The Pox and the Covenant

"Tony Williams tells a rollicking good story about the contagious crisis experienced by Colonial America. The Pox and the Covenant is a superbly nuanced and well-written account of the interactions of human disease and events." -- Howard Markel, MD, PhD, George E. Wantz Distinguished Professor of the History of Medicine, the University of Michigan, author of When Germs Travel.

"For one hundred years, God had held to his promise, and the colonists had as well. When the first Puritans sailed into Massachusetts in the seventeenth century, weak from the ocean journey, they formed a covenant with each other and with God to establish a city on a hill-a commitment to live uncorrupted lives together or all suffer divine wrath for their collective sin. But now, a century later, the arrival of one doomed ship would put this covenant to its greatest test.

After several days of skirting the North American coast, on April 22, 1721, the HMS Seahorse arrived in Boston from the West Indies, carrying goods, cargo, and, unbeknownst to its crew, a deadly virus...

Boston, the largest city in the colonies, had a population of roughly eleven thousand souls. With such a large number of people, Boston rivaled the cities of mother England, save only for London. Boston was moreover one of the great hubs of the Atlantic trade network. It gathered goods from the farms of the New England hinterland and from smaller cities and ports along the American coast. These commodities were shipped all over the Atlantic while other goods were imported into the city and sent elsewhere. For a virus, a better place to contaminate could hardly be found....

After docking in Boston harbor, a skeleton crew was left on board the Seahorse while the rest of the crew and officers went ashore. At least one of the crew carried an infectious disease, one that would send a city into chaos, and put to its greatest test the covenant between the Puritans and their God. 

Soon, a smallpox epidemic had broken out in Boston, causing hundreds of deaths and panic across the city. The clergy, including the famed Cotton Mather, turned to their standard form of defense against disease: fasting and prayer. But a new theory was also being offered to the public by the scientific world: inoculation. The fierce debate over the right way to combat the tragedy would become a battle between faith and reason, one that would set the city aflame with rage and riot.

The Pox and the Covenant by Tony Williams is a story of well-known figures such as Cotton Mather, James Franklin, and a young Benjamin Franklin struggling to fight for their cause among death and debate-although not always for the side one would expect. In the end, the incredible results of the epidemic and battle would reshape the colonists' view of their destiny, setting for America a new course, a new covenant, and the first drumbeats of the Revolution."

See: https://www.amazon.com/Pox-Covenant-Franklin-Epidemic-Americas/dp/1402260938

Impeachment and the U.S. Constitution

What does the U.S. Constitution say about Impeachment? 

Article One, Section Two: “The House of Representatives shall choose their Speaker and other Officers; and shall have the sole Power of Impeachment.”

Article One, Section Three: “The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments. When sitting for that Purpose, they shall be on Oath or Affirmation. When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside: And no Person shall be convicted without the Concurrence of two thirds of the Members present. Judgment in Cases of impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States: but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law.”

Article Two, Section Four: “The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”

What are “high Crimes and Misdemeanors”?

One relevant source of the meaning of this phrase may be found in John Comyns’ Digest of the Laws of England (published in the late 1700's) which enumerated a series of “high crimes and misdemeanors” under the English Common Law. The first consisted of violations of criminal law (i.e., “high crimes”), such as encouraging piracy and bribery. The non-criminal violations described therein were all fiduciary breaches by a magistrate including:

• acting outside authority, as by ratifying a peace not approved by the parties, using the Great Seal without permission, and issuing unlawful and irregular orders;

• self-dealing, such as purchasing royal lands for less than true value, purchasing and holding a plurality of offices, and acting for one’s “own profit only;”

• other sorts of disloyalty such as recommending a prejudicial peace, or endangering the army or navy, etc.

(John Comyns, A Digest of the Laws of England, 4:368-69 (1780). This digest was available in America during the founding era).

What was said concerning Impeachment during the Debates in the Constitutional Convention?

In the debates of the Constitution Convention during the summer of 1787, three Virginia delegates, George Mason, James Madison, and Edmund Randolph “all spoke up to defend impeachment on July 20^th, after Charles Pinckney of South Carolina and Gouverneur Morris of Pennsylvania moved to strike it. “[If the president] should be re-elected, that will be sufficient proof of his innocence,” Morris argued. “[Impeachment] will render the Executive dependent on those who are to impeach.”

“Shall any man be above justice?” Mason asked. “Shall that man be above it who can commit the most extensive injustice?” A presidential candidate might bribe the electors to gain the presidency, Mason suggested. “Shall the man who has practiced corruption, and by that means procured his appointment in the first instance, be suffered to escape punishment by repeating his guilt?”

“Madison argued that the Constitution needed a provision “for defending the community against the incapacity, negligence, or perfidy of the Chief Magistrate.” Waiting to vote him out of office in a general election wasn’t good enough. “He might pervert his administration into a scheme of peculation”— embezzlement—“or oppression,” Madison warned. “He might betray his trust to foreign powers.”

Randolph agreed on both these fronts. “The Executive will have great opportunities of abusing his power,” he warned, “particularly in time of war, when the military force, and in some respects the public money, will be in his hands.” The delegates voted, 8 states to 2, to make the executive removable by impeachment.”

(See: “Inside the Founding Fathers’ Debate Over What Constituted an Impeachable Offense,” by: Erick Trickey, The Smithsonian, October 2, 2017. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/inside-founding-fathers-debate-over-what-constituted-impeachable-offense-180965083/)

What do the Federalist Papers say about impeachment?

Federalist Papers No. 65 (Alexander Hamilton):

“A well-constituted court for the trial of impeachments is an object not more to be desired than difficult to be obtained in a government wholly elective. The subjects of its jurisdiction are those offenses which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust. They are of a nature which may with peculiar propriety be denominated POLITICAL, as they relate chiefly to injuries done immediately to the society itself.”

“The prosecution of them, for this reason, will seldom fail to agitate the passions of the whole community, and to divide it into parties more or less friendly or inimical to the accused. In many cases it will connect itself with the pre-existing factions, and will enlist all their animosities, partialities, influence, and interest on one side or on the other; and in such cases there will always be the greatest danger that the decision will be regulated more by the comparative strength of parties, than by the real demonstrations of innocence or guilt.”

“The delicacy and magnitude of a trust which so deeply concerns the political reputation and existence of every man engaged in the administration of public affairs, speak for themselves. The difficulty of placing it rightly, in a government resting entirely on the basis of periodical elections, will as readily be perceived, when it is considered that the most conspicuous characters in it will, from that circumstance, be too often the leaders or the tools of the most cunning or the most numerous faction, and on this account, can hardly be expected to possess the requisite neutrality towards those whose conduct may be the subject of scrutiny.”

“Where else than in the Senate could have been found a tribunal sufficiently dignified, or sufficiently independent? What other body would be likely to feel CONFIDENCE ENOUGH IN ITS OWN SITUATION, to preserve, unawed and uninfluenced, the necessary impartiality between an INDIVIDUAL accused, and the REPRESENTATIVES OF THE PEOPLE, HIS ACCUSERS?”
(caps in original).

Federalist Papers No. 66 (Alexander Hamilton):

“So far as might concern the misbehavior of the Executive in perverting the instructions or contravening the views of the Senate, we need not be apprehensive of the want of a disposition in that body to punish the abuse of their confidence or to vindicate their own authority. We may thus far count upon their pride, if not upon their virtue. And so far even as might concern the corruption of leading members, by whose arts and influence the majority may have been inveigled into measures odious to the community, if the proofs of that corruption should be satisfactory, the usual propensity of human nature will warrant us in concluding that there would be commonly no defect of inclination in the body to divert the public resentment from themselves by a ready sacrifice of the authors of their mismanagement and disgrace.”

Quotes from John F. Kennedy

John F. Kennedy (born May 29, 1917) was the 35th President of the United States (1961-1963), and at age 43, the youngest man ever elected to the office. On November 22, 1963, when he was hardly past his first thousand days in office, JFK was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, becoming also the youngest President to die…

During his presidency, “responding to ever more urgent demands, he took vigorous action in the cause of equal rights, calling for new civil rights legislation. His vision of America extended to the quality of the national culture and the central role of the arts in a vital society. He wished America to resume its old mission as the first nation dedicated to the revolution of human rights.” (From Biography at Whitehouse.gov). “Through his actions and rhetoric Kennedy captured the hearts and minds of an entire generation of young people, urging them to participate in public life, engage with the world, and fight for equality.”*  This collection of favorite quotes reminds us of what it means to be an American, and of the national ideals that should still guide us in our political discourse and daily walk.

“Every time that we try to lift a problem from our own shoulders, and shift that problem to the hands of the government, to the same extent we are sacrificing the liberties of our people.” – Remarks at the Italian-American Charitable Society Dinner, Boston, April 22, 1950.

“[The goal of education] is the advancement of knowledge and the dissemination of truth.” -- Speech at Harvard University, June 14, 1956.

“It seems to me that the time has come for intellectuals and politicians alike to put aside those horrible weapons of modern internecine warfare, the barbed thrust, the acid pen, and, most sinister of all, the rhetorical blast. Let us not emphasize all on which we differ but all we have in common. Let us consider not what we fear separately but what we share together.” -- Id.

 “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.” -- Inaugural Address," January 20, 1961.

“Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.” – Id.

“With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God's work must truly be our own.” -- Id.

“Today we need a nation of minute men; citizens who are not only prepared to take up arms, but citizens who regard the preservation of freedom as a basic purpose of their daily life and who are willing to consciously work and sacrifice for that freedom.” -- Roosevelt Day Commemoration, January 29, 1961.

“Our Constitution wisely assigns both joint and separate roles to each branch of the government; and a President and a Congress who hold each other in mutual respect will neither permit nor attempt any trespass.” – First State of the Union Address, January 30, 1961.

“For I can assure you that we love our country, not for what it was, though it has always been great -- not for what it is, though of this we are deeply proud -- but for what it someday can, and, through the efforts of us all, someday will be.” --"Address to the National Industrial Conference Board," February 13, 1961.

“The President of a great democracy such as ours, and the editors of great newspapers such as yours, owe a common obligation to the people: an obligation to present the facts, to present them with candor, and to present them in perspective.” – Address before the American Society of Newspaper Editors, Washington, D.C., April 20, 1961.

“Victory has a hundred fathers and defeat is an orphan.” –quoting an old adage after the defeat at the Bay of Pigs, April 21, 1961.

“Freedom is not merely a word or an abstract theory, but the most effective instrument for advancing the welfare of man.” -- Message to the Inter-American Economic and Social Conference at Punta del Este, Uruguay, August 5, 1961.

“I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered at the White House – with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.” -- Remarks at a White House Dinner Honoring Nobel Prize Winners of the Western Hemisphere," April 29, 1962.

“The greater our knowledge increases the more our ignorance unfolds.” -- Speech at Rice University, Houston, Texas, September 12, 1962.

“This country cannot afford to be materially rich and spiritually poor.” -- Annual Message to the Congress on the State of the Union, January 14, 1963.

“A man may die, nations may rise and fall, but an idea lives on. Ideas have endurance without death.” -- Remarks Recorded for the Opening of a USIA Transmitter at Greenville, North Carolina," February 8, 1963.

“Liberty without learning is always in peril, and learning without liberty is always in vain.” – Speech at Vanderbilt University at the 90th Anniversary Convocation, May 18, 1963.

“Only an educated and informed people will be a free people.” – Id.

“In a time of domestic crisis, men of goodwill and generosity should be able to unite regardless of party or politics.” -- Civil Rights Address from the Oval Office, June 11, 1963.

“This Nation was founded by men of many nations and backgrounds. It was founded on the principle that all men are created equal, and that the rights of every man are diminished when the rights of one man are threatened.” – Id.

“There are many people in the world who really don't understand, or say they don't, what is the great issue between the free world and the Communist world. Let them come to Berlin. There are some who say that communism is the wave of the future. Let them come to Berlin. And there are some who say in Europe and elsewhere we can work with the Communists. Let them come to Berlin. And there are even a few who say that it is true that communism is an evil system, but it permits us to make economic progress. Lass' sie nach Berlin kommen. Let them come to Berlin.” --Speech at the Free University of Berlin, June 26, 1963

“All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin, and, therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words ‘Ich bin ein Berliner.’” – Id.

“A nation reveals itself not only by the men it produces but also by the men it honors, the men it remembers.” -- Remarks at Amherst College, October 26, 1963.

“Today we give our thanks, most of all, for the ideals of honor and faith we inherit from our forefathers—for the decency of purpose, steadfastness of resolve and strength of will, for the courage and the humility, which they possessed and which we must seek every day to emulate. As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words but to live by them.” – Thanksgiving Proclamation, November 4, 1963 (He was assassinated just six days before Thanksgiving Day which was on the 28th).
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*Editorial (2008, November 11). John F. Kennedy. Retrieved October 11, 2019, from https://www.shmoop.com/john-f-kennedy/