In 1992 Rodney King asked, Can We All Get Along? Wherever he was when he asked the
question there was Rodney King Rioting in “progress” outside of
where he was.
Fella was on the fourth
floor of a square office building where he was pursuing his mediocre automotive
career. We had a panoramic view of all four points of the compass. When looking
out of three of the sides of our building we could see smoke rising from the rioting
that was going on in support of Rodney.
It was obvious that we were
not all getting along.
Neither is our Congress getting
along at this time in our storied history. Our 24-Hour News Cycle (isn’t it
awful?) will often tell us that the Hatred in our Congress today has never been
worse. Do you think that’s true? This Blog Posting takes no solace in saying
that there was at least one time when Congressional Hatred was worse than it is today.
************
Excerpted from
Bill O’Reilly’s book entitled, Confronting Evil: Assessing the Worst of the
Worst…
Congressman John Quincy
Adams is in a rage.
The former President of the
United States stands before Congress, slamming his wooden cane against the
lectern.
It is the summer of 1842.
The House of Representatives is bitterly divided between abolitionists and
pro-slavery factions. Two dozen police officers guard the chamber. Most of the
legislators are armed with pistols. Some members, like Maine Representative
Jonathan Cilley, have been victims of violence.
Adams’s health is failing.
The seventy-seven-year-old is bald with dark eyes; prominent gray sideburns
line his face. Two decades after being elected president, Adams now represents
Massachusetts in Congress. He is thoughtful, disciplined, but above all else,
detests slavery.
Adams surveys the chamber
with suspicion.
The House has 233
members—all of them White men. Of these men, 112 are Democrats from the South.
Half own slaves. Three years earlier, their coalition passed a so-called Gag
Rule banning all discussion about the emancipation of Black Americans.
However, John Quincy Adams
will not be silent. He believes owning human beings is a violation of God’s
law. His father, President John Adams, wanted the institution eliminated in the
original drafts of the Constitution. Thomas Jefferson, fearing an open revolt
from the southern states, rejected that idea.
Now, Adams is determined to
right that wrong.
On the other side of the US
Capitol, his nemesis waits quietly in the empty Senate Chamber. The man from
South Carolina is a proud White supremacist. He is also Adams’s former vice
president.
His name is John C.
Calhoun.
The southerner is nervous.
Senator Calhoun waits for
news from the House of Representatives. For the first time in two years, his
former boss, John Quincy Adams, will violate the Gag Order and introduce
another petition to abolish slavery. This cannot happen.
Inside his Capitol Hill
office, the sixty-two-year-old Calhoun inhales from a wooden pipe while
reclining in his leather chair. Though the temperature inside the room exceeds
eighty degrees, the senator wears a heavy dark suit, a woolen waistcoat, and a gray
cravat tied around his neck. His wavy black hair runs down to his shoulders. At
the same time, hundreds of miles away, Calhoun’s fifty slaves work under the
harsh South Carolina sun harvesting corn, wheat, cotton, and rice.
But even worse, his
captives are abused. They are publicly flogged, beaten, and sometimes
imprisoned in metal cages. Those who try to escape have one foot removed with
an axe. The bloody stump is sealed with a smoldering poker to prevent fatal
blood loss or future infection. Repeat offenders are hanged on the senator’s
orders.
After three decades in
politics, John Calhoun is now the most powerful Democrat in Washington. For the
last week, he has given blunt instructions to the southern representatives:
John Quincy Adams must be defeated.
The House of
Representatives falls silent.
The ailing Adams defiantly
stands in the center of the room. Though diminished physically, he summons a
great breath and issues a defiant cry: “Am I gagged?” The chamber erupts into
chaos. The northerners stand, screaming their support, while the southerners on
the other side of the hall throw debris into the air.
Adams raises his fist. The
room falls silent.
In his opposite hand, he
holds a leather-bound notebook containing ten thousand signatures. It is the
largest anti-slavery petition in the history of the United States. Again, Adams
asks, “Am I gagged?”
Fistfights break out
between the politicians. Congressman Henry Wise of Virginia attacks opponents
with a metal cane. A pistol is displayed. Edward Black, a member from Georgia,
threatens to lynch fellow lawmakers. The cacophony echoes down the halls of Congress.
On the Senate side of the
Capitol, John Calhoun smiles.
************
Do you feel better now that
you know that our 24-hour nightly news cycle is wrong when it tells us that the
members of our Congress hate each other more now than they hated each other in
the past?
Actually, both hate periods make Fella nervous about the long-term survival of our Country.
Would I kid u?
Smartfella
