MetaFilter posts tagged with jefferson and history

Have New Yorkers have always been rude?

exphysicist345 — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 10:37:30 -0800

New Yorkers have always been seen as fast-talking and rude. [NYTimes] Yes, it goes way back to Manhattan's very beginning. Pre-revolutionary governors were part of it. In 1774 Thomas Adams wrote "There is no modesty, no attention to one another. They talk very loud, very fast and altogether." The article also quotes Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin.

Let Facts be submitted to a candid world

Rhaomi — Mon, 04 Jul 2011 09:22:00 -0800

The Declaration of Independence is perhaps the most masterfully written state paper of Western civilization. As Moses Coit Tyler noted almost a century ago, no assessment of it can be complete without taking into account its extraordinary merits as a work of political prose style. Although many scholars have recognized those merits, there are surprisingly few sustained studies of the stylistic artistry of the Declaration. This essay seeks to illuminate that artistry by probing the discourse microscopically -- at the level of the sentence, phrase, word, and syllable. The University of Wisconsin's Dr. Stephen E. Lucas meticulously analyzes the elegant language of the 235-year-old charter in a distillation of this comprehensive study. More on the Declaration: full transcript and ultra-high-resolution scan, a transcript and scan of Jefferson's annotated rough draft, the little-known royal rebuttal, a thorough history of the parchment itself, a peek at the archival process, a reading of the document by the people of NPR and by a group of prominent actors, H. L. Mencken's "American" translation, Slate's Twitter summaries, and a look at the fates of the 56 signers.

A nation of nonbelievers

0bvious — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 11:40:35 -0800

"The government of the United States is in no sense founded on the Christian Religion." ~ George Washington / "I do not find in Christianity one redeeming feature." ~ Thomas Jefferson / "The Bible is not my book, nor Christianity my religion." ~ Abraham Lincoln / "A just government has no need for the clergy or the church." ~ James Madison / "I believe in an America where religious intolerance will someday end... where every man has the same right to attend or not attend the church of his choice." ~ John F. Kennedy / "We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers." ~ Barack Obama

Thomas Jefferson's Library On Exhibit

Rykey — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 16:42:07 -0800

WWJD (Which Words Jefferson Digested) Some Flash

A Big Cheese for a Big Cheese

jonp72 — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 13:39:52 -0800

The Mammoth Cheese of Cheshire was the most unusual gift ever given to a President of the United States. In the aftermath of the "Revolution of 1800", the eccentric Baptist preacher John Leland decided to celebrate the presidency of Thomas Jefferson by convincing the predominantly Baptist farmers of Cheshire, Massachusetts to create a giant 1,235-pound block of cheese as a monument to small-"r" republicanism and religious freedom. The cheese eventually reached Thomas Jefferson on New Years Day in 1802, the same day that Jefferson wrote his famous letter to the Danbury Baptists about the wall of separation between church and state. The Federalist Party, which opposed Jefferson's funding of scientific research during the Lewis & Clark expedition, ridiculed the cheese as a "mammoth," a reference to the recent exhumation of a mammoth by the painter and naturalist, Charles Willson Peale. The derision of the Federalists backfired, however, as the delivery of the cheese coincided with a huge "mammoth craze" that popularized the word "mammoth" as an adjective describing anything enormous, including a mammoth loaf of bread gifted to Jefferson in 1804. An experimental dairy station in Perth, Ontario eventually made a bigger mammoth cheese, but Jefferson's mammoth cheese has inspired a novel, a children's book, a monument protected by funds from the Department of Homeland Security, and a subplot on The West Wing. Last but not least, check out this research paper, which places the Mammoth Cheese of Cheshire in the context of Jeffersonian participatory democracy.

If at first you don't secede...

dougunderscorenelso — Sat, 29 Jan 2005 20:54:36 -0800

Those OLD states are totally 2004. I should wait until Thursday, but: If you're fed up with the idea of living in America OR Canada, consider moving to The State of Jefferson, a county on the Cali/Oregon border with big dreams and a kickass flag. Of course, they haven't seceded yet, but when they do, it's only going to be a matter of time before we can all live in the utopian Republic of Cascadia, where, as Jefferson residents, we'll run on Metric Time and help strengthen Cascadia's southern border against Californian incursions.
And hey! Public radio!

Sneering at President John Adams as "querulous, Bald, blind, crippled, Toothless Adams"

mediareport — Wed, 03 Jul 2002 12:23:57 -0800

Sneering at President John Adams as "querulous, Bald, blind, crippled, Toothless Adams" got Ben Franklin's grandson arrested under the Sedition Act of 1798. Federalists like Adams and Alexander Hamilton used the Sedition Act to muzzle highly aggressive elements of the press. Thomas Jefferson and James Madison fought back -- and won. Understanding this early power grab by the U.S. executive branch helps put recent events into historical context. The struggle itself has been part of the United States of America since the beginning, and anyone working to fight Cheney and Ashcroft's unconstitutional assault happens to be in pretty good company. Happy Fourth of July.