Center for Teaching the Rule of Law

September 13, 1782 – During the American Revolutionary War, Franco-Spanish troops launch the unsuccessful "grand assault" during the Great Siege of Gibraltar . . . Wait?  During which war?

9/13/2021

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Picture Grand Assault on Gibraltar showing the allied lines and a detonation of one of the floating batteries
"Where was the American Revolution fought?" The question probably sounds as obvious and pointless as "who is buried in Grant's Tomb?"  Except of course, that the answer to both questions is not as straightforward as many would assume.  With respect to Grant's Tomb, the correct answer would be Ulysses S. Grant and his widow Julia (and, while there is some doubt, apparently their dog as well).

The issue of where the American Revolution was fought is also somewhat convoluted.  Certainly it was fought principally within the confines of what is now known as the United States of America, but at the time of the war, there was no clear agreement on what the United States of America was.  We often forget that by 1774, the British colonial interests in North America included not just the "13 Colonies," but also "Canada" (itself divided into Upper and Lower divisions for administrative purposes, with the borders of these rather ill-defined), East and West Florida, the latter containing very little of what is today Florida and a great deal of what we think of as "New France" as well as possibly parts of Texas.  And then there is "New Connecticut," the "New Hampshire Grants" and "Vermont," which, depending on who you ask, are either all the same or really quite different places.  Maine of course. ar at least half of it, was part of Massachusetts, the rest being part of Canada. And let's not forget that before, during and after the revolution, Pennsylvania, New York, Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland and Virginia were contesting, both legally and occasionally military, the borders of their territories during the three Pennamite–Yankee Wars.

Then of course, there was the war at sea - or has naval historians would have it, "the Real Revolutionary War."  Naval historians maintain that all the land battles of the revolution were superfluous to its outcome, which ultimately depended on naval strength.  Although Britain undoubtedly had the strongest nave in the world at the time, it was also charged with administering a vast colonial empire which touched every ocean.  As a result, it found it difficult to concentrate its navel forces or to devote significant forces to an one conflict for an extended period of time.  While the fledgling Continental navy could not have contested against the British alone, not withstanding the superb seamanship of John Paul Jones, the French and Spanish fleets, although broadly committed to their own colonial interests, were available to balance the scales.

And it is from this Franco-Spanish commitment to aid the colonies comes the story of what might be called the only land battle of the American Revolution that took place on European soil (even this is debatable, however, depending on whether the Channel Islands are considered "European" or "British" -- so let's agree that it was the only battle of the Revolution fought on the European continent. 

On June 29, 1779, French and Spanish forces invested the British colony of Gibraltar at the southern tip of Spain.  By controlling Gibraltar, the British control the entrance to the Mediterranean.  While Spanish forces (later reinforced by French troops) maintain a blockade of the land side, naval forces of both the Spanish and French were able to maintain only a limited blockade of the seaward approach.  

Contrary to popular belief, the surrender of the British at Yorktown on October 19, 1781 did not end the American Revolution.  It was not even the last battle to be fought on American soil.  However, it was the battle which forced the British to sue for peace and but mid-1782 it was all but certain that a permanent peace treat was going to be approved, meaning the France and Spain would lose their "casus belli" against the British with very little to show for their effort in supporting the colonies (indeed, loses in the Caribbean, Central America and India meant the two nations were probably emerging from the war with less than they started with).

So it was that in September 1782 the French and Spanish launched an audacious plan to seize Gibraltar with a combined navel and land attack using an entirely new tactic.  French engineers proposed to reduce the land batteries of the fortress by using massive floating batteries to pound the British into submission.  This plan was know as the "Grand Assault" and would employ more troops and artillery than had been engaged at any point during the conflict on American soil.  

For the allies it was becoming clear that the recent blockades had been a complete failure and that an attack by land would be impossible. Ideas were put forward to break the siege once and for all. The plan was proposed that a squadron of battery ships should take on the British land-based batteries and pound them into submission by numbers and weight of shots fired, before a storming party attacked from the siege works on the Isthmus and further troops were put ashore from the waiting Spanish fleet. The French engineer Jean Le Michaud d'Arçon invented and designed the floating batteries—'unsinkable' and 'unburnable'—intended to attack from the sea in tandem with other batteries bombarding the British from land.

The floating batteries would have strong, thick wooden armor—1-metre-wide timbers packed with layers of wet sand, with water pumped over them to avoid fire breaking out. In addition old cables would also deaden the fall of British shot and, as ballast, would counterbalance the guns' weight. Guns were to be fired from one side only; the starboard battery was removed completely and the port battery heavily augmented with timber and sand infill. The ten floating batteries would be supported by ships of the line and bomb ships, which would try to draw away and split up the British fire. Five batteries each with two rows of guns, together with five smaller batteries each with a single row, would provide a total of 150 guns. The Spanish enthusiastically received the proposal. D'Arçon sailed close to shore under enemy fire in a skiff to get more accurate intelligence.

On 13 September 1782 the Bourbon allies launched their great attack: 5,260 fighting men, both French and Spanish, aboard ten of the newly engineered 'floating batteries' with 138 to 212 heavy guns under the command of Don Buenaventura Moreno. Also in support were the combined Spanish and French fleet, which consisted of 49 ships of the line, 40 Spanish gunboats and 20 bomb-vessels, manned by a total of 30,000 sailors and marines under the command of Spanish Admiral Luis de Córdova. They were supported by 86 land guns and 35,000 Spanish and 7,000–8,000 French troops on land, intending to assault the fortifications once they had been demolished. An 'army' of over 80,000 spectators thronged the adjacent hills on the Spanish side, expecting to see the fortress beaten to powder and 'the British flag trailed in the dust.' Among them were the highest families in the land, including the Comte D'Artois.

The batteries slowly moved forward along the bay and one by one the 138 guns opened fire, but soon events did not go according to plan. The alignments were not correct: the two lead ships Pastora and the Tala Piedra moved further ahead than they should have. When they opened fire on their main target, the King's Battery, the British guns replied, but the cannonballs were observed to bounce off their hulls. Eventually the Spanish junks were anchored on the sandbanks near the Mole but were too spread out to create any significant damage to the British walls.

Meanwhile, after weeks of preparatory artillery fire, the 200 heavy-caliber Spanish and French guns opened up on the land side from the North directed onto the fortifications. This caused some casualties and damage, but by noon the artificers had heated up red-hot shot. Once the shot were ready, Elliot ordered them to be fired. At first the heated shot made no difference, as many were doused on board the floating batteries.

Although the batteries had anchored, a number had soon grounded and began to suffer damage to their rigging and masts. The King's Bastion blasted away at the closest ships, the Pastora and the Talla Piedra, and soon the British guns began to have an effect. Smoke was spotted coming from Talla Piedra, already severely damaged and its rigging in tatters. Panic ensued since no vessel could come and support her; nor was there any way for the ship to escape. Meanwhile, the Pastora under the Prince de Nassau began to emit a huge amount of smoke. Despite efforts to find the cause, the sailors on board were fighting a losing battle. To make matters worse, the Spanish land guns had ceased firing. It soon became apparent to de Crillon that the Spanish army had run out of powder and were already low on shot. By nightfall it was clear that the assault had failed, but worse was to come, because the fire on the two batteries was out of control. To add to de Crillon's frustration, de Córdova's ships of the line failed to move in support, and neither did Barcelo's vessels. De Crillon, acknowledging defeat and not wishing to upset the Spanish by issuing demands, soon ordered the floating batteries to be scuttled and the crews rescued. Rockets were sent up from the batteries as distress signals.

During this operation, Roger Curtis, the British naval commander, seeing the attacking force in great danger, warned Elliot about the huge potential death toll and that something must be done. Elliot agreed and had the fleet of twelve gunboats under Curtis set out with 250 men. They headed towards the Spanish gunboats, firing as they advanced, after which the Spanish precipitated a quick retreat.

Curtis's gunboats reached the batteries and one by one took them; but this soon turned into a rescue effort when they realized from prisoners that many men were still on board with the scuttling now taking place. British marines and sailors then stormed the Pastora, taking the men on board as prisoners and eventually pulled them off the doomed ship, having also seized the Spanish Royal Standard which had been flying from the stern. As this was going on, the flames that had engulfed Talla Piedra soon reached the magazine. The ensuing explosion was tremendous, with a sound that reverberated around the bay and a huge mushroom cloud of smoke and debris that rose up in the air. Many were killed on board, but the British had few casualties. The Spanish, now in panic, all reached for the British boats by jumping in the water.

Soon the Pastora, engulfed in a mass of flames, followed the fate of the Talla Piedra. The latter burnt to the water's edge and sank about 1:00 am on 14 September after having lain upwards of fourteen hours under the fire of Gibraltar. The fire reached the powder magazine and another huge explosion ensued. This time many in the water were killed outright; a British boat was sunk and the coxswain of Curtis's boat was killed when hit by debris. Nassau, Littlepage and the surviving crew managed to make their way back to shore.

Curtis realized that it was unsafe to be near the flaming batteries and soon withdrew men from two more floating batteries engulfed in flame, then finally ordered a withdrawal. The rescue operation was hindered further when Spanish batteries opened fire after receiving more powder and shot. Many more men drowned or were burned in the ensuing inferno; others were hit by their own artillery. The Spanish ceased fire only when the mistake was realized, but it was too late. The rest of the Spanish batteries blew up in similar horrific style; the explosions lofted huge mushroom clouds that rose nearly 1,000 feet in the air. Some men were still on board and those that had jumped overboard often drowned as the vast majority couldn't swim. By the early hours of the morning only two floating batteries remained. A Spanish felucca tried to set one on fire but was driven off by British guns. The two were promptly set alight by them and were finished in the same way as the others by the afternoon.

By 4:00 am, all the floating batteries had been sunk, leaving the Gibraltar waterfront a mass of debris and bodies from the wrecked Spanish ships. During the Grand Assault 40,000 rounds had been fired. Casualties in just twelve hours were heavy: 719 men on board the ships (many of whom drowned) were casualties.

Curtis had rescued a further 357 officers and men, who thus became prisoners, while in the siege lines more casualties brought up the allied total to 1,473 men for the Grand Assault, with all ten floating batteries destroyed.[106] The engagement was the fiercest battle of the American Revolutionary War. The British lost 15 killed and 68 men were wounded, nearly half of them from the Royal Artillery. A Royal Marine who had taken Pastora's large Spanish color later presented it to Elliot.

One of the survivors who had been on a floating battery that had blown up was Louis Littlepage. He was saved and managed to get back to the Spanish fleet.

For Elliot and the garrison it was a great victory and for the allies it was a brutal defeat, with their plans and hopes in tatters. De Córdova was heavily criticized for not coming to help the batteries, while d'Arçon and de Crillon threw accusations and recriminations at each other. In Spain the news was met with consternation and despair. The huge crowds that had been promised a crushing victory left the area chagrined.

On 14 September 1782, the assault by the allies by land which was supposed to have been a "mopping up" operation was initially going to be attempted. The Spanish army formed up behind the batteries at the northern end of the Isthmus. At the same time, the Spanish ships moved across the bay, packed with more troops. However, de Crillon cancelled the assault, judging that losses would have been huge. Gibraltar nevertheless remained under siege, but Spanish bombardments decreased to about 200 rounds a day as both sides knew of the impending peace treaty.

From 20 September, reports of the great French and Spanish assault on Gibraltar began to reach Paris. By 27 September it was clear that the operation, involving more troops than had ever been in service at one time on the entire North American continent, had been a horrific disaster. In Madrid news of the failure was received with dismay; the King was in mute despair as he read the intelligence reports at the Palace of San Ildefonso. The French had done all they could to help the Spanish achieve their essential war aim, and began serious discussions on alternative exit strategies, urging Spain to offer Britain some very large concessions in return for Gibraltar.

News also reached the British, ecstatic at the outcome, and at the same time just as John Jay submitted his draft treaty. The British promptly stiffened their terms, flatly refusing to cede land north of the old border with Canada. They also insisted that the Americans pay their national pre-war debt to the British or compensate Loyalists for their seized property. As a result, the Americans were forced to agree to these terms, and their Northern frontier was established along the line of the Great Lakes. Preliminary Articles of Peace were to be signed between the two on 30 November.


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September 6, 1870 – Louisa Ann Swain of Laramie, Wyoming becomes the first woman in the United States to cast a vote legally after 1807

9/6/2021

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PictureLouisa Ann Swain
Louisa Ann Swain (née Gardner; 1800 or 1801 – January 25, 1880) was the first woman in the United States to vote in a general election. She cast her ballot on September 6, 1870, in Laramie, Wyoming.  Or, more precisely she was the first woman to do so legally since 1807.

Born Louisa Ann Gardner, her father was lost at sea when she was young. Her mother then returned to her hometown of Charleston, South Carolina, but also died soon after. Orphaned at the age of 10, Swain was placed in the care of the Charleston Orphan House. In 1814, she and another girl were placed with a family as domestic servants for a period of four years, after which Swain was transferred to another family who requested specifically for her. She stayed with them until 1820, then moved to Baltimore where a year later she married Stephen Swain, who operated a chair factory. They had four children and in the 1830s, Stephen sold his business and the family moved, first to Zanesville, Ohio, and later to Richmond, Indiana. In 1869, the Swains moved to Laramie, Wyoming, to join their son Alfred.

On September 6, 1870, she arose early, put on her apron, shawl and bonnet, and walked downtown with a tin pail in order to purchase yeast from a merchant. She walked by the polling place and concluded she would vote while she was there. The polling place had not yet officially opened, but election officials asked her to come in and cast her ballot. She was described by a Laramie newspaper as "a gentle white-haired housewife, Quakerish in appearance". She was 69 years old when she cast the first ballot by any woman in the United States in a general election. Soon after the election, Stephen and Louisa Swain left Laramie and returned to Maryland to live near a daughter. Stephen died October 6, 1872, in Maryland. Louisa died January 25, 1880, in Lutherville, Maryland. She was buried in the Friends Burial Ground on Harford Road in Baltimore.

But how is it that Swain was able to cast this ballot -- and what's all this about women voting before 1807?  Well. therein lie two tales.  First, let's discuss Swain's historic vote.  The true history of the American West has little to do with the image portray in popular films and TV shows, especially with respect to the role women played in the development of the west.  What is more surprising to many is that the prominent role of women was not the result of the American ideal, but of Spanish Colonialism.

Under colonial Spain and newly independent Mexico, married women living in the borderlands of what is now the American Southwest had certain legal advantages not afforded their European-American peers. Under English common law, women, when they married, became feme covert (effectively dead in the eyes of the legal system) and thus unable to own property separately from their husbands. Conversely, Spanish-Mexican women retained control of their land after marriage and held one-half interest in the community property they shared with their spouses.

​There were numerous landed women of note in the West. For example, María Rita Valdez operated Rancho Rodeo de las Aguas, now better known as a center of affluence and glamour: Beverly Hills. (Rodeo Drive takes its name from Rancho Rodeo.) After the U.S.-Mexican War, the del Valle family of Southern California held on to Rancho Camulos, and when Ygnacio, the patriarch, died, his widow Isabel and daughter Josefa successfully took over the ranch’s operations. Other successful entrepreneurs and property holders, who defended their interests in court when necessary, included San Francisco’s Juana Briones, Santa Fe’s Gertrudis Barceló, San Antonio-born María del Carmen Calvillo, and Phoenix’s Trinidad Escalante Swilling. In a frontier environment, they utilized the legal system to their advantage as women unafraid to exert their own authority.

Because women were able to obtain wealth, they also gained political influence, thus it was that when Wyoming became an organized territory in 1869, among the innovations in its political system was suffrage for women -- or at least certain women.  Wyoming’s law allowed certain women over the age of 21 to vote, own property, and serve in office. Women who wanted to cast a vote needed to prove they were seeking citizenship, a requirement that barred Native American and Chinese women from casting votes since at the time they legally could not become U.S. citizens. Black women were able to vote under this law, but it is unknown if any did and Wyoming had very few Black residents at the time. Wyoming’s territorial government had different reasons for granting women the right to vote: some thought it would attract more women to the sparsely populated territory while others thought that women played an important role on the frontier and had a right to decide how the territory should be run.  

According to Laramie and Cheyenne newspapers, Swain became the first woman to legally cast a ballot since 1807 by 30 minutes. Swain’s vote beat that of Augusta C. Howe, the 27-year-old wife of the U.S. Marshall Church Howe of Cheyenne, Wyoming.  At the time, however, the "since 1807" was not part of the story.  Which brings us to the second tale -- the right of women to vote in New Jersey from 1776 to 1807.

No one knows whether New Jersey meant to do it. Later though, the state constitution’s signers made it clear they meant to keep it. In the summer of 1776, the colonies were about to collectively declare independence, and the Provincial Congress in Trenton was in a rush to write a state constitution. The state’s framers wrote and passed it in only five days. In the document, where it explains rules for elected officials, the governor is referred to as “he”; each assembly member, “he”; each county’s sheriff and its coroners, a “he.” But for some reason, when it describes the rules for the electorate, it says “they.” All inhabitants who are worth at least 50 pounds and have lived in New Jersey for a year, “they” shall have the right to vote.

And that is how, for the first three decades of American independence, it was legal for some New Jersey women to vote, more than a century before the passage of the 19th Amendment. Even if it started out as an accidental loophole, a 1790 statute clarified that “they” meant “he or she” in seven New Jersey counties with large Quaker populations. In 1797, another statute expanded female suffrage from those counties to the entire state. For decades, there has been mostly anecdotal evidence that any women actually used this right — newspaper accounts complaining about women voting, and a copy of a poll list with two names that could have been women’s names, or men’s names incorrectly transcribed.

“This is the kind of detective work that historians love, because it’s an untold story,” said Philip Mead, chief historian at the Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia.  Starting in 2018, museum staff led by curatorial fellow Marcela Micucci dug into the New Jersey State Archives, local historical societies and other cultural institutions looking for harder evidence.  After months of searching, they hit pay dirt.  "We found a poll list … from an election in Montgomery Township, Somerset County, in October of 1801. There were 343 voters on that list and 46 of them were women,” Micucci told The Washington Post. “I barged into [Mead’s] office, the list printed out in my hands, jumping up and down. It was very exciting.”

Since then, museum researchers have found 18 more poll lists, ranging from 1797 to 1807, nine of which contain women’s names. In total, they have identified 163 women who voted.  “This was not just some women, but quite a substantial number of women,” Micucci said.

So how did New Jersey women lose the vote?

In a most American way — on the altar of partisan politics.  By the time Washington left office in 1797, fights between the nascent political parties — the Federalists and the Democratic Republicans — were becoming so bitter that the first president spent much of his farewell address warning against them.

The situation worsened over the next decade, and with that came a rise in accusations of voter fraud. In 1802, political leaders in Hunterdon County urged the New Jersey legislature to overturn a local election, claiming some people on the poll lists were Philadelphia residents, immigrants, enslaved and, in particular, married women, Micucci said.

In 1806 in Essex County, women and people of color were blamed again when more votes were mysteriously cast than there were eligible voters.  “This was a moment, in 1807, where Americans were having serious doubts about their democracy,” Mead said. “I think [legislators] were looking for a big action they could take to restore confidence in the voting system, and they crudely scapegoated women, people of color, immigrants.” The law was changed to remove the property requirement and limit the franchise to White men only.


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September 3, 301 – San Marino, one of the smallest nations in the world and the world's oldest republic still in existence, is founded by Saint Marinus; or maybe its one of the newest nations at just 48 years old  . . . Wait . . . What?

9/3/2021

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PictureThe Statutes, Decrees, and Ordinances of the Serene Republic and the Perpetual Freedom of the Land of San Marino -- the oldest national constitution still in effect was adopted in 1600 -- but its "Bill of Rights" did not come along for another 374 years.
There is a tendency among modern people, especially in the United States, to think of the concepts of democracy and republicanism as having developed only in the Age of Enlightenment.  While they will acknowledge that these ideas were present in Ancient Greece and Rome, they contend that "true" democracy is a relatively modern concept.  The people of the tiny nation officially know as the Most Serene Republic of San Marino would disagree, because their state, isolated in the mountains and valleys of Italy's Apennine region, has been a republic with a democratically elected for over 1,300 years, or perhaps is is about 700 years, or possibly just over 400. or maybe just over 40.  .

The country derives its name from Saint Marinus, a stonemason from the then-Roman island of Rab in present-day Croatia. Born in AD 275, Marinus participated in the rebuilding of city walls of Rimini on Italy's Adriatic coast after their destruction by Liburnian pirates. Marinus then went on to found an independently ruled monastic community on Mount Titan, about ten miles inland from Rimini, in AD 301; thus, San Marino lays claim to being the oldest extant sovereign state, as well as the oldest constitutional republic.

Uniquely, San Marino's constitution dictates that its democratically elected legislature, the Grand and General Council, must elect two heads of state every six months. Known as Captains Regent, the two heads of state serve concurrently and hold equal powers until their term expires after six months.

So if San Marino has been independent since 301 and self-governing, what's all thus about it being only 1,300 years old.  Therein lies the dabate about what constitutes a "national republic" that is, a nation that is independent, and a territory that is merely a self-governing polity within a nation.  From 301 to 1291, San Marino was self-governing in the sense that  was a monastic community possessed of land.  While it was recognized as not being subject to the laws of government of the Roman Empire or any of the subsequent states that rose and fell on the Italian peninsula  after Empire fell in the West, it was not a truly independent state and could rightly be regarded as the first "papal state" as the territory within Italy controlled by the Roman Catholic Church would subsequently come to be known in the 8th Century.  In 1291, however, the San Marino had from a single monastic community to include a number of nearby town whose populations were mostly free citizens who owned allegiance to  no prince or other noble.  While there was no formal separation from the governance by the Church, 1291 is generally recognized as the date of San Marino's de facto independence from the Church's overlordship.

Nonetheless, while never formally submitting to the Vatican's authority, the state continued to look to the Papal States for protection and was even at times an objective of interest to competing papal claimants.   In 1503, Cesare Borgia, the son of Pope Alexander VI occupied the Republic for six months until his father's successor, Pope Julius II, intervened and restored the country's independence.  On 4 June 1543 Fabiano di Monte San Savino, nephew of the later Pope Julius III, attempted to conquer the republic, but his infantry and cavalry failed as they got lost in a dense fog, which the Sammarinese attributed to Saint Quirinus, whose feast day it was.  

Although governed by some form of elected counsel, first of monks and later of citizens, the Serene Republic's existence was not formally declared in law until October 8, 1600.  It was on this date that San Marino adopted it constitution, officially called the Statuta Decreta ac Ordinamenta Illustric Reipublicae ac Perpetuae libertatis Terram Sancti Marin, or Statutes, Decrees, and Ordinances of the Serene Republic and the Perpetual Freedom of the Land of San Marino.  Curiously, while there may some doubt as to the claim to have been an independent republic from 301, this document is universally recognized as the earliest written constitution still in effect.

The country was occupied on 17 October 1739 by the legate (Papal governor) of Ravenna, Cardinal Giulio Alberoni, but independence was restored by Pope Clement XII on 5 February 1740, the feast day of Saint Agatha, after which she became a patron saint of the republic.

The advance of Napoleon's army in 1797 presented a brief threat to the independence of San Marino, but the country was saved from losing its liberty by one of its regents, Antonio Onofri, who managed to gain the respect and friendship of Napoleon. Due to Onofri's intervention, Napoleon, in a letter delivered to Gaspard Monge, scientist and commissary of the French Government for Science and Art, promised to guarantee and protect the independence of the Republic, even offering to extend its territory according to its needs. The offer was declined by the regents, fearing future retaliation from other states' revanchism.

During the later phase of the Italian unification process in the 19th century, San Marino served as a refuge for many people persecuted because of their support for unification, including Giuseppe Garibaldi and his wife Anita.

The government of San Marino made United States President Abraham Lincoln an honorary citizen. He wrote in reply, saying that the republic proved that "government founded on republican principles is capable of being so administered as to be secure and enduring."

San Marino remained officially neutral in both the First and Second World Wars.  In September 1944, it was briefly occupied by German forces, who were defeated by Allied forces in the Battle of San Marino.

San Marino had the world's first democratically elected communist government – a coalition between the Sammarinese Communist Party and the Sammarinese Socialist Party, which held office between 1945 and 1957.

At the 2020 Summer Olympics, San Marino became the smallest country to earn a medal, as Alessandra Perilli won bronze in the women’s trap shooting event. 

San Marino has the political framework of a parliamentary representative democratic republic: the captains regent are both heads of state and heads of government, and there is a pluriform multi-party system. Executive power is exercised by the government. Legislative power is vested in both the government and the Grand and General Council. The judiciary is independent of the executive and the legislature.

Every six months, the council elects two captains regents to be the heads of state. The regents are chosen from opposing parties so that there is a balance of power. They serve a six-month term. The investiture of the captains regent takes place on 1 April and 1 October in every year. Once this term is over, citizens have three days in which to file complaints about the captains' activities. If they warrant it, judicial proceedings against the ex-head(s) of state can be initiated.

The practice of having two heads of state, like Roman consuls, chosen in frequent elections, is derived directly from the customs of the Roman Republic. The council is equivalent to the Roman Senate; the captains regent, to the consuls of ancient Rome. It is thought the inhabitants of the area came together as Roman rule collapsed to form a rudimentary government for their own protection from foreign rule.  ​San Marino has had more female heads of state than any other country: 15 as of October 2014, including three who served twice.

So, given its age and the unquestioned position as being governed by the oldest written constitution  still in effect, what this about it being a relatively new state?  This refers to the fact that until July 12, 1974, San Marino had not made provision for the rights of its citizens -- if effect, the Sammarinese had no guarantee of civil liberty.  It was on July 12, 1978 that the Serene Republic finally formally recognized the its Declaration of Citizen Rights the individual liberties that are indispensable to a democratic republic.   Containing a declaration of citizen rights and the fundamental principles of the juridical order of San Marino, the Declaration begins with a repudiation of war. It states the people are sovereign and explains how the separation of powers doctrine is applicable to San Marino. Citizens are guaranteed certain rights including equality, inviolability, freedom, and universal suffrage.  ​The Declaration was amended in 2002, providing further constitutional detail on the organization of government and establishing the Guarantors’ Panel on the Constitutionality of Rules, which is a court responsible for assessing the compliance of laws with respect to the Declaration of Rights.

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September 1, 1752 - The "Liberty Bell" arrives in Philadelphia - sort of - maybe

9/1/2021

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Picture
Given its unique place in American culture, it is surprising how little is know of the early history of the "Liberty Bell."  In the date that it first arrived in the city of Philadelphia is not certain, although most sources agree it was sometime in late August or Early September of 1752.  Of course, the arrival of a bell by ship from England, even one the size of the Liberty Bell, was not an uncommon thing and at the time no one realized the significance the bell would play in American History, so it is perhaps not unusual that it's arrival was not recorded with specificity.

Philadelphia's city bell had been used to alert the public to proclamations or civic danger since the city's 1682 founding. The original bell hung from a tree behind the Pennsylvania State House (now known as Independence Hall) and was said to have been brought to the city by its founder, William Penn. In 1751, with a bell tower being built in the Pennsylvania State House, civic authorities sought a bell of better quality that could be heard at a greater distance in the rapidly expanding city. Isaac Norris, speaker of the Pennsylvania Provincial Assembly, gave orders to the colony's London agent, Robert Charles, to obtain a "good Bell of about two thousands pound weight".

The bell was to contain an inscription quoting Leviticus ch. 24 v. 10, "Proclaim LIBERTY Throughout all the Land unto all the Inhabitants Thereof."  Thus began one of the first great myths of the bell, which was that it's inscription was an early statement of colonial desire for independence from England.  However, there is no evidence as to why this particular verse was chosen and at the time there was very little sentiment for independence.  Rather, the prevailing view was that the colonies should be afford equality with, rather than independence from, Great Britain.

Upon its arrival in Philadelphia, the bell was mounted on a stand to test the sound, and at the first strike of the clapper, the bell's rim cracked.  Philadelphia authorities tried to return it by ship, but the master of the vessel that had brought it was unable (or refused) to take it on board.  Thus it had to be recast by a local foundrymen, Pass and Stow.  Though they were inexperienced in bell casting, Pass had headed the Mount Holly Iron Foundry in neighboring New Jersey and came from Malta that had a tradition of bell casting. Stow, on the other hand, was only four years out of his apprenticeship as a brass founder. At Stow's foundry on Second Street, the bell was broken into small pieces, melted down, and cast into a new bell. The two founders decided that the metal was too brittle, and augmented the bell metal by about ten percent, using copper. The bell was ready in March 1753, and Norris reported that the lettering (that included the founders' names and the year) was even clearer on the new bell than on the old.

This we come to the second myth, or perhaps we should say controversy, over the bell.  Because the bell was broken into pieces and entirely recast with additional ore, was it in fact the same bell or a new bell?  The question is more important than a mere sophistry would suggest, because the "English" or "American" nature of the bell became a political tool for, among others, former President Benjamin Harrison, who, speaking as the bell passed through Indianapolis, stated, "This old bell was made in England, but it had to be re-cast in America before it was attuned to proclaim the right of self-government and the equal rights of men."  Accordingly the first (yes, first) recasting of the bell became symbolic well after the fact, with some even claiming that the bell had been deliberately made with poor quality ore to make the bell's proclamation of Liberty to "ring hollow" and it's  recasting was a message to the old country that Americans could take what was English and make it better.  The truth is more likely that the bell's original casters were cutting corners and used inferior ore to reduce expenses.

City officials scheduled a public celebration with free food and drink for the testing of the recast bell. When the bell was struck, it did not break, but the sound produced was described by one hearer as like two coal scuttles being banged together. Mocked by the crowd, Pass and Stow hastily took the bell away and again recast it. When the fruit of the two founders' renewed efforts was brought forth in June 1753, the sound was deemed satisfactory, though Norris indicated that he did not personally like it. The bell was hung in the steeple of the State House the same month.

Dissatisfied with the bell, Norris instructed Charles to order a second one, and see if Lester and Pack would take back the first bell and credit the value of the metal towards the bill. In 1754, the Assembly decided to keep both bells; the new one was attached to the tower clock while the old bell was, by vote of the Assembly, devoted "to such Uses as this House may hereafter appoint." The Pass and Stow bell was used to summon the Assembly.[19] One of the earliest documented mentions of the bell's use is in a letter from Benjamin Franklin to Catherine Ray dated October 16, 1755: "Adieu. The Bell rings, and I must go among the Grave ones, and talk Politiks." The bell was rung in 1760 to mark the accession of George III to the throne. In the early 1760s, the Assembly allowed a local church to use the State House for services and the bell to summon worshipers, while the church's building was being constructed.[20] The bell was also used to summon people to public meetings, and in 1772, a group of citizens complained to the Assembly that the bell was being rung too frequently.

Despite the legends that have grown up about the Liberty Bell, it did not ring on July 4, 1776 (at least not for any reason connected with independence), as no public announcement was made of the Declaration of Independence. When the Declaration was publicly read on July 8, 1776, there was a ringing of bells, and while there is no contemporary account of this particular bell ringing, most authorities agree that the Liberty Bell was among the bells that rang. However, there is some chance that the poor condition of the State House bell tower prevented the bell from ringing.

After Washington's defeat at the Battle of Brandywine on September 11, 1777, the revolutionary capital of Philadelphia was defenseless, and the city prepared for what was seen as an inevitable British attack. Bells could easily be recast into munitions, and locals feared the Liberty Bell and other bells would meet this fate. The bell was hastily taken down from the tower, and sent by heavily guarded wagon train to the town of Bethlehem. Local wagoneers transported the bell to the Zion German Reformed Church in Northampton Town, now Allentown, where it waited out the British occupation of Philadelphia under the church floor boards. It was returned to Philadelphia in June 1778, after the British departure. With the steeple of the State House in poor condition (the steeple was subsequently torn down and later restored), the bell was placed in storage, and it was not until 1785 that it was again mounted for ringing.

Placed on an upper floor of the State House, the bell was rung in the early years of independence on the Fourth of July and on Washington's Birthday, as well as on Election Day to remind voters to hand in their ballots. It also rang to call students at the University of Pennsylvania to their classes at nearby Philosophical Hall. Until 1799, when the state capital was moved to Lancaster, it again rang to summon legislators into session. When Pennsylvania, having no further use for its State House, proposed to tear it down and sell the land for building lots, the City of Philadelphia purchased the land, together with the building, including the bell, for $70,000, equal to $1,067,431 today. In 1828, the city sold the second Lester and Pack bell to St. Augustine's Roman Catholic Church that was burned down by an anti-Catholic mob in the Philadelphia Nativist Riots of 1844. The remains of the bell were recast; the new bell is now located at Villanova University.

It is uncertain how the bell came to be cracked; the damage occurred sometime between 1817 and 1846. The bell is mentioned in a number of newspaper articles during that time; no mention of a crack can be found until 1846. In fact, in 1837, the bell was depicted in an anti-slavery publication—uncracked. In February 1846 Public Ledger reported that the bell had been rung on February 23, 1846, in celebration of Washington's Birthday (as February 22 fell on a Sunday, the celebration occurred the next day), and also reported that the bell had long been cracked, but had been "put in order" by having the sides of the crack filed. The paper reported that around noon, it was discovered that the ringing had caused the crack to be greatly extended, and that "the old Independence Bell ... now hangs in the great city steeple irreparably cracked and forever dumb".

The most common story about the cracking of the bell is that it happened when the bell was rung upon the 1835 death of the Chief Justice of the United States, John Marshall. This story originated in 1876, when the volunteer curator of Independence Hall, Colonel Frank Etting, announced that he had ascertained the truth of the story. While there is little evidence to support this view, it has been widely accepted and taught. Other claims regarding the crack in the bell include stories that it was damaged while welcoming Lafayette on his return to the United States in 1824, that it cracked announcing the passing of the British Catholic Relief Act 1829, and that some boys had been invited to ring the bell, and inadvertently damaged it. David Kimball, in his book compiled for the National Park Service, suggests that it most likely cracked sometime between 1841 and 1845, either on the Fourth of July or on Washington's Birthday.

The Pass and Stow bell was first termed "the Liberty Bell" in the New York Anti-Slavery Society's journal, Anti-Slavery Record. In an 1835 piece, "The Liberty Bell", Philadelphians were castigated for not doing more for the abolitionist cause. Two years later, in another work of that society, the journal Liberty featured an image of the bell as its frontispiece, with the words "Proclaim Liberty". In 1839, Boston's Friends of Liberty, another abolitionist group, titled their journal The Liberty Bell. The same year, William Lloyd Garrison's anti-slavery publication The Liberator reprinted a Boston abolitionist pamphlet containing a poem entitled "The Liberty Bell" that noted that, at that time, despite its inscription, the bell did not proclaim liberty to all the inhabitants of the land.

A great part of the modern image of the bell as a relic of the proclamation of American independence was forged by writer George Lippard. On January 2, 1847, his story "Fourth of July, 1776" appeared in the Saturday Courier. The short story depicted an aged bellman on July 4, 1776, sitting morosely by the bell, fearing that Congress would not have the courage to declare independence. At the most dramatic moment, a young boy appears with instructions for the old man: to ring the bell. It was subsequently published in Lippard's collected stories. The story was widely reprinted and closely linked the Liberty Bell to the Declaration of Independence in the public mind. The elements of the story were reprinted in early historian Benson J. Lossing's The Pictorial Field Guide to the Revolution (published in 1850) as historical fact,[38] and the tale was widely repeated for generations after in school primers.

In 1848, with the rise of interest in the bell, the city decided to move it to the Assembly Room (also known as the Declaration Chamber) on the first floor, where the Declaration and United States Constitution had been debated and signed. The city constructed an ornate pedestal for the bell. The Liberty Bell was displayed on that pedestal for the next quarter-century, surmounted by an eagle (originally sculpted, later stuffed). In 1853, President Franklin Pierce visited Philadelphia and the bell, and spoke of the bell as symbolizing the American Revolution and American liberty. At the time, Independence Hall was also used as a courthouse, and African-American newspapers pointed out the incongruity of housing a symbol of liberty in the same building in which federal judges were holding hearings under the Fugitive Slave Act.

In February 1861, the President-elect, Abraham Lincoln, came to the Assembly Room and delivered an address en route to his inauguration in Washington DC. In 1865, Lincoln's body was returned to the Assembly Room after his assassination for a public viewing of his body, en route to his burial in Springfield, Illinois. Due to time constraints, only a small fraction of those wishing to pass by the coffin were able to; the lines to see the coffin were never less than 3 miles (4.8 km) long. Nevertheless, between 120,000 and 140,000 people were able to pass by the open casket and then the bell, carefully placed at Lincoln's head so mourners could read the inscription, "Proclaim Liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof."

In 1876, city officials discussed what role the bell should play in the nation's Centennial festivities. Some wanted to repair it so it could sound at the Centennial Exposition being held in Philadelphia, but the idea was not adopted; the bell's custodians concluded that it was unlikely that the metal could be made into a bell that would have a pleasant sound, and that the crack had become part of the bell's character. Instead, a replica weighing 13,000 pounds (5,900 kg) (1,000 pounds for each of the original states) was cast. The metal used for what was dubbed "the Centennial Bell" included four melted-down cannons: one used by each side in the American Revolutionary War, and one used by each side in the Civil War. That bell was sounded at the Exposition grounds on July 4, 1876, was later recast to improve the sound, and today is the bell attached to the clock in the steeple of Independence Hall. While the Liberty Bell did not go to the Exposition, a great many Exposition visitors came to visit it, and its image was ubiquitous at the Exposition grounds—myriad souvenirs were sold bearing its image or shape, and state pavilions contained replicas of the bell made of substances ranging from stone to tobacco. In 1877, the bell was hung from the ceiling of the Assembly Room by a chain with thirteen links.

Between 1885 and 1915, the Liberty Bell made seven trips to various expositions and celebrations. Each time, the bell traveled by rail, making a large number of stops along the way so that local people could view it. By 1885, the Liberty Bell was widely recognized as a symbol of freedom, and as a treasured relic of Independence, and was growing still more famous as versions of Lippard's legend were reprinted in history and school books. In early 1885, the city agreed to let it travel to New Orleans for the World Cotton Centennial exposition. Large crowds mobbed the bell at each stop. In Biloxi, Mississippi, the former President of the Confederate States of America, Jefferson Davis came to the bell. Davis delivered a speech paying homage to it, and urging national unity.[51] In 1893, it was sent to Chicago's World Columbian Exposition to be the centerpiece of the state's exhibit in the Pennsylvania Building. On July 4, 1893, in Chicago, the bell was serenaded with the first performance of The Liberty Bell March, conducted by "America's Bandleader", John Philip Sousa. Philadelphians began to cool to the idea of sending it to other cities when it returned from Chicago bearing a new crack, and each new proposed journey met with increasing opposition. It was also found that the bell's private watchman had been cutting off small pieces for souvenirs. The city placed the bell in a glass-fronted oak case. In 1898, it was taken out of the glass case and hung from its yoke again in the tower hall of Independence Hall, a room that would remain its home until the end of 1975. A guard was posted to discourage souvenir hunters who might otherwise chip at it.

By 1909, the bell had made six trips, and not only had the cracking become worse, but souvenir hunters had deprived it of over one percent of its weight. (Its weight was reported as 2,080 lb (940 kg) in 1904. When, in 1912, the organizers of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition requested the bell for the 1915 fair in San Francisco, the city was reluctant to let it travel again. The city finally decided to let it go as the bell had never been west of St. Louis, and it was a chance to bring it to millions who might never see it otherwise. However, in 1914, fearing that the cracks might lengthen during the long train ride, the city installed a metal support structure inside the bell, generally called the "spider." In February 1915, the bell was tapped gently with wooden mallets to produce sounds that were transmitted to the fair as the signal to open it, a transmission that also inaugurated transcontinental telephone service. Some five million Americans saw the bell on its train journey west. It is estimated that nearly two million kissed it at the fair, with an uncounted number viewing it. The bell was taken on a different route on its way home; again, five million saw it on the return journey. Since the bell returned to Philadelphia, it has been moved out of doors only five times: three times for patriotic observances during and after World War I, and twice as the bell occupied new homes in 1976 and 2003. Chicago and San Francisco had obtained its presence after presenting petitions signed by hundreds of thousands of children. Chicago tried again, with a petition signed by 3.4 million schoolchildren, for the 1933 Century of Progress Exhibition and New York presented a petition to secure a visit from the bell for the 1939 New York World's Fair. Both efforts failed.

In 1924, one of Independence Hall's exterior doors was replaced by glass, allowing some view of the bell even when the building was closed. When Congress enacted the nation's first peacetime draft in 1940, the first Philadelphians required to serve took their oaths of enlistment before the Liberty Bell. Once the war started, the bell was again a symbol, used to sell war bonds. In the early days of World War II, it was feared that the bell might be in danger from saboteurs or enemy bombing, and city officials considered moving the bell to Fort Knox, to be stored with the nation's gold reserves. The idea provoked a storm of protest from around the nation, and was abandoned. Officials then considered building an underground steel vault above which it would be displayed, and into which it could be lowered if necessary. The project was dropped when studies found that the digging might undermine the foundations of Independence Hall. On December 17, 1944, the Whitechapel Bell Foundry offered to recast the bell at no cost as a gesture of Anglo-American friendship. The bell was again tapped on D-Day, as well as in victory on V-E Day and V-J Day.

After World War II, and following considerable controversy, the City of Philadelphia agreed that it would transfer custody of the bell and Independence Hall, while retaining ownership, to the federal government. The city would also transfer various colonial-era buildings it owned. Congress agreed to the transfer in 1948, and three years later Independence National Historical Park was founded, incorporating those properties and administered by the National Park Service (NPS or Park Service).[70] The Park Service would be responsible for maintaining and displaying the bell.[71] The NPS would also administer the three blocks just north of Independence Hall that had been condemned by the state, razed, and developed into a park, Independence Mall.[70]

In the postwar period, the bell became a symbol of freedom used in the Cold War. The bell was chosen for the symbol of a savings bond campaign in 1950. The purpose of this campaign, as Vice President Alben Barkley put it, was to make the country "so strong that no one can impose ruthless, godless ideologies on us". In 1955, former residents of nations behind the Iron Curtain were allowed to tap the bell as a symbol of hope and encouragement to their compatriots. Foreign dignitaries, such as Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion and West Berlin Mayor Ernst Reuter were brought to the bell, and they commented that the bell symbolized the link between the United States and their nations. During the 1960s, the bell was the site of several protests, both for the civil rights movement, and by various protesters supporting or opposing the Vietnam War.

Almost from the start of its stewardship, the Park Service sought to move the bell from Independence Hall to a structure where it would be easier to care for the bell and accommodate visitors. The first such proposal was withdrawn in 1958, after considerable public protest. The Park Service tried again as part of the planning for the 1976 United States Bicentennial. The Independence National Historical Park Advisory Committee proposed in 1969 that the bell be moved out of Independence Hall, as the building could not accommodate the millions expected to visit Philadelphia for the Bicentennial. In 1972, the Park Service announced plans to build a large glass tower for the bell at the new visitors center at South Third Street and Chestnut Street, two blocks east of Independence Hall, at a cost of $5 million, but citizens again protested the move. Instead, in 1973, the Park Service proposed to build a smaller glass pavilion for the bell at the north end of Independence Mall, between Arch and Race Streets. Philadelphia Mayor Frank Rizzo agreed with the pavilion idea, but proposed that the pavilion be built across Chestnut Street from Independence Hall, which the state feared would destroy the view of the historic building from the mall area. Rizzo's view prevailed, and the bell was moved to a glass-and-steel Liberty Bell Pavilion, about 200 yards (180 m) from its old home at Independence Hall, as the Bicentennial year began.

During the Bicentennial, members of the Procrastinators' Club of America jokingly picketed the Whitechapel Bell Foundry with signs "We got a lemon" and "What about the warranty?" The foundry told the protesters that it would be glad to replace the bell—so long as it was returned in the original packaging. In 1958, the foundry (then trading under the name Mears and Stainbank Foundry) had offered to recast the bell, and was told by the Park Service that neither it nor the public wanted the crack removed. The foundry was called upon, in 1976, to cast a full-size replica of the Liberty Bell (known as the Bicentennial Bell) that was presented to the United States by the British monarch, Queen Elizabeth II, and was housed in the tower once intended for the Liberty Bell, at the former visitor center on South Third Street.

Today, the Liberty Bell weighs 2,080 pounds (940 kg). Its metal is 70% copper and 25% tin, with the remainder consisting of lead, zinc, arsenic, gold and silver. It hangs from what is believed to be its original yoke, made from American elm. While the crack in the bell appears to end at the abbreviation "Philada" in the last line of the inscription, that is merely the 19th century widened crack that was filed out in the hopes of allowing the bell to continue to ring; a hairline crack, extending through the bell to the inside continues generally right and gradually moving to the top of the bell, through the word "and" in "Pass and Stow," then through the word "the" before the word "Assembly" in the second line of text, and through the letters "rty" in the word "Liberty" in the first line. The crack ends near the attachment with the yoke.

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August 24, 1215 – Magna Carta is ruled to be invalid  . . .  Wait . . . What?

8/24/2021

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Magna Carta (not "The" Magna Carta, as the translation of Magna Carta form the Latin includes the definitive article "The Great Charter") is universally recognized as the foundation of English, and by extension, American, constitution government.  Except, of course, that it isn't. 

Although many of the ideas expressed in Magna Carta are similar or identical to modern concepts of liberal democracy - trial by jury, no taxation without consent of the governed, the government is subject to the law, etc. - the fact is that Magna Carta was imposed on King John by the English barons at Runnymede  under duress.  As soon as the barons had returned to their estates and, more importantly, most, but not all, had disbanded their retinues of knights and men-at-arms, John set about undoing what had been done.


​His first act was to send an emissary to the Vatican, seeking to have Pope Clement III declare Magna Carta to be contrary to God's will. John had good reason to hope that the Pope would respond positively to this entreaty.

Magna Carta had not appeared full born on June 15, 2025, but was the process of a years long  process of negotiation during which John sought to delay having to make any concessions to the barons while gather international support.  During these negotiations, it was John's hope that the Pope would give him valuable legal and moral support, and accordingly John played for time; the King had declared himself to be a papal vassal in 1213 and correctly believed he could count on the Pope for help. John also began recruiting mercenary forces from France, although some were later sent back to avoid giving the impression that the King was escalating the conflict. In a further move to shore up his support, John took an oath to become a crusader, a move which gave him additional political protection under church law, even though many felt the promise was insincere.

Letters backing John arrived from the Pope in April 2015, but by then the rebel barons had organized into a military faction. They congregated at Northampton in May and renounced their feudal ties to John, marching on London, Lincoln, and Exeter. John's efforts to appear moderate and conciliatory had been largely successful, but once the rebels held London, they attracted a fresh wave of defectors from the royalists. The King offered to submit the problem to a committee of arbitration with the Pope as the supreme arbiter, but this was not attractive to the rebels. Stephen Langton, the archbishop of Canterbury, had been working with the rebel barons on their demands, and after the suggestion of papal arbitration failed, John instructed Langton to organize peace talks.  The result was the great gathering at Runnymede and the sealing (not signing, as is often incorrectly stated) of Magna Carta.

Having failed at obtaining Papal arbitration, John simply requested that the Pope declare the charter to be null and void.  Clement, who viewed any surrender of power by a temporal ruler to be a challenge to the Church's own power, obliged.  In fact, Clement had dispatched commissioners even before John's request was received who arrived in England and promptly excommunicated the barons who had refused to disband their forces.  Once aware of the charter, the Pope responded in detail: in a letter dated 24 August and arriving in late September, he declared the charter to be "not only shameful and demeaning but also illegal and unjust" since John had been "forced to accept" it, and accordingly the charter was "null, and void of all validity for ever"; under threat of excommunication, the King was not to observe the charter, nor the barons try to enforce it.

By then, however,  violence had broken out between the two sides; less than three months after it had been agreed, John and the loyalist barons firmly repudiated the failed charter: the First Barons' War erupted. The rebel barons concluded that peace with John was impossible, and turned to Philip II's son, the future Louis VIII, for help, offering him the English throne. The war soon settled into a stalemate. The King became ill and died on the night of 18 October 1216, leaving the nine-year-old Henry III as his heir.

Although the Charter of 1215 was a failure as a peace treaty, it was resurrected under the new government of the young Henry III as a way of drawing support away from the rebel faction. On his deathbed, King John appointed a council of thirteen executors to help Henry reclaim the kingdom, and requested that his son be placed into the guardianship of William Marshal, one of the most famous knights in England.  William knighted the boy, and Cardinal Guala Bicchieri, the papal legate to England, then oversaw his coronation at Gloucester Cathedral on 28 October.

It would not be until 1217 that peace was nominally restored in England with Henry confirmed on the throne and a modified version of the Charter adopted (but only occasionally and inconsistently adhered to).  The primary reason the conflict ended was the real concern that  Louis would gain the throne of England and, in effect, incorporate the nation into a larger French state once he succeeded to that throne, without any guarantee concessions.  The rebel barons began to defect to Henry when they realized that they might have to face a powerful, perhaps indomitable, French monarch rather than a relatively weak English one still in his minority.

Thus, while many of the principles set out in Magna Carta were subsequently repeated and enhanced in subsequent documents and eventually adopted as formal laws, the Great Charter was, essentially, a failure in that it neither produced the hoped for peace nor resulted in more than a token acceptance by King John.  The Pope's declaration that the Charter was null and void was never "reversed" by any authority - Magna Carta effectively ceased to be enforceable on August 24, 2015, two months and nine days after it was sealed.


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August 20, 1866 - The American Civil War Comes to an End . . . Wait . . . What?

8/20/2021

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PicturePresident Andrew Johnson's Proclamation of August 20, 1866 declaring an end to the American Civil War
When did the American Civil War begin?  Most people will answer "with the firing upon Fort Sumter."  A few may even remember the date -- April 12, 1865.  This date is disputed by some who argue for the secession of South Carolina, or the seizure of federal forts and munitions in the weeks before Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated.  Still others will argue for June 25, 1861, the date of the formal resolution by Congress that the War was being fought to preserve the Union, not to end slavery. 

But ask when the Civil War ended, and mostly you will get a thoughtful stare in reply.  This is because most people remember being told that Lee's surrender at Appomattox on April 9, 1865 was not the end of the war.  A few students of history will cite the date a month later when President Andrew Johnson, having assumed the office following the assassination of Lincoln, officially declared an end to the insurrection on May 9, 1865.  Others will cite the surrender of Cherokee leader Stand Watie, who became the last Confederate general to surrender his forces on June 23, 1865.  The final Confederate surrender was by the CSS Shenandoah on November 6, 1865 at the port of Liverpool, England, having sailed there from the Pacific in order to avoid internment and possible trial as commerce raiders, bringing all hostilities of the four year war to a close.  But was the war over?

Well, no.  despite the formal surrender of all field and navel commanders, the insurrection was not suppressed in many regions were forces of the confederacy either refused to disband or reconstituted into new insurgent forces (often little more than criminal gangs and vigilantes meting out revenge on union sympathizers and occupying forces).  It was only in  a presidential proclamation issued on April 2, 1866, President Johnson declared that the insurrection that had existed in Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama, Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, Florida, and Virginia, was at an end. The one exception was Texas, where organized resistance  still continued.  

Later that summer, the President declared that the insurrection in Texas was suppressed. The President acknowledged that "adequate provisions had been made by military orders to enforce the execution of the acts of Congress, aid the civil authorities and secure obedience to the Constitution and the laws of the United States in the state of Texas."

On August 20, 1866, President Johnson issued a proclamation announcing the end of the American Civil War: "And I do further proclaim that the said insurrection is at an end and that peace, order, tranquility, and civil authority now exists in and throughout the whole of the United States of America."

With that proclamation the United States officially closed a costly, bloody, and deadly chapter in its nation's history that started at Fort Sumter several years—and hundreds of thousands lives—earlier.

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August 4, 1892 – The father and stepmother of Lizzie Borden are found murdered in their Fall River, Massachusetts home. She was tried and acquitted for the crimes a year later.

8/4/2021

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Lizzie Borden took an axe and gave her mother 40 whacks, and when she saw what she had done, she gave her father 41.

With the possible exception of the presumed murder of the "Two Princes in the Tower," no double murder has been more celebrated in song, verse and literature than the killing of Andrew Jackson Borden and his wife Abby Borden.  Although Lizzie Borden was charged with the killing of her father and step-mother, she was acquitted.  While it has been frequently speculated that the jury was simply unable to believe that a young woman (Borden was 32, and considered a "spinster" in the terminology of the era) with a devout Christian upbringing could commit a double murder, especially one so brutal as the killing of the Bordens.

However, within legal circles, the consensus is that the prosecution simply did not have sufficient evidence to convince the jury of Lizzie's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.  Criminal forensic science was in its infancy in the late 19th Century and without an eyewitness, it was often difficult to establish a clear connection between the suspect with a presumed motion to commit the crime and the crime itself.

Lizze Borden's trial took place in New Bedford starting on June 5, 1893. Prosecuting attorneys were Hosea M. Knowlton and future United States Supreme Court Justice William H. Moody; defending were Andrew V. Jennings, Melvin O. Adams, and former Massachusetts governor George D. Robinson.

Five days before the trial's commencement, on June 1, another axe murder occurred in Fall River. This time the victim was Bertha Manchester, who was found hacked to death in her kitchen. The similarities between the Manchester and Bordens' murders were striking and noted by jurors. What was not known at the time was that Jose Correa de Mello, a Portuguese immigrant, who was later convicted of Manchester's murder in 1894, was determined not to have been in the vicinity of Fall River at the time of the Borden murders.  

One difficulty with the prosecution's case was that no murder weapon was recovered.  While a several hatchets and a hatchet head had been found in the basement, there was conflicting testimony as to whether a handle for the separate head had been found also.  Although none of the the hatchet heads could not conclusively be shown to match the weapon or weapons used to kill the Bordens, police theorized that the separate head had been used to commit the murders and the handle was subsequently removed and burned because it contained bloodstains.  However, no trace of blood or other evidence of the hatchet being used in the murders was found and the prosecution could not explain why the killer would have destroyed the handle, rather than disposing of the weapon intact..

Another problem with the case was creating a timeline for the murders that matched known facts.  Andrew Borden left the house at 9am for his customary morning walk and returned around 10:30.  the prosecution's theory was that during his absence, Lizzie killed her stepmother in an upstairs guestroom.  

The Borden's maid, Maggie Sullivan, testified that she had to open the front door to the home for Andrew Borden because his key would not unlock the door and that while at doing so she heard Lizzie laughing from upstairs, where Abby's body would have been plainly visible if the door of the guestroom were open.  Sullivan further testified that she last saw Andrew Borden alive just before 11am in the sitting room with Lizzie. 

Lizzie, however,  maintained that she had been in the barn near the house for 20 to 30 minutes before 11am.  Two independent witnesses saw Lizzie leave the barn just after 11am.  Sullivan testified that at 11:10, Lizzie called to her from downstairs, saying "Maggie, come quick! Father's dead. Somebody came in and killed him."

While there is no question that Abby Borden was killed before her husband, the prosecution's theory was that Borden had killed her shortly after Andrew Borden left and remained upstairs with the body until 10:30.  However, there was no evidence that Lizzie was agitated or that any telltale signs of the killing were on her clothing, despite that prosecution asserting that Borden later burned her dress to destroy blo0dstains.  Police were criticized for their haphazard investigation during which they failed to examine Lizzie's clothing for evidence of blood or tissue. 

Although the prosecution made much of Sullivan's testimony that she had heard Borden upstairs at 10:30, Sullivan also was upstairs and reported seeing nothing amiss.  The prosecution argued that Borden closed the door to the guestroom before going downstairs although doors of the bedrooms were usually left open when unoccupied to aid in ventilation.

Police stated that under interrogation Lizzie gave conflicting statements and seemed unusually calm.  It has been speculated, however, that she may have been in a state of shock.  Similarly when called to testify at the inquest, Lizzie was taking morphine under a prescription and this likely effected both her demeanor and the clarity of her testimony.

The presiding Associate Justice, Justin Dewey (who had been appointed by Robinson, the defense attorney, when he was governor), delivered a lengthy summary that supported the defense as his charge to the jury before it was sent to deliberate on June 20, 1893.[After an hour and a half of deliberation, the jury acquitted Borden of the murders.

Although acquitted at trial, Borden remains the prime suspect in her father's and stepmother's murders.  Nonetheless, many of speculated on other possible suspects including Sullivan, Emma Borden (Lizzie's sister) -- whose alibi was never verified -- John Morse, the brother of Andrew Borden's first wife who was staying with the family and who gave police  an "absurdly perfect and overdetailed alibi for the death of Abby Borden."

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August 2, 1776 - The Declaration of Independence is Signed in Philadelphia  . . . Wait . . .What?

8/1/2021

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Picture
Ask any American school child, and most likely the vast majority of American adults as well,  the simple question, "When was the Declaration of Independence signed" and you will undoubtedly be told, "July 4, 1776.  Everyone knows that."  Except, of course, everyone is wrong. 

But tell them so, and they will undoubtedly look perplexed.  A few knowledgeable souls will probably say, "Well, of course the resolution was adopted on July 2nd and signed by John Hancock then, and a few later members of Congress signed it later, but most of the signature were affixed on July 4th."  Sorry, wrong again. 

In countless textbooks next to an illustration of John Trumbell's famous depiction of the event and in the stage and film musical 1776 and other artistic recreations, a scene is set forth like a tableau with the assembled members of Congress preparing to each affix their signatures to the Declaration.  But when did this happen?

The question is not so simple as it may at first seem, and while historians are mostly satisfied that the answer is now firmly established as August 2, 1776, there are still some who maintain that the original Declaration of Independence was signed on July 4, 1776.  What is certain beyond doubt is that the document on display in the National Archives in Washington, DC is not the "original"," and was signed on August 2, 1776.

Here's the full explanation.  On July 2, 1776, 12 of the 13 colonial delegations, with New York abstaining, approved a resolution offered by Richard Henry Lee of Virginia on June 7, "Resolved, That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved."

In the intervening four weeks between the making of the motion to adopt the resolution and its adoption, the “Committee of Five” -- Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania, John Adams of Massachusetts, Robert Livingston of New York, Roger Sherman of Connecticut, and Thomas Jefferson of Virginia -- had drafted a document setting forth the grievances of the colonies against the English Crown and Parliament.  For the next two days, the Congress debated the language of the Declaration before adopting it in final form on July 4.

What is not known, and likely never will be known unless the working draft is found in a musty attic somewhere, is whether anyone signed the draft as adopted on July 4 or at anytime thereafter.  Likely candidates are John Hancock, as President of the Congress, Charles Thomson the Secretary of Congress, and the members of the Committee of Five.  In truth, however, it is likely that none, save possibly Thomson, would have signed that day.  Over the next several days, copies of the resolution, both handwritten and printed, began circulating.  These contained the "signatures" of Hancock and Thomson, though it is unlikely that the handwritten copies were actually signed and the printed copies used plain type.  The "Dunlap Broadside," which was printed overnight, is the most famous of these versions.

Although the official record of the Congress states that the Declaration was engrossed and signed on July 4, 1776, this statement is contradicted by several facts.  First, at least one member of Congress expressly stated that the Declaration was not signed on the 4th of July, but on August 2nd.  Second, the New York delegation did not receive instructions to vote for independence until July 15, so they would not have signed before that date.

Most significantly, it was not until July 19 that Congress adopted a resolution to have the "Declaration passed on the 4th be fairly engrossed on parchment with the title and stile of 'The unanimous declaration of the thirteen united states of America' & that the same when engrossed be signed by every member of Congress."  The engrossed copy -- they one that now resides in the archives -- was not ready for two more weeks and the signing took place on August 2, 1776.  Not every member of Congress who was present on July 4 was present on August 2, and several of the members who voted on the adoption were never able to sign the engrossed version.  Moreover, several members elected after July 4 did sign the engrossed version despite not having voted on its adoption. 

Thomson, however, did not sign the engrossed version as he was not a "member" of Congress despite having served in his position -- likened by some as more akin to being "prime minister of the colonies" -- for the entire sitting of the Continental Congress in every session until the adoption of the Constitution, and, thus, he has somewhat unfairly benn consigned mostly to an uncelebrated role as a footnote to the history of the great document which he may have been the first to sign in its original version.

So why did the official record say that the Declaration was engrossed and signed on the 4th of July?  Because the custom of the time, when important handwritten and printed documents took days or weeks to prepare, the date of adoption was given in the document as the date of engrossment and signing.  In law, this is called signing "nunc pro tunc," that is "now for then," and it means that regardless of when the document is signed, its "effective date" is the date given in the document.

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July 30, 1676 - Nathaniel Bacon issues the "Declaration of the People of Virginia", beginning Bacon's Rebellion against the rule of Governor William Berkeley.

7/30/2021

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PictureThis 1905 depiction of the Burning of Jamestown by Nathaniel Bacon and his followers by Howard Pyle is far from an accurate portrayal of the actual event. Bacon's "Army" was more akin to a mob and was able only to defeat Governor Berkeley's forces because the Governor chose to retreat rather than cause bloodshed. In fact, the only death that resulted from Bacon's Rebellion were the 23 rebels who were hung after Bacon died of natural causes.
The Declaration of the People of Virginia, or simply the Declaration of the People, was a list of complaints issued by Nathaniel Bacon on July 30, 1676, in which he proclaimed Virginia's colonial governor, William Berkeley, to be corrupt and expressed his displeasure at what his followers regarded as unjust taxation and the government's failure to provide colonists protection from some tribes of American Indians. The presumed grievances brought about the uprising known as Bacon's Rebellion. 

One hundred years afterwards, Bacon's Rebellion was cited by many of the Founding Fathers -- Thomas Jefferson, especially -- as the first stirrings of democratic revolt against the monarchy, and to the extent that the event is remembered at all nearly 350 years later, that is how it has been framed.  Except that, as with much of history, the popular version is at odds with the facts.

Bacon is usually portrayed as a "man of the people" who led an "army" of tenant farmers, European indentured servants, and  free and enslaved Africans against Berkeley's tyrannical rule.  While his "army," which is better characterized as a "mob" was indeed made up of the laboring and servant classes, Bacon was a member of the colonial aristocracy and plantation owner. 

His father was a wealthy member of the landed gentry, a lawyer, and member of parliament.  As a young man, Bacon had studied at Cambridge, travelled extensively in Europe, and been accepted into chambers at Gray's Inn to read the law in 1664.  He married well, also, his wife Elizabeth Duke was the daughter of Sir Edward Duke of Benhall, another prominent politician.  By all appearances, Nathaniel, the only son of the Bacon family, was set to assume his father's role as a country squire and politician.

The twist of fate that sent Bacon across the Atlantic was a scandal , or rather his father's desire to avoid one.  The younger Bacon was accused of having cheated another man out of an inheritance.  The precise details have been lost to time, but before the matter could become widely known,  the father packed the son off to the Virginia colony, providing him with 1,800 pounds (more that $500,000 in modern terms), which Bacon used to purchase two plantations and set himself up in Jamestown, where he soon became a member of Governor Berkeley's council.  Berkeley was considerably older than Bacon and they were distantly related through the Governor's wife.

Bacon quickly learned that despite his connections with the Governor, he was not easily accepted  by the established members of Virginia's colonial elite.  The colony was entering its third generation, and those who could trace their lines back to the early days of the settlement were suspicious of newcomers like Bacon who purchase their positions, rather than having earned them.  It soon became clear that despite their connection, Berkeley was not inclined to show any favoritism to Bacon, who in turn found the Governor to be tedious and an impediment to Bacon's plans to expand his holdings by encroaching on the lands of allied Indian tribes.

Bacon was not alone in his desire for more land.  Many of the landless European settlers had come to the colony as indentured servants with the expectation that, like those who had come before, they would be rewarded with a land grant at the end of the contracts of indenture.  However, as land close into the Tidewater region became scarce, the colonial authorities opposed the expansion of settlement further up the James and into the Northern Neck, which by treaty belonged to tribes of natives who Berkeley viewed as creating a buffer between the colonials and the hostile tribe further inland.  Nonetheless, squatters moved into the allied tribes territories and sometimes further in to the interior, creating friction with both friendly and hostile tribes alike.

Bacon soon found himself attracted to the cause of those who wanted to, in his words, "ruin and extirpate all Indians in General."  Bacon also so an opportunity to use the popular support of this faction to gain more power, being elected to the House of Burgesses .  The first act of violence occurred a large number of colonists marched on Jamestown, forcing Berkeley to flee and setting fire to the settlement.  Order was quickly restored when the captains of the armed merchant vessels in the Hampton Roads lent their support to Berkeley.  Peace was maintained for several years.

After an overseer at one of his plantations was alleged to have been killed by two Indians, Bacon sought Berkeley's permission to lead the militia on a retaliatory raid.  Berkeley refused to authorize the action, doubting that the killing had been the result of an Indian attack, but was more likely committed by the slaves of the plantation who used the tale of an Indian raid to cover their crime.

When a rumor spread that another Indian raid was being planned, Berkeley again refused to call of the militia and denied Bacon's request to be granted a Colonel's commission.  Nonetheless, Bacon went out to a makeshift camp of farmers and others with a quantity of brandy; after it was distributed, he was elected leader. Against Berkeley's orders, the group struck south until they came to the Occaneechi people. After convincing the Occaneechi warriors to leave and attack the Susquehannock, Bacon and his men murdered most of the Occaneechi men, women, and children remaining at the village. Upon their return, Bacon's faction discovered that Berkeley had called for new elections to the burgesses to better address the Native American raids.

The recomposed House of Burgesses enacted a number of sweeping reforms, subsequently known as Bacon's Laws, although Bacon was not actually sitting but was at his plantation.  The new laws limited the powers of the governor and restored suffrage to landless freemen.

After passage of these laws, Nathaniel Bacon arrived with 500 followers in Jamestown to once again demand a commission to lead militia against the Native Americans. The governor, however, refused to yield to the pressure. When Bacon had his men take aim at Berkeley, he responded by "baring his breast" to Bacon and told Bacon to shoot him. Seeing that the governor would not be moved, Bacon then had his men take aim at the assembled burgesses, who quickly granted Bacon his commission. When it was reported that their had been a raid by Indians in Henrico (now Richmond) that had killed 8 settlers, Bacon blamed Berkeley, arguing that had the militia not been in Jamestown seeking to force the Governor to act, it could have defended the frontier.

On July 30, 1676, Bacon and his army issued the "Declaration of the People". The declaration criticized Berkeley's administration in detail. It leveled several accusations against Berkeley:
  1. that "upon specious pretense of public works [he] raised great unjust taxes upon the commonality";
  2. that he advanced favorites to high public offices;
  3. that he monopolized the beaver trade with the Native Americans;
  4. that he was pro-Native American.

After months of conflict, Bacon's forces, numbering 300–500 men, moved on Jamestown, which was occupied by Berkeley's forces, besieging the town. Bacon's men captured and burned to the ground the colonial capital on September 19.  Outnumbered, Berkeley retreated across the river. His group encamped at Warner Hall, home of the speaker of the House of Burgesses, Augustine Warner Jr., who had sided with the rebels.  

Although word of the rebellion had been sent to England and a Royal Navy squadron had been dispatched, before it arrived at Jamestown, Bacon suddenly died.  Although John Ingram, one of the indentured servants who had been denied his land grant attempted to assume command on the rebel forces, he lacked Bacon's ability to stir populist sentiment.  Supported by the merchant ships, Berkeley launched a series of counterattacks against the disorganized rebels.

The news of the rebellion being quelled did not soften King Charles II's frustration with Berkeley for having failed to prevent it in the first place.  Berkeley was recalled to England, but died en route back.  Going forward, the new administration of the colony adopted a policy favoring the expropriation of Indian land for European (but not African) freedmen.




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July 10, 1925 – Scopes Trial: In Dayton, Tennessee, the so-called "Monkey Trial" begins of John T. Scopes, a young high school science teacher accused of teaching evolution in violation of the Butler Act.

7/10/2021

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PictureJohn T. Scopes
​The Scopes Trial, formally known as The State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes and commonly referred to as the Scopes Monkey Trial, was an American legal case in July 1925 in which a high school teacher, John T. Scopes, was accused of violating Tennessee's Butler Act, which had made it unlawful to teach human evolution in any state-funded school. The trial was deliberately staged in order to attract publicity to the small town of Dayton, Tennessee, where it was held. Scopes was unsure whether he had ever actually taught evolution, but he incriminated himself deliberately so the case could have a defendant.

Scopes was found guilty and fined $100 (equivalent to $1,500 in 2020), but the verdict was overturned on a technicality. The trial served its purpose of drawing intense national publicity, as national reporters flocked to Dayton to cover the big-name lawyers who had agreed to represent each side. William Jennings Bryan, three-time presidential candidate and former Secretary of State, argued for the prosecution, while Clarence Darrow served as the defense attorney for Scopes. The trial publicized the Fundamentalist–Modernist controversy, which set Modernists, who said evolution was not inconsistent with religion, against Fundamentalists, who said the Word of God as revealed in the Bible took priority over all human knowledge. The case was thus seen both as a theological contest and as a trial on whether modern science should be taught in schools.

State Representative John Washington Butler, a Tennessee farmer and head of the World Christian Fundamentals Association, lobbied state legislatures to pass anti-evolution laws. He succeeded when the Butler Act was passed in Tennessee, on March 25, 1925. Butler later stated, "I didn't know anything about evolution ... I'd read in the papers that boys and girls were coming home from school and telling their fathers and mothers that the Bible was all nonsense." Tennessee governor Austin Peay signed the law to gain support among rural legislators, but believed the law would neither be enforced nor interfere with education in Tennessee schools. William Jennings Bryan thanked Peay enthusiastically for the bill: "The Christian parents of the state owe you a debt of gratitude for saving their children from the poisonous influence of an unproven hypothesis."

In response, the American Civil Liberties Union financed a test case in which John Scopes, a Tennessee high school science teacher, agreed to be tried for violating the Act. Scopes, who had substituted for the regular biology teacher, was charged on May 5, 1925, with teaching evolution from a chapter in George William Hunter's textbook, Civic Biology: Presented in Problems (1914), which described the theory of evolution, race, and eugenics. The two sides brought in the biggest legal names in the nation, William Jennings Bryan for the prosecution and Clarence Darrow for the defense, and the trial was followed on radio transmissions throughout the United States.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) offered to defend anyone accused of teaching the theory of evolution in defiance of the Butler Act. On April 5, 1925, George Rappleyea, local manager for the Cumberland Coal and Iron Company, arranged a meeting with county superintendent of schools Walter White and local attorney Sue K. Hicks at Robinson's Drug Store, convincing them that the controversy of such a trial would give Dayton much needed publicity. According to Robinson, Rappleyea said, "As it is, the law is not enforced. If you win, it will be enforced. If I win, the law will be repealed. We're game, aren't we?" The men then summoned 24-year-old John T. Scopes, a Dayton high school science and math teacher. The group asked Scopes to admit to teaching the theory of evolution.

Rappleyea pointed out that, while the Butler Act prohibited the teaching of the theory of evolution, the state required teachers to use a textbook that explicitly described and endorsed the theory of evolution, and that teachers were, therefore, effectively required to break the law. Scopes mentioned that while he couldn't remember whether he had actually taught evolution in class, he had, however, gone through the evolution chart and chapter with the class. Scopes added to the group: "If you can prove that I've taught evolution and that I can qualify as a defendant, then I'll be willing to stand trial."

Scopes urged students to testify against him and coached them in their answers. He was indicted on May 25, after three students testified against him at the grand jury; one student afterwards told reporters, "I believe in part of evolution, but I don't believe in the monkey business." Judge John T. Raulston accelerated the convening of the grand jury and "... all but instructed the grand jury to indict Scopes, despite the meager evidence against him and the widely reported stories questioning whether the willing defendant had ever taught evolution in the classroom".[16] Scopes was charged with having taught from the chapter on evolution to a high-school class in violation of the Butler Act and nominally arrested, though he was never actually detained. Paul Patterson, owner of The Baltimore Sun, put up $500 in bail for Scopes.

The original prosecutors were Herbert E. and Sue K. Hicks, two brothers who were local attorneys and friends of Scopes, but the prosecution was ultimately led by Tom Stewart, a graduate of Cumberland School of Law, who later became a U.S. Senator. Stewart was aided by Dayton attorney Gordon McKenzie, who supported the anti-evolution bill on religious grounds, and described evolution as "detrimental to our morality" and an assault on "the very citadel of our Christian religion".


Baptist pastor William Bell Riley, the founder and president of the World Christian Fundamentals Association, was instrumental in calling lawyer and three-time Democratic presidential nominee, former United States Secretary of State, and lifelong Presbyterian William Jennings Bryan to act as that organization's counsel. Bryan had originally been invited by Sue Hicks to become an associate of the prosecution and Bryan had readily accepted, despite the fact he had not tried a case in thirty-six years. As Scopes pointed out to James Presley in the book Center of the Storm, on which the two collaborated: "After [Bryan] was accepted by the state as a special prosecutor in the case, there was never any hope of containing the controversy within the bounds of constitutionality."

In response, the defense sought out Clarence Darrow, an agnostic. Darrow originally declined, fearing his presence would create a circus atmosphere, but eventually realized that the trial would be a circus with or without him, and agreed to lend his services to the defense, later saying he "realized there was no limit to the mischief that might be accomplished unless the country was aroused to the evil at hand". After many changes back and forth, the defense team consisted of Darrow, ACLU attorney Arthur Garfield Hays, Dudley Field Malone, an international divorce lawyer who had worked at the State Department, W.O. Thompson, who was Darrow's law partner, and F.B. McElwee. The defense was also assisted by librarian and Biblical authority Charles Francis Potter, who was a Modernist Unitarian preacher.

The prosecution team was led by Tom Stewart, district attorney for the 18th Circuit (and future United States Senator), and included, in addition to Herbert and Sue Hicks, Ben B. McKenzie and William Jennings Bryan.

The trial was covered by journalists from the South and around the world, including H. L. Mencken for The Baltimore Sun, which was also paying part of the defense's expenses. It was Mencken who provided the trial with its most colorful labels such as the "Monkey Trial" of "the infidel Scopes". It was also the first United States trial to be broadcast on national radio.

The ACLU had originally intended to oppose the Butler Act on the grounds that it violated the teacher's individual rights and academic freedom, and was therefore unconstitutional. Principally because of Clarence Darrow, this strategy changed as the trial progressed. The earliest argument proposed by the defense once the trial had begun was that there was actually no conflict between evolution and the creation account in the Bible; later, this viewpoint would be called theistic evolution. In support of this claim, they brought in eight experts on evolution. But other than Dr. Maynard Metcalf, a zoologist from Johns Hopkins University, the judge would not allow these experts to testify in person. Instead, they were allowed to submit written statements so their evidence could be used at the appeal. In response to this decision, Darrow made a sarcastic comment to Judge Raulston (as he often did throughout the trial) on how he had been agreeable only on the prosecution's suggestions. Darrow apologized the next day, keeping himself from being found in contempt of court.

The presiding judge, John T. Raulston, was accused of being biased towards the prosecution and frequently clashed with Darrow. At the outset of the trial, Raulston quoted Genesis and the Butler Act. He also warned the jury not to judge the merit of the law (which would become the focus of the trial) but on the violation of the Act, which he called a 'high misdemeanor'. The jury foreman himself was unconvinced of the merit of the Act but he acted, as did most of the jury, on the instructions of the judge.

Bryan chastised evolution for teaching children that humans were but one of 35,000 types of mammals and bemoaned the notion that human beings were descended "Not even from American monkeys, but from old world monkeys".

Darrow responded for the defense in a speech that was universally considered the oratorical climax of the trial.[29] Arousing fears of "inquisitions", Darrow argued that the Bible should be preserved in the realm of theology and morality and not put into a course of science. In his conclusion, Darrow declared that Bryan's "duel to the death" against evolution should not be made one-sided by a court ruling that took away the chief witnesses for the defense. Darrow promised there would be no duel because "there is never a duel with the truth." The courtroom went wild when Darrow finished; Scopes declared Darrow’s speech to be the dramatic high point of the entire trial and insisted that part of the reason Bryan wanted to go on the stand was to regain some of his tarnished glory.

On the sixth day of the trial, the defense ran out of witnesses. The judge declared that all the defense testimony on the Bible was irrelevant and should not be presented to the jury (which had been excluded during the defense). On the seventh day of the trial, the defense asked the judge to call Bryan as a witness to question him on the Bible, as their own experts had been rendered irrelevant; Darrow had planned this the day before and called Bryan a "Bible expert". This move surprised those present in the court, as Bryan was a counsel for the prosecution and Bryan himself (according to a journalist reporting the trial) never made a claim of being an expert, although he did tout his knowledge of the Bible. This testimony revolved around several questions regarding Biblical stories and Bryan's beliefs (as shown below); this testimony culminated in Bryan declaring that Darrow was using the court to "slur the Bible" while Darrow replied that Bryan's statements on the Bible were "foolish".

On the seventh day of the trial, Clarence Darrow took the unorthodox step of calling William Jennings Bryan, counsel for the prosecution, to the stand as a witness in an effort to demonstrate that belief in the historicity of the Bible and its many accounts of miracles was unreasonable. Bryan accepted, on the understanding that Darrow would in turn submit to questioning by Bryan. Although Hays would claim in his autobiography that the examination of Bryan was unplanned, Darrow spent the night before in preparation. The scientists the defense had brought to Dayton—and Charles Francis Potter, a modernist minister who had engaged in a series of public debates on evolution with the fundamentalist preacher John Roach Straton—prepared topics and questions for Darrow to address to Bryan on the witness stand. Kirtley Mather, chairman of the geology department at Harvard and also a devout Baptist, played Bryan and answered questions as he believed Bryan would. Raulston had adjourned court to the stand on the courthouse lawn, ostensibly because he was "afraid of the building" with so many spectators crammed into the courtroom, but probably because of the stifling heat.

An area of questioning involved the book of Genesis, including questions about whether Eve was actually created from Adam's rib, where Cain got his wife, and how many people lived in Ancient Egypt. Darrow used these examples to suggest that the stories of the Bible could not be scientific and should not be used in teaching science with Darrow telling Bryan, "You insult every man of science and learning in the world because he does not believe in your fool religion." Bryan's declaration in response was, "The reason I am answering is not for the benefit of the superior court. It is to keep these gentlemen from saying I was afraid to meet them and let them question me, and I want the Christian world to know that any atheist, agnostic, unbeliever, can question me anytime as to my belief in God, and I will answer him."

Stewart objected for the prosecution, demanding to know the legal purpose of Darrow's questioning. Bryan, gauging the effect the session was having, snapped that its purpose was "to cast ridicule on everybody who believes in the Bible". Darrow, with equal vehemence, retorted, "We have the purpose of preventing bigots and ignoramuses from controlling the education of the United States."

A few more questions followed in the charged open-air courtroom. Darrow asked where Cain got his wife; Bryan answered that he would "leave the agnostics to hunt for her". When Darrow addressed the issue of the temptation of Eve by the serpent, Bryan insisted that the Bible be quoted verbatim rather than allowing Darrow to paraphrase it in his own terms. However, after another angry exchange, Judge Raulston banged his gavel, adjourning the court.

The confrontation between Bryan and Darrow lasted approximately two hours on the afternoon of the seventh day of the trial. It is likely that it would have continued the following morning but for Judge Raulston's announcement that he considered the whole examination irrelevant to the case and his decision that it should be "expunged" from the record. Thus Bryan was denied the chance to cross-examine the defense lawyers in return, although after the trial Bryan would distribute nine questions to the press to bring out Darrow's "religious attitude". The questions and Darrow's short answers were published in newspapers the day after the trial ended, with The New York Times characterizing Darrow as answering Bryan's questions "with his agnostic's creed, 'I don't know,' except where he could deny them with his belief in natural, immutable law".

Scopes never testified since there was never a factual issue as to whether he had taught evolution. Scopes later admitted that, in reality, he was unsure of whether he had taught evolution (another reason the defense did not want him to testify), but the point was not contested at the trial.

After eight days of trial, it took the jury only nine minutes to deliberate. Scopes was found guilty on July 21 and ordered by Raulston to pay a $100 fine (equivalent to $1,500 in 2020). Raulston imposed the fine before Scopes was given an opportunity to say anything about why the court should not impose punishment upon him and after Neal brought the error to the judge's attention the defendant spoke for the first and only time in court:  Your honor, I feel that I have been convicted of violating an unjust statute. I will continue in the future, as I have in the past, to oppose this law in any way I can. Any other action would be in violation of my ideal of academic freedom—that is, to teach the truth as guaranteed in our constitution, of personal and religious freedom. I think the fine is unjust.

Although the Tennessee Supreme Court upheld the statute as constitutional, it reversed Scopes conviction on technical grounds because the judge, not the jury, imposed the fine.  At that time, only a jury could impose a fine of greater than $50.  Because Scopes was not longer employed by the state, the Supreme Court simply dismissed the case rather than remand it back for a new sentencing proceeding.

In 1968, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in Epperson v. Arkansas 393 U.S. 97 (1968) that such bans contravene the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment because their primary purpose is religious. Tennessee had repealed the Butler Act the previous year.

Bryan died suddenly five days after the trial's conclusion. The connection between the trial and his death is still debated by historians.



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