In our day and age we tend to think that we have some sort of monopoly on short sighted politicians that believe that they are elected to represent a people who do not know what they want, or that can’t understand what is in their best interest. We complain about these leaders following their own agenda’s and their own interests, failing to necessarily represent the interest of those who elected them. Though this is not always the case with every elected official, it does seem to be a chief complaint we do have. Yet this isn’t reserved for our time. It has existed since the beginning of the Republic.   Today, as we continue our ongoing series on the history of the Bill of Rights we continue with the Battle in Congress as men like James Madison, John Page and others seek to drag opponents to where they needed to be on the question now before them. With barriers in front of them, and powerful opponents rising to challenge them it would be apparent that it would not be a simple or an easy task. Facing off with differing agendas, and visions, with those arguing that there were more important matters before the House and that legislation would do as good of a job protecting the rights of the people as amendments to the Constitution, we see the arguments made by supporters and opponents to Madison’s effort.   Join host Wyatt McIntyre as he continues his journey deeper into the history of our great charter of individual rights, looking at the pure history behind this important declaration of our freedoms that was intended to guard our liberty, and see the battle within the government to see it fail even as soon as it was presented. A study into a contentious chapter in our history, it demonstrates why the lessons presented here are now as important as ever as we consider how and why it is necessary to elevate, entrench and protect our rights.

Fragile Freedom

Our Own Magna Carta Americana (Part Seven)

If “Congress will devote but one more day to the subject, so far as to satisfy the public that we do not disregard their wishes, it will have a salutary influence.” Those would be the words of James Madison as he rose, despite the apathy and the opposition faced to the amendments that he was now proposing to the House of Representatives. As promised, in this episode we take the Bill of Rights to the floor of the Congress for the reaction of those Representatives to James Madison’s proposal. Already having faced considerable opposition from both sides, those who believed the Constitution was fine the way it was, and those who believed it encroached on the rights and the freedoms of the people, many had waited to see what the Virginia Congressman was going to propose. Now it was becoming abundantly clear that a fight was brewing not just between the Federalists and the Antifederalists, but the interests and the agendas of politicians united for one reason or another in their opposition to what was being proposed. Yet, regardless of it all, slowly but surely the road to a Bill of Rights was being paved as he worked tirelessly to drag that first Congress, those one time allies and long time opponents, to where they needed to be. A brief word of apology. When recording this episode I was a bit under the weather, battling a cold and a sore throat. Because of that it is perhaps not the most lively of episodes as talking, at times, as I am sure you will hear, was a bit difficult. That said, I wanted to continue this series, and hope you will find it as informative as other episodes have been. So I look forward to you joining with me as we continue our journey with this, the sixth episode, and the first part on the floor fight for the Amendments that would eventually become our Bill of Rights.

Our Own Magna Carta American (Part Six)

Our Own Magna Americana (Part 5)

If I thought I could fulfill the duty which I owe to myself and my constituents, to let the subject pass over in silence, I most certainly should not trespass upon the indulgences of this house.” He would state plainly. “But I cannot do this; and am therefore compelled to beg a patient hearing to what I have laid before you.”   The air hot and heavy, the crowds would look on as James Madison rose to the floor of Federal Hall in New York to address the House of Representatives. The galleries full, yet the seats of North Carolina and Rhode Island still empty, he would look down to the notes scribbled on a piece of paper and begin to speak, offering up his amendments to the Constitution.   This week on Fragile Freedom we continue our ongoing series on the history of the Bill of Rights as the Father of the Constitution, a man who once argued that a Bill of Rights was unnecessary, presented his amendments to the body. For Madison it would not be an easy or a simple road, but it would be one that he knew he had to take. After all, in his mind, government derived its ability to govern from the consent of the people, and, as such, the will of the people could not be ignored. This was what they demanded and this would be what he would fight for as he stood firm, tirelessly crafting the proposals he would present as he poured over the amendments offered up by the state ratifying committees.   Join with host Wyatt McIntyre as he explores the rich history of this great charter of individual rights and freedoms, and how, amidst political divides and battles, it finally came into existence.

Our Own Magna Carta American (Part Four)

The war was over.   The years had passed since General Charles Cornwallis had surrendered following the Siege of Yorktown, and the Treaty of Paris had been signed, but not so many that they had forgotten. They won the Revolution, and the yoke of England had been cast off. They had set out to secure their independence, challenging the most powerful empire in the World, and, after years of sacrifice, loss and pain, after years of being met with devastating defeats and glorious victories, they controlled their destiny, free of that far distant monarch and parliament. Nowhere had that been more celebrated than Massachusetts, where the first shots had been fired.   Returning to their homes and their farms, they believed that they could find some level of normalcy. Still, throughout the states, including Massachusetts, unrest was beginning to build.   The truth was though that America was a new nation and few knew what the new normal would be. The economic climate had changed. Depression, debt, and challenges in foreign trade had seen to that. Now someone had to pay the price. In the mind of Governor James Bowdoin that would be the people.   Unlike his predecessor, John Hancock, who had resigned as Governor in 1785, Bowdoin, a member of Boston's merchant class himself, was less interested in being loved by the people as he was in the debts owed, largely by the wealthy merchants. European creditors were demanding hard currency even as credit previously extended was closed to them. Not only did he have to contend with economic struggles currently faced, but also with the prospect of bailing out those merchants now underwater.   He would begin to put the pressure on the local farmers. Despite their service in the Revolution, compensation from Congress would be almost non-existence. Now, it was the states turn to add injury to insult.   Enacting high taxes, while rigorously pursuing back taxes owed and refusing to print more currency, Bowdoin's policies would turn the Massachusetts government into everything men like Daniel Shays, Luke Day and Eli Parson had fought against in that struggle for independence. In a way, there was a sense of betrayal as the government ignored pleas for relief and petitions to the legislature went unread. Farms were foreclosed on and farmers jailed in the western part of the state. In their minds, these farmers, they had done what was right. They had convened conventions and meetings; they had sent their requests to the legislature. In the words of one farmer, "I've labored hard all my days and fared hard. I have been greatly abused, have been obliged to do more than my part in the war, been loaded with class rates, town rates, province rates, Continental rates, and all rates, lawsuits, and have been pulled and hauled by sheriffs, constables, and collectors, and had my cattle sold for less than they were worth. I have been obliged to pay, and nobody will pay me. I have lost a great deal by this man and that man, and t'other man and the great men are going to get all we have, and I think it is time for us to rise and put a stop to it, and have no more courts, nor sheriffs, nor collectors, nor lawyers. I design to pay no more, and I know we have the biggest party, let them say what they will."   Shays, a Captain in the Revolutionary War, a man who fought at Lexington, Bunker Hill, and Saratoga, before being wounded and resigning from the military in 1780, saw it much the same way. He had sold the ornamental sword offered as a "pledge of affection" by his commanding officer General Lafayette for a few dollars to pay off debts owed, and would become known by fellow soldiers as one without "honor and spirit." Returning home he would find that though he put his life on hold for the war, the rest of the world didn't stop as he found himself in trouble for nonpayment of debts. He was not alone. In one instance, even as he was hauled before the courts, he would even witness the bed taken from a sick woman for her inability to pay her debts.   There came the point when it had become enough.   On August 29th, 1786 that day came as a force of 1,500 men marched on the Court of Common Pleas in Northampton, Massachusetts setting off the events that would become known as Shays Rebellion after the man who would eventually become their popular leader. Their goal was to shut down what they believed was the corrupt body that was robbing the people of their homes, their lands, and their goods. It wasn't their first attempt, having risen only two months prior, on June 13th, to try and shut the courts in Bristol County following the new taxes levied on March 23rd. The difference? The difference was that this time they succeeded.   Stopping the court from sitting in Hampshire County had given them the victory they needed. Now the revolt only began to grow. Styling themselves "The Regulators" after the Regulator Movement of North Carolina in those years before the Revolution, they would set about shutting down the courts throughout the state, starting in Worcester, Taunton and Concord. Bowdoin's initial response would be measured. While other states, faced with similar situations, called on their militia to hunt down rebels and their leaders as soon as they rose, he refused to organize initially. It perhaps wouldn't have done much good. County militias were sympathetic to the cause of the farmers and would refuse to organize. When they were sent to Great Barrington to deal to open the courts, 800 of the 1,000 men would abandon their ranks to join with their downtrodden brothers.   Fear would quickly grip the Governor and one of his key allies, Samuel Adams. Seeing the signs of revolution, having witnessed the same actions, the same course just over a decade prior in 1774, they heard the cries of men like James Warren who would declare, "We are now in a state of Anarchy and Confusion, bordering on civil war" and they responded. Passage of The Riot Act and the suspension the writ of habeas corpus would soon follow, as would the creation of a 3,000 men private militia funded by money raised by the Merchants, and almost entirely made up of men from the Eastern Counties and lead by General Benjamin Lincoln, who had previously served as Washington's second-in-command, accepting the British surrender at Yorktown. In the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts leaders of the Rebellion would be indicted. When Shays and 1,200 of his men would attempt to shut the Court a few weeks later, they would be met by General William Shepherd and 800 militia men in a standoff in the streets. Though the Regulators would be unable to stop the Court from opening, no juror would present themselves, and it would end without violence.   So it would go for the next several months, until January. Setting their eyes on the Federal armory in Springfield they would plan their attack. Yet it would be the delay of a single day would be their undoing as Shays message to hold off the attack until he could get into place was intercepted by the militia. Shepherd would be waiting for them. Approaching the Arsenal warning shots would be fired before the cannons were rolled out. Four of the rebel would lay dead; more would be wounded. Shays and his men would flee. In a few days word would reach General Lincoln, and 3,000 troops would pursue the broken rebellion. In a few days, it would all be over as Shays fled to Vermont.   Despite Samuel Adams belief that "the man who dares to rebel against the laws of a republic ought to suffer death," only two would be executed for the rebellion. When Hancock would return as Governor, he would issue pardons to many of the leaders. Shays himself would spend the rest of his life in exile from his home in Massachusetts drinking too much, working a few acres of land and dependent on a pension from the government for his service in the Revolution.   The effects of the Rebellion though would be long felt, as, even as the man and the events faded, it became a turning point in American history. Even as Thomas Jefferson would declare, "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure." General Washington would write General Henry Lee, "You talk, my good sir, of employing influence to appease the present tumults in Massachusetts. I know not where that influence is to be found, or, if attainable, that it would be a proper remedy for the disorders. Influence is not government. Let us have a government by which our lives, liberties, and properties will be secured, or let us know the worst at once". In the end, it would draw the General out of his retirement, convince many, including James Madison, of the deficiencies of the Articles of Confederation, and spur on a Constitutional Convention that would create a stronger national government.

Shays Rebellion

“Poor Madison got so Cursedly frightened in Virginia, that I believe he has dreamed of amendments ever since.” Robert Morris, the newly elected Senator from Pennsylvania, an ardent Federalist who had argued for ratification and against the need for a Bill of Rights, would observe. The truth? James Madison had every right to be frightened. He had staked his entire reputation on the Constitution and it almost cost him his political future. Denied a seat in the Senate by the Antifederalist Virginia Legislature led by Patrick Henry, he had faced every obstacle in his bid to win a Congressional Seat. Now, despite the gerrymandering, despite being denounced by the most powerful man in the state, despite facing a younger, more popular opponent, he had won. Yet that victory had come at a price. He had to back peddle on his initial opposition to a Bill of Rights, an idea that had been presented at the Constitutional Convention by the likes of his fellow Virginian George Mason. Not only would he now support the idea, he would become its foremost champion in pushing it through the House of Representatives. The third part in the continuing history in the fight for an American Bill of Rights, in this episode host Wyatt McIntyre picks up where he left off following the victory of James Madison over James Monroe in the nation’s first election. Taking on the early days of that first Congress and that newly elected Government he goes through the initial struggle that was faced by Madison as he sought to bring the Federalists and the Antifederalists together while preserving the newly formed government of the United States. Join us as we continue our journey into one of the most important, sometimes misunderstood and misrepresented documents, in American history.    Also be sure to check out this Episode's sponsor, Tactical Dads, at www.thetacticaldads.com

Our Own Magna Carta Americana (Part Three)

He had escaped, he was free.   Most, if not all, in his position, would have kept running, and not looked back. They would have fled to the Northern Free States, or perhaps British North America, to try and start a new life there, just out of reach of their slave master. That was what his father had done before him when the boy was still too young to remember him. Not young Nat Turner though. After a month in the wilderness, he would return to his master by his own free will. Later, he would explain to Thomas Ruffin Gray, a lawyer who frequently represented slaves, and who'd go on to write “The Confessions of Nat Turner”, “the Spirit appeared to me and said I had my wishes directed to the things of this world, and not to the kingdom of heaven, and that I should return to the service of my earthly master.”   In many senses, though Turner was different than his brothers and sisters in bondage, something that was recognized early on in his life. Though a slave, his first master, Benjamin Turner, would let him be educated in reading, writing, and religion. When Benjamin died in 1810, the ten-year-old Nat faced an uncertain future, sold three times after that. Still, what had stuck with him was the religious training he had received from the youngest of ages, and it had shaped who he would become. Fasting, praying, conducting Baptist services, reading his bible, he would become known as the Prophet by his fellow slaves. In his mind that was exactly what he was, a modern Moses who had come to lead his people from slavery. In his words, “I heard a loud noise in the heavens, and the Spirit instantly appeared to me and said the Serpent was loosened, and Christ had laid down the yoke he had borne for the sins of men, and that I should take it on and fight against the Serpent, for the time was fast approaching, when the first should be last, and the last should be first.” It was just that he had to wait for the sign.   In 1831 that sign would finally come to him he became convinced that following the eclipse, “I should arise and prepare myself, and slay my enemies with their own weapons.” Laying out his plans to his closest friends, he would begin to strategize, plotting the next move in what would become his revolt, that rebellion that he believed he was divinely ordained to take upon his shoulders and lead. At no point was he mistaken as to what it was, referring to it as “the work of death.” Whatever the cost though it was, in his mind, the price to pay for the freedom of his people, even if it was to be paid in the lives and blood of others.   Still, as he found that though he could recruit others, building his following to 70 slaves and free blacks, many would turn their back on him. It would, at least according to him, leave him so sick that the day would pass and he would have to wait for the next sign. Just over a month later, on August 13th of that same year, as Mount St. Helen erupted and the skies took on a strange new hue, it had come. There would be no more waiting.   Just after midnight on the 22nd of August, Turner and his supporters would launch their Rebellion. Even in the earliest of hours it turned bloodied, as Turner ordered his people that they were to kill indiscriminately of age or sex all white people they would come across. He would sneak into his Master’s chamber, a man he described as kind to him. Dark, too dark for him to see, he would swing a hatch and glance his head. John Travis would awake and call out to his wife. As Turner would tell the story, “it was his last word. Will laid him dead with a blow of his axe, and Mrs. Travis shared the same fate, as she lay in bed. The murder of this family five in number was the work of a moment, not one of them awoke; there was a little infant sleeping in the cradle, that was forgotten, until we had left the house and gone some distance, when Henry and Will returned and killed it.” Leaving guns as they believed they would attract too much attention, his followers would march, almost in military formation, with hatchets and axes and knives and clubs, freeing the slaves and murdering any white people they came across. In one instance they would hack at one woman, the sword so dull that Turner would keep bludgeoning her over the head.    With a trail of violence, blood staining the streets behind them they would cut through Southampton County Virginia, leaving few alive, sparing only the poorest white individuals, believing they were in the same estate as the slave and the black. 60 men, women and children would be brutally murdered, butchered at the order of Turner in his attempt to strike fear and terror into the hearts of the white population as they sought to gain in strength and numbers to get that foothold. Turner would later claim that he had no intention of letting the murders continue, it was only a part of his preliminary plan to build on his momentum and prevent any from stopping him.   Whether that was true or not, it would bring a swift reaction, not of submission, or defeat, but anger as a Militia twice the size of Turner’s insurrection, and supported by three artillery companies would put down the rebellion quickly. In the end, the Militia would kill over a hundred blacks, and the state would execute another 56, including a number who had nothing to do with the rebellion, an almost indiscriminate slaughter that answered Turner’s indiscriminate slaughter blood for blood. Word would quickly spread through the South as rumors circulated that the rebellion was not an isolated occurrence. Executions would become commonplace over the next weeks. John Hampden Pleasants of the Richmond Constitutional Whig would call it “the slaughter of many blacks, without trial, and under circumstances of great barbarity", while Theodore Trezvant would announce that “The scouting parties through the county have killed 22, without law or justice, as they determined to shew them no mercy.” Men would be tortured, burned and maimed as the list of atrocities mounted in the name of Turner’s Rebellion, until the Commander, General Eppes of Sussex County, seeing enough of what he described as “revolting,” “inhuman” “acts of barbarity and cruelty” ordered it to stop   Turner himself would survive until November of that year when he was captured by a farmer and then executed by hanging in Jerusalem Virginia, with rumors that he had been skinned afterward. The effects though would be long felt after as Virginia debated the gradual abolition of slavery, and found that the pro-slavery faction controlled too much of the state. Instead it would be the excuse many slave owners needed to pass even more oppressive measures on an oppressed people as laws would be enacted that made it illegal to teach any black or half black to read or write, and that would ban them from assembling or holding religious service without a licensed white minister in attendance.

Nat Turner's Revolt

For many, the sounds of the alarms had become so commonplace that few bothered to listen to them anymore. Before the war had even started, Lawrence had become a center of the struggle between abolitionists and pro-slavery settlers in the Border War that would infamously become known as Bleeding Kansas. In 1856 800 men entered the town under the leadership of Sheriff Samuel Jones and destroyed the anti-slavery presses and the Free State Hotel, built the previous year by the New England Emigrant Society as a temporary home for Free-Stater’s relocating to the state. Even if it wasn’t safe, it had seemed to calm, at least for a while. The threat was nothing like it was after the Confederate victory at the Battle of Lexington, or in those days and weeks following the Battle of Springfield just a few months prior. It had seemed like the rebellion in Missouri was finally put down, and the army patrolled the Border. However uneasy it was, there was some semblance of peace. Regardless, with an almost constant state of emergency in place, few residents had probably given the cannons arriving and the drills taking place a second thought What most didn’t know was that the Union Army had received word that William Quantrill and his band of Bushwacker’s had set their sights on the border town, their blood boiling for revenge after General James Lane led a band of pro-Union “Jayhawkers” on the siege of Osceola. Their hatred for the state had only grown with General Thomas Ewing’s arrest of women and girls who had given aid and comfort to Confederate soldiers. Housing them makeshift prisons in Kansas City, one had collapsed, killing four, and injuring even more. Among the dead and wounded, two of the teenaged sisters of the infamous “Bloody Bill” Anderson, one of Quantrill’s most trusted advisors. As the day of the attack slowly came and went early in that August, the Mayor, George Collamore, former Brigadier General, and Quartermaster General of Kansas, and Lieutenant T.J. Hadley, who commanded a unit of a few dozen soldiers stationed in Lawrence had to breathe a little easier. Little did they know that about 400 Missouri Guerillas had slowly marched forward. They had no intention of attacking until late August, well after the reports had them striking, perhaps knowing the bold claim that had he attacked when he was supposed to there welcome would come from "bloody hands and hospitable graves.” By almost 4 am Quantrill, and his men had made it through Franklin, Missouri, only a few miles from their intended target, cloaked by night but still taking every precaution, laying on their horses to avoid drawing attention to themselves, to keep the element of surprise. As they closed the distance between them and Lawrence the order would come up from their commander, “Rush on, boys, it will be daylight before we are there! We ought to have been there an hour ago.” Their pace would quicken as he set his men to columns of fours and pushed forward in a hastened gallop. At about 5 am on August 21st, 1863, they would reach the outskirts of town with the numbers varying between roughly 300 and 400 men. Second thought and doubt would begin to creep in as some wondered what lay ahead, worrying they not nearly prepared enough to ride through the town, and that they would be quickly cut down. Cautiously Quantrill would send William Gregg with five scouts ahead to ride through town and determine the lay of the land while sending some more up to the top of Mount Oread to serve as lookouts. As scouts made it through town, there was little indication that there was anything to fear. Those they saw, as few as they might have been seemed unconcerned by strangers riding through that early, some even mistaking them for Union soldiers. In the end, it became clear they weren't prepared for what was about to come. It wouldn’t matter to Quantrill; his mind had already been made up that he was going to attack. Now at the outskirts of the town, there was no turning back. Crying out to his men he would declare, “You can do as you please, I’m going to Lawrence” before riding into the town. They would follow even as one loudly declared, “We are lost.” Some were sent directly to the house of the Reverend S.S. Snyder, a minister at the United Brethren Church and a Lieutenant in the Second Colored Regiment. He would be one of the first to die, shot as he milked his cow in those early morning hours. Hard and heavy would Quantrill’s Bushwacker’s ride through the town, raiding, looting, murdering, letting loose hell on the people of the town. They had a list of names of those who they were going to kill first. The Mayor, Collamore, would hide in his family well, as they set fire to his house. Though his family survived the brutality of the day, he would die of smoke inhalation. Senator Lane, the general who had led the jayhawkers in the Siege of Osceola, would escape hiding in corn fields. Former Governor Charles Robinson, another prominent Free Stater, though long time rival of Senator Lane, would barely escape with his own life, as would Hugh Dunn Fischer, chaplain of the 5th Kansas Calvary. He would be dragged out of the house by his wife hidden in a carpet as Quantrill’s men watched his house burn. Though James Speer, the newspaper publisher backed by Lane, would escape with his life, two of his sons would be killed, the only thing sparing his youngest’s life was the fact that he gave a fake name. Meanwhile, Quantrill and his men would capture the Elbridge Hotel as their base for the remainder of the massacre, as his troops began to set fire to the town. By the time it was said and done, 4 hours later, over a quarter of the town was burned to the ground, including all but two of the businesses, and 164 civilians were dead, most of whom were men and boys. It was, by no account a raid, it was, for lack of a better term, a slaughter, a mass execution, a savage carnage unleashed on the people of Lawrence. So horrified by the events of Lawrence the Confederate Government would withdraw any and all support it had for Quantrill and his men. They would ride into Texas where they would eventually split among different factions by Winter, too rowdy and undisciplined to remain together. General Ewing would issue his General Order Number 11, expelling Missouri residents from the border counties of their state and then burning their homes and towns to the ground. Kansas Governor Thomas Carney would commission the infamous Colonel Charles Jennison, the Redleg Bandit who been an officer leading the Jayhawk raids in the early days of the war to wreak havoc. He would lay waste to everything in his path until he was finally captured in Missouri two years later, court-martialed and dishonorably discharged. Quantrill himself would not be so lucky. Still leading a group of maybe a dozen men, he would be caught in a Union Ambush in Kentucky a month after General Robert E. Lee surrendered to General Grant, he would be shot in the back and paralyzed from the waist down, before dying at age 27 on June 6th of 1865. Still, his name would live on, not just in the reunions of the men who would, after the war, begin to call themselves Quantrill’s Raiders, but also in the stories of two of his most famous Guerilla’s, Frank and Jesse James.

The Slaughter in Lawrence

Welcome to Fragile Freedom, the new podcast of Wyatt McIntyre and Matthew Cochran. For those who remember us we used to host Patriot Action, a conservative talk show on BlogTalkRadio almost a decade ago now. Well, after an extended hiatus from Politics, after having sat back and watched the current state of affairs we have decided to return with a brand new show. Here we will be discussing the current state of politics and current events. For this first episode we are keeping it casual and starting off slow but, as we go on we look forward to bringing you more of our thoughts and opinions on what's going on. We look forward to you joining us. Read more at http://fragilefreedom.libsyn.com/#lyzBepFO6JXU3irk.99

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Fragile Freedom

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