Category: American Affairs

The American ideal of reflection and choice

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

… it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not, of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend, for their political constitutions, on accident and force.

Alexander Hamilton in Federalist No. 1

 

I hope this won’t be polarizing

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Seems fitting in this presidential election year that we revisit what the Founding Fathers envisioned in crafting their new nation.

I was fortunate to study under and work with Vincent Ostrom at Indiana University. As a professor of political policy and administration, he led me in a close examination of the logic underpinning the Federalist, a series of historic papers that argued for the passage of the proposed Constitution. His resulting book, The Political Theory of a Compound Republic (1971), and later volumes presented a much different understanding of the workings of democracy in the United States than I had found in the more conventional, top-down perspectives. He dubbed the overlapping jurisdictions a polycentric system, or a “compound republic” in the words of the Federalist, and found in it flexibility as well as layers that ultimately enhance democracy.

Through the coming year, the Red Barn will present weekly excerpts from the arguments written by James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay but at the time attributed to the nom de plume Publius.

Let me admit that it’s been years since I last opened my thoroughly marked up copy of the collected papers, a trade paperback I bought for $2.45 back in 1968. I’ll probably be embarrassed by some of my notes in the margins and perhaps also surprised by some of the phrases and sentences I underlined while overlooking more profound insights on the same page.

In this round, we’ll stick with the original text, apart from the titles I’m applying. The prose looks quite different to me than it did more than a half-century ago, even without all the recent political turmoil we’re seeing.

Oh, there could be so much more

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

If you’ve wondered about the many unanswered questions in my book Quaking Dover, let me say I’m hoping they become a prompt for other history fans to follow up on.

Frankly, if I hadn’t given myself the deadline of Dover’s 400th anniversary, I’d still be in the research stage rather than having a published book in hand.

I would especially be interested in pursuing what happened to Friends who were disowned by Meeting, especially over matters of marriage. How many joined other congregations – and which ones? How many drifted away from religion altogether? How many Quaker values did they continue, as well as which ones did they reject?

There are also the things from our own time that we might answer, if asked, but that will fall through the cracks. Ours are truly fast-moving times, and I’ve often been startled when presenting my own poetry and fiction to find points I have to explain to younger ears in the room. Transistors, the forerunner to computer chips, was a prime example.

So here we are once again, looking ahead and looking back in our own lives.

As for Dover, as the big 400th anniversary wraps up?

Happy New Year, all!

In all of the holiday festivities

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

In the colonial era, neither the Congregationalists/Puritans at First Parish nor the Quakers/Friends observed Christmas.

So much for singing festive carols or decorating a tree.

The Friends didn’t sing at all, actually, unless it was somehow spontaneous.

At First Parish, meanwhile, a bass viol was introduced in the 1700s to accompany the hymns.

That gave way in 1829 to an organ built by Bostonian William M. Goodrich. In 1878, the instrument was rebuilt and repositioned by Hutchings-Plaisted of Boston, with alterations in subsequent years.

In 1995, a thoroughly revised instrument was unveiled, the work of Biddeford, Maine, Faucher Organ company. A hybrid of the original pipes and of newer electronic and computer elements, it’s a monster machine capable of rattling the house and shaking the bottoms of your feet.

I am glad we simple Quakers don’t have to pay for its routine maintenance, though I am grateful for those who do.

Not bad for holiday festivities, including accompanying a community-wide Messiah sing.

It’s not the only option in town, either. For some, those carols have to wait till the end of Advent, when the Twelve Days begin.

And, for the record, the Greek Orthodox start celebrating Christmas 12 days later.

Back to the precarious nature of scalloping

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments

The crews are out in our deep cold and often nasty winter weather, not just fishing but also shucking before landing their haul. Most of them head out before sunrise, as I hear from my home.

Are they crazy, as some of them contend, or just dumb, as others jest? Even both? It’s more than honest work, no question.

In our zone, boats are limited to a crew of three and a maximum harvest of two buckets of shucked scallops a day. That’s ten gallons, or nine to ten pounds total. Doesn’t look like much for a day’s haul, especially when you factor in paying for their labor, the boat, gear, fuel, insurance, and the fact it’s seasonal and very cold work, even before the regulations that hold draggers to three days a week. Try making a living on a three-day, limited season, income. Good luck!

Officially, ours is a 50-day run spread over four months, but in reality, an earlier cutoff kicks in on short notice to preserve the stock from depletion. In effect, “It’s over, guys,” arrives in the captain’s email, post haste. Last year, that eliminated 17 fishing days, a third of the season. More than an entire month, actually. By dumb luck, my daughter and I were at the docks just in time to stock up a gallon in our freezers.

At least we’re not managing a restaurant.

As this season? We’re holding our proverbial breath. My, those morsels do taste unbelievable.

(Divers have a different schedule, even more limited.)

Think of that when you wonder about the seemingly high price of heavenly shellfish.

As for some of Dover’s conventional histories

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

I’ve previously mentioned newspaper editor George Wadleigh as a fascinating source of Dover historical narrative.

The Rev. Jeremiah Belknap, a renowned historian, proved far less helpful when it came to the Quakers. They seemed largely invisible to him.

I largely ignored the Rev. Alonzo Hall Quint, another Congregational minister, whose historical notes had been read by Wadleigh, probably when they were originally serialized in the Dover Enquirer from 1850 on. One of my reasons was practical: the scanned ebook edition of the book is nearly unreadable. Besides, even in retirement, I have only so much time. One point worthy of revisiting in the original would be the use of “inner light” in 1855 – if accurate, that would be the first reference to the Quaker doctrine anywhere. Previously, it was Inward Light, with a much different focus. I’m assuming this was a “correction” by John Scales in editing the full book edition published in 1900. Scales himself authored an independent colonial history published in 1923.

One source for later research would be the journals of the Rev. Enoch Place, a pioneer of the Free Will Baptist movement. He visited Friends Meetings in his travels from Strafford, which would offer a fresh perspective, as well as presiding at thousands of burials, baptisms, and weddings from 1810 to 1865. His might balance the histories of the period that revolve around Dover’s downtown mills.