found him "not guilty by reason of insanity" after a five-minute deliberation and he was confined to mental hospitals until his death in 1861.
Trying to murder Jackson at close range was certainly crazy in the colloquial as well as in this case the technical sense. The 7th president of the United States and its first "border" or hillbilly chief executive was a man with a long history of physical courage, decisiveness and lack of regard for the niceties of social interaction. At 13 he became involved in the American Revolution as a courier, got captured, and when a British officer ordered him to clean his boots responded with a phrase so far from "Merry Christmas" that it earned him a permanent scar on his head and hand from a sabre. But Jackson did not clean the boots.
Later, as President, his closest Senate ally was Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri, who Jackson had both whipped and shot during a tavern brawl in 1813 in which Benton and his brother also shot and nearly killed Jackson. Jackson himself had earlier killed a man in a duel for insulting his wife Rachel, whom Jackson stole from her cruel husband including, allegedly, once chasing him into the tall grass with a knife.
Jackson was an odd character with a strange mix of impressive virtues and scary vices, a populist and a slaveowner, a cunning calculator with a manic temper. But just about everyone who ever met him would testify that on account of both his virtues and his vices he was about the last man on earth at whom to fire a non-fatal shot at close range. Even Richard Lawrence, in his more lucid post-1835 moments, I imagine.
With the 100th anniversary of Canada's great victory at Vimy Ridge fast approaching, I'm delighted to announce that the book version of my documentary The Great War Remembered is now available for purchase.
The First World War was the defining event of the 20th century, shaping the modern world in ways we still feel very strongly today. Modern technology and logistics created unprecedented slaughter, and partly as a result the long, bitter, bloody conflict undermined faith in Western civilization. But it was a necessary war and the Allies did win it, with pivotal contributions from Canada, which "found itself" in the war and especially at Vimy, not just as a nation, but as a free nation determined to defend liberty under law.
It is appropriate that we remember the costs of the war and lament the loss and the missed opportunities. But we should also remember, and celebrate, the determined spirit that stood up to aggression on behalf of a way of life well worth defending even at this terrible cost.
Order your copy today and take a timely, fresh look at an often misunderstood conflict central to the modern world.
p.s. American and international shoppers should purchase directly through Amazon.
p.p.s. We also have the Kindle version available, here.
You know all those internet-era stories about if only I’d put a few hundred bucks into that garage venture by those two awkward jokers I used to know, I’d be a billionaire today? The problem being to figure out which jokers are actually Steve Jobs, Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg. Well, would you have gambled on the Pemberton Medical Company back in 1889?
If not, maybe stick to broad-based mutual funds. If so, you’re arguably just plain lucky. Because, you see, the PMC incorporated in Atlanta on January 15 of 1889 went on to become the Coca-Cola company. And obviously if a morphine-addicted Civil War veteran reacts to local Prohibition by removing the alcohol from his mixture of cola nut and cocaine extract into a gooey sweet brown health tonic and accidentally mixing it with soda water, you’ll make a fortune, right? Like a music player with no off switch or a Quick and Dirty Operating System. Can’t miss. (I should mention that Coca-Cola may not have contained much cocaine to begin with and certainly had only minute traces after 1891, and none after 1929.)
Like many giant purveyors of non-health food, the company has been battling economic headwinds recently. But it remains true that if you’d bought a single share in 1919 for $40 and reinvested the dividends, you’d have had $9.8 million by 2012, more than 10% a year real returns (that is, adjusted for inflation). Plus the company more or less gave us the modern image of Santa Claus, and his less famous helper Sprite Boy. No, really.
The point is, capitalism is wonderful at creation and its disquieting cousin creative destruction. The marketplace allows things to succeed that sound absurd or revolting at first blush, things that would never get a grant or the central planners’ stamp of approval. But that’s precisely why entrepreneurial success is inherently unpredictable, at times even inexplicable in retrospect (think pet rocks). So don’t kick yourself if you didn’t foresee that a web site where you could post every inane thing that drifted into your head for the benefit of hundreds of friends you don’t know and nothing was sold could make some guy so rich you couldn’t count all his money in a lifetime.
Or that business with the fizzy syrup.
In my latest National Post column I say that neither Jane Fonda nor the rest of us can reach low-carbon nirvana just by really nicely really wanting it.
"I hope I shall always possess firmness and virtue enough to maintain (what I consider the most enviable of all titles) the character of an honest man, as well as prove (what I desire to be considered in reality) that I am" George Washington, in a letter to Alexander Hamilton August 28, 1788
On this date in history the Jamestown settlement burned down. As if they didn’t have enough problems already. Mind you it wasn’t much of a settlement back on January 7 of 1608. Basically a fort full of fools who didn’t know where they were, how to grow crops or almost anything else you’d want in the old tool kit if you were, say, moving to a new continent in the age of sail.
Be that as it may, there was a lot more there before the fort burned down than afterward. For instance a fort in which to take refuge if the locals attacked you because of something you had done like steal from them or lie to them or show up looking ominous, or just because they had a habit of attacking anyone handy. (Correct answer: all of the above; despite PC versions the first deadly aboriginal attack occurred within two weeks of their arrival.)
Undaunted, they rebuilt the fort and lounged about in it during the "starving time" in which nearly everybody died after eating boot soup (less from the quality of the boots than the insufficient quantity) and various expeditions from England brought more food and more fools. Indeed, just five days before the fire a ship showed up without enough food and 70 more mouths to feed.
Nevertheless John Smith did pull them through the worst of the crisis including abolishing socialism and discovering that people did more work if the benefits were fairly distributed, of all things. And Jamestown prospered and flourished and so did Virginia and then the United States with all its great virtues and some scary defects.
It remains amazing that such a ludicrous venture could in fact succeed despite everything from bad preparation if any to the hostility of the far more numerous locals to choosing a swamp as your ideal site to the worst drought in 700 years to carelessness with fire in your only building. As with many things in history, we should not take it for granted just because it did happen. Certainly if you’d been standing among the blackened timbers on January 7, 1608 you’d have been likely to say "OK, that’s it, I’ve had it, where’s the ship home?"
Only to be told it was one more thing we didn’t really think of.