Americanism Redux
February 19, your today, on the journey to the American Founding, 250 years ago, in 1776
You know there is something about this moment that needs to be elevated—lifted and raised up with a meaning that captures the hearts and minds of the people who see it, hear it, read it.
They’ll know what you are wanting them to know.
Maybe this is it. You know the audience, you know the moment, you know the angle that best lets them absorb the meaning.
It’s today, 250 years ago.
* * * * * * *
51-year old William Sellers finishes reviewing the plates with the design of the newest Continental currency. The printed value is one-third of a dollar—that’s what it says in the writing—and on one side is a depiction of thirteen rings linked together in a circle; the motto: “We Are One” tells you the point. On the other side is a rendering of a sundial and sunbeam. Two mottos appear here: “Mind Your Business” and the Latin term “Fugio”. Translated into ordinary words heard on Philadelphia’s streets outside Pennsylvania State House, it stands for “Time Flies”.
Inside the State House, members of the Continental Congress hope buyers and sellers read the words and see the patterns and think, yes, our cause is strong, durable, and sustainable.
* * * * * * *
(William Smith)
The occasion called for a careful selection of clothing. This one? No. That one? Yes.
As author and deliverer of the eulogy, William Smith decided that his priestly garb as an Episcopalian pastor was the proper attire rather than his secular suit at the first provost of the College of Philadelphia. The care he used in choosing his clothing was nothing, however, in comparison to the care he needed for the eulogy itself, given just hours ago.
For the Reverend Provost Smith believes the current war is wrong, and reconciliation between empire and colonies is totally, absolutely, and unquestionably right. And yet, there he’d stood, asked by the Continental Congress to honor the death of General Richard Montgomery, a sacrifice of blood in battle, and in so doing elevate the tragedy he opposed to the heights of meaning they required.
Smith began by referring to the ancients, to the Egyptians and Greeks and Romans. He returned to them again and again in his speech. He also shifted to English figures like John Hampden and Algernon Sidney, examples of “when the tempers of men are worked into ferment” and to other people who revealed that “adversity is the season which shows the spirit of a man in its full vigor.”
Montgomery, he asserted, was a “proto-martyr.” He explained the deceased general’s life, the Irish immigrant’s life, as a latter-day Cincinnatus, joyous at home and dutiful in service. The slain man, Smith said, had simply answered, “I come” when these present troubles had called. Smith assured his audience Montgomery wished for reconciliation but reckoned none forthcoming—it was here that some in Pennsylvania State House had taken on stern looks at Smith’s words. Smith regained his audience’s favor with a turn toward dramatic details of Montgomery’s experiences of late 1775 in the Canadian operation. He brought the stories of other soldiers from that mission into the speech and then closed with this: “To such men, Rome in all her glory would have decreed honor; and the resolve of Congress to transmit the memory of their virtues, is worthy of that magnanimity which ought to characterize public bodies…Finis.”
After Smith’s eulogy, members of the Continental Congress debated whether to have the speech published. The outcome: no, not until some of us have had a chance to edit it.
* * * * * * *
John Adams has written to his wife Abigail and urged her to read Thomas Paine’s new essay, “Common Sense.” He’s confident Paine’s work will sweep momentum into the direction of independence. He’s less confident about the chances of changing a nasty practice inside the Continental Congress itself. Adams has been watching carefully, and he’s certain that the official records of the daily debates are being shaped to prevent any documentation of delegates opposed to independence and tough action against the British. It’s a cover-up, of sorts, or at least a covering-over.
* * * * * * *
(Woodbury’s return)
There’s no covering going on with Elisha Woodbury. In fact, too much is out in the open.
His father is here. So is his son. That’s two. And nineteen others make it twenty-one in the unit stationed near Boston.
It’s Captain Elisha Woodbury, 41-years old and with the odd distinction of having both his dad and one of his own sons serving as privates—and under his authority—in his unit that belongs to Colonel John Stark’s New Hampshire regiment.
Woodbury is supposed to have forty or so men in his unit, a company. But with illness, absence, and distributions to various duties elsewhere, the best he can do are the twenty-one men labeled as “fit” for service today. In military terms, Woodbury’s company is at “half-strength.”
What would his twenty-one men see in the new one-third dollar and its drawings? What would they hear in Smith’s eulogy? Would Adams’s suspicions matter to them? They may never get the chance to answer. Their activity has picked up in intensity as Woodbury, his dad, his son, and their nineteen comrades get busy preparing for some upcoming action against the British inside Boston. A lot is happening on these elevations surrounding the town.
* * * * * * *
(Gates)
Within a short riding distance of Woodbury, Horatio Gates is one of General George Washington’s core team of subordinates. He recently participated in a “council of war” with Washington and the team. Washington has used these meetings before to present key questions and get key answers from of the group. The latest of a couple of days ago was about as big as they get—General Washington wanted to attack the British head-on and front-on, across the thick ice covering Boston bay.
As with any meeting when the leader presents a plan no one likes, there was coughing, shuffling of feet on the floor, shifting of butts in the seats, and dashes of side-eye. Gates had finally taken it on himself to say what everyone was thinking: you’ve got bad data—we have about half as many effective soldiers as you assume and the British are stronger than you think; you’ve got a bad plan—let’s hold, keep building up, and use everything that’s available to us while seeing what opens up.
Everyone around the table nodded in agreement. Finally, Washington nodded, too. Okay, that’s what we’ll do. Keep getting our men ready. Keep getting our new cannon from Knox up on the heights. Keep steady as we move closer to what looks like a real artillery barrage can be unleashed against the British in Boston. Adjourned.
Though media reports, including a poem by the young and newly-freed poet Phillis Wheatley that glories Washington and the general has regular communications where he’s assumed to be in contact with “the God of Armies”, he had not pulled rank, not forced his opinion through, not demanded instead of asked. Gates had his say and his say became the way.
* * * * * * *
(Washington, 1776)
Washington wrote about the meeting in a letter to his superior, the Continental Congress and its “Preside/nt” John Hancock. In it Washington essentially confesses that perhaps his judgment had been clouded by public expectations of a major battle against the British.
But in a private letter to an aide, Washington states/asks sarcastically: THIS is courage?
To him, the cause needs action, boldness, and victory. This is the moment that must be elevated to the people.
* * * * * * *
(
(West’s responsibility)
In Fairfax County Virginia, Colonel John West has received an honor of sorts. He’s been asked—and he’s eagerly accepted—the responsibility of protecting the home and primary estate of George Washington, Mount Vernon. If an emergency erupts, West will issue an immediate call to the county’s militia to turn out. When they receive it, they’ll sprint for their muskets, powderhorn, and shot bag and race their out of their homes, rushing to the estate.
Also in Virginia is Patrick Henry, a fresh recipient of a regimental command of a Virginia unit. He’ll be a colonel, according to the decision by the Continental Congress after quite an extensive debate. Wait, Henry says, a what? You must mean General, right? No, he hears. Your rank will be Colonel and as part of the Continental Army your seniority will fall below that of other, more experienced regimental commanders. Today, 250 years ago, Patrick Henry is rethinking his acceptance. A colonelcy doesn’t feel like it’s enough.
In Williamsburg, Gotham Pamphlet is a black Baptist preacher. Self-taught. He’s a devout believer in Christianity, especially in the equality he sees as a Baptist reader of the Bible. He’s also seen enslaved black people be whipped for worshipping together. But he’s determined, he wants to organize as soon as he possibly can a real Baptist congregation in Williamsburg from his family and friends.
Though of different means and intent, West, Henry, and Pamphlet share a desire to take this moment upward.
* * * * * * *
The feeling of fire on his skin and shouting in his ears. Thomas Brown can’t forget.
That’s the treatment he’d received in Georgia when he said he supported King George III. Ever since, almost every moment asleep or awake, Brown works and plans and acts and decides on how to get revenge. Today, 250 years ago, he’s in St. Augustine in the British colony of East Florida. He has an audience of one that he hopes to double to two—he can tell he’s having a lot of success in persuading British Imperial Governor Patrick Tonyn of the likelihood of organizing thousands of Loyalists in Georgia for a counter-strike against the Union cause there. Tonyn is visibly enthused by Brown’s description of potential armed British support. The next step for Brown is to have the same conversation with British General Augustine Prevost. With Tonyn and Prevost as his sponsors, Thomas Brown can practically taste the vengeance right now.
The flavor is smoke.
* * * * * * *
If you can just get other people to see what you’re seeing, something big can catch on.
Also
(Colden)
Cadwallader Colden, formerly an imperial governor in New York, is in London. He’s kept close track of the troops that have lately shipped out of England for America, the manpower to crush the rebellion.
He’s counting about 15,000 German and 18,000 British soldiers. That’s not all. He’s also seeing that most of these men are undersized and unfit; he thinks they average just slightly more than five feet tall and lack physical strength. Many of them are dispirited after years of working in manufactories. Worse yet, he expects that quite a few will desert after being in the New World and having exposure to the various tricks and deceits the colonists will dangle in front of them.
Colden is pessimistic.
* * * * * * *
(Priestley)
Also in England, Joseph Priestley writes to his dear friend Benjamin Franklin. He states, “As, however, it is most probably that you will be driven to the necessity of governing yourselves, I hope you have wisdom to guard against the rocks that we have fatally split upon, and make some better provision for securing your natural rights against the encroachments of power, in whomsoever placed.”
Events have saddened Priestley.
* * * * * * *
For You Now
We’ll get to the leadership in a minute.
Before that, I’d like to point your attention to, of all things, that one-third dollar and the “Fugio” printed on one side. Remember, that is “Time Flies”.
They’re telling you something. They’re telling you that everything for them is moving too fast 250 years ago. They turn around, it seems, and time has stampeded by in 1776. Just a while ago, we were young. Just a bit ago, we were doing this thing or that thing. Just a short time ago, we were peaceful. But look at how time flies.
Yes, they know how long it takes a ship to cross the Atlantic or a horse to carry a rider from Boston to New York City. They know that you wait until spring to plant or fall to harvest. We look at that and think: nothing ever happened. They look at that and say: time flies.
My point here is that they didn’t wait on the next ship from London or the next carriage from New York. When it came, it came. In the meantime, they acted, chose, decided, and did deeds. They filled the space over and over again.
We’re seeing an incredible amount of change on the ground-level in the colonies. And the America-bound ships are far, far out of sight.
Now, as to leadership and the arrival of your conviction that this latest thing just has to be lifted up, elevated, raised up high for people to see everything about it. When that happens, THEN they’ll know.
Audience. Moment. Angle.
The audience is the group of people you want to address, the ones who really need to know about whatever it is that is now happening that must be better understood. Be sure you know who they are.
The moment is the thing you want to share with them. In that moment an idea can take on new life or simply a life at all. In that moment a person can demonstrate a trait or feature everyone simply has to know about. In that moment an opportunity has emerged, not for long perhaps and certainly not for forever, but at this slice of time it’s here.
The angle is what you bring in connecting audience to moment. It’s not spin or empty style. It’s real. You provide a positioning where you move the audience in this particular degree or amount so they can see it, too.
Audience. Moment. Angle. You’ll act on them when you know this time, it’s right.
Suggestion
Take a moment to consider this: which is more likely for you, that you’ll overdo it and think every scene is the right one for people to know, or that you’ll always hold back and never bring any one to people’s attention?
(Your River)
