Posted on 12/18/2022 12:39:51 PM PST by bitt
I want to take you back
…to periods that reflected much of who we are, who we have become, and who we can be. Back to events that affected all of us today but were almost imperceptible to those living them. Perhaps with one exception.
It was Christmas time. The nation had been at war for almost two years. Things had not gone well. News of early defeats had streamed into the nation’s Capital. Richard Rush wrote to his old friend John Adams about the mood in Washington D.C. in December 1813. The nation was fighting, to be sure:
“But it seems to fight for nothing but disaster and defeat . . . and disgrace. What, sir, should be done? The prospect looks black. It is awful. Is not another torrent rolling too fiercely upon us to be turned back? Where shall we find [leaders]? And may we not be doomed to pass yet another and another and another campaign in the school of affliction and disgrace? [I] am sick at heart at the view of our public affairs. Have we, sir, even seen worse times and survived them? And how?”
The aging ex-president John Adams agreed with Rush. “The times are too serious to write.” He didn’t know what prevented the White House—not called that yet—or the “proud Capitol” from becoming the headquarters of the British. The country, Adams said:
“Must have a winnowing, the chaff must be separated from the wheat. The real . . . genius and experience have been neglected [while] froth and ignorance have been promoted.” But, said the aged patriot, “don’t be discouraged. In our Revolution, we had seen infinitely more difficult and dangerous times.”
What stands out about that exchange—and Adams’s comment about the British being in the White House and the Capitol—is that it came just eight months before that very thing occurred. In August of 1814, British troops landed, and though badly outnumbered and utterly embarrassed, an army was sent to stop them at Bladensburg, New Jersey. They marched on to Washington, with the President, James Madison, on a horse just miles ahead of them. Indeed, the defeat at Bladensburg was so humiliating—referred to this day as the “Bladensburg Races”—that Madison couldn’t find his own Secretary of War, John Armstrong, who was in command of the army in the field.
n the darkness, Madison, Attorney General Richard Rush, and John Mason, having watched from a distance as American forces threw down their weapons and ran had ridden back to find the White House deserted.
...more
ping to our own LS
This Christmas, America merely awaits the new spirit of change, the spirit that demands not a return to yesterday but a march toward tomorrow. America yearns for both that spirit of good and the spirit of great. That spirit that says mediocrity is no longer acceptable, that decline is unavoidable, or that social decay is inevitable. Instead, this new spirit of Christmas starts today. It starts here. It starts now. It starts in every heart and hearth, every home and RV, every mansion and apartment. Be a Nautilis. Do your job with courage and conviction, with certainty that even if you fail in what you think was your mission, you have played your part that the Creator of the universe will play His. Your ripples are noticed. Your faith is rewarded. And your patriotism is appreciated. Celebrate the change of the world. Merry Christmas, and God Bless America.
MAGA
Bladensburg, MARYLAND.
Morons.
May, two more centuries ahead, the Battle of “Biden’s burg”, (formerly of Maryland) be remembered with the same disgust and for the same, miraculous, happy ending!
Thanks
, an army was sent to stop them at Bladensburg, New Jersey.
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Bladensburg is not in New Jersey, it’s in Maryland, and one of the battles with the British occurred where now there is a large cemetery in which my parents, grandparents, and other ancestors are buried.
Bladensburg is not in New Jersey, it’s in Maryland, and one of the battles with the British occurred where now there is a large cemetery in which my parents, grandparents, and other ancestors are buried.
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And that town was also recently in the news when a group of leftists attempted to have taken down a beautiful 30 foot high cross that had been erected years ago to honor WW-I (or WW-II) soldiers. The lefties lost that battle in the courts.
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