Can We All Get Along?

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.

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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.

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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