Army scenes on the Chickahominy

Army scenes on the Chickahominy
Harper''s pictorial history of the Civil War. (Chicago : Star Publishing Co. 1866)

Monday, February 19, 2024

Today it is My Duty . . .

 . . . to remind you it is actually Washington's Birthday; and so today, for our edification, I serialize Washington's Farewell Address. Serialized because we seem to have rather short attention spans compared to the Eighteenth Century.*



George Washington by Gilbert Stuart (1796)


George Washington's Farewell Address
FRIENDS AND FELLOW-CITIZENS:
The period for a new election of a citizen, to administer the executive government of the United States, being not far distant, and the time actually arrived, when your thoughts must be employed designating the person, who is to be clothed with that important trust, it appears to me proper, especially as it may conduce to a more distinct expression of the public voice, that I should now apprize you of the resolution I have formed, to decline being considered among the number of those out of whom a choice is to be made.
I beg you at the same time to do me the justice to be assured that this resolution has not been taken without a strict regard to all the considerations appertaining to the relation which binds a dutiful citizen to his country; and that in withdrawing the tender of service, which silence in my situation might imply, I am influenced by no diminution of zeal for your future interest, no deficiency of grateful respect for your past kindness, but am supported by a full conviction that the step is compatible with both.
The acceptance of, and continuance hitherto in, the office to which your suffrages have twice called me, have been a uniform sacrifice of inclination to the opinion of duty, and to a deference for what appeared to be your desire. I constantly hoped, that it would have been much earlier in my power, consistently with motives, which I was not at liberty to disregard, to return to that retirement, from which I had been reluctantly drawn. The strength of my inclination to do this, previous to the last election, had even led to the preparation of an address to declare it to you; but mature reflection on the then perplexed and critical posture of our affairs with foreign nations, and the unanimous advice of persons entitled to my confidence impelled me to abandon the idea.
I rejoice, that the state of your concerns, external as well as internal, no longer renders the pursuit of inclination incompatible with the sentiment of duty, or propriety; and am persuaded, whatever partiality may be retained for my services, that, in the present circumstances of our country, you will not disapprove my determination to retire.
The impressions, with which I first undertook the arduous trust, were explained on the proper occasion. In the discharge of this trust, I will only say, that I have, with good intentions, contributed towards the organization and administration of the government the best exertions of which a very fallible judgment was capable. Not unconscious, in the outset, of the inferiority of my qualifications, experience in my own eyes, perhaps still more in the eyes of others, has strengthened the motives to diffidence of myself; and every day the increasing weight of years admonishes me more and more, that the shade of retirement is as necessary to me as it will be welcome. Satisfied, that, if any circumstances have given peculiar value to my services, they were temporary, I have the consolation to believe, that, while choice and prudence invite me to quit the political scene, patriotism does not forbid it.
In looking forward to the moment, which is intended to terminate the career of my public life, my feelings do not permit me to suspend the deep acknowledgment of that debt of gratitude, which I owe to my beloved country for the many honors it has conferred upon me; still more for the steadfast confidence with which it has supported me; and for the opportunities I have thence enjoyed of manifesting my inviolable attachment, by services faithful and persevering, though in usefulness unequal to my zeal. If benefits have resulted to our country from these services, let it always be remembered to your praise, and as an instructive example in our annals, that under circumstances in which the passions, agitated in every direction, were liable to mislead, amidst appearances sometimes dubious, vicissitudes of fortune often discouraging, in situations in which not unfrequently want of success has countenanced the spirit of criticism, the constancy of your support was the essential prop of the efforts, and a guarantee of the plans by which they were effected. Profoundly penetrated with this idea, I shall carry it with me to my grave, as a strong incitement to unceasing vows that Heaven may continue to you the choicest tokens of its beneficence; that your union and brotherly affection may be perpetual; that the free constitution, which is the work of your hands, may be sacredly maintained; that its administration in every department may be stamped with wisdom and virtue; than, in fine, the happiness of the people of these States, under the auspices of liberty, may be made complete, by so careful a preservation and so prudent a use of this blessing, as will acquire to them the glory of recommending it to the applause, the affection, and adoption of every nation, which is yet a stranger to it.
Here, perhaps I ought to stop. But a solicitude for your welfare which cannot end but with my life, and the apprehension of danger, natural to that solicitude, urge me, on an occasion like the present, to offer to your solemn contemplation, and to recommend to your frequent review, some sentiments which are the result of much reflection, of no inconsiderable observation, and which appear to me all-important to the permanency of your felicity as a people. These will be offered to you with the more freedom, as you can only see in them the disinterested warnings of a parting friend, who can possibly have no personal motive to bias his counsel. Nor can I forget, as an encouragement to it, your indulgent reception of my sentiments on a former and not dissimilar occasion.
Interwoven as is the love of liberty with every ligament of your hearts, no recommendation of mine is necessary to fortify or confirm the attachment.
The unity of Government, which constitutes you one people, is also now dear to you. It is justly so; for it is a main pillar in the edifice of your real independence, the support of your tranquillity at home, your peace abroad; of your safety; of your prosperity; of that very Liberty, which you so highly prize. But as it is easy to foresee, that, from different causes and from different quarters, much pains will be taken, many artifices employed, to weaken in your minds the conviction of this truth; as this is the point in your political fortress against which the batteries of internal and external enemies will be most constantly and actively (though often covertly and insidiously) directed, it is of infinite moment, that you should properly estimate the immense value of your national Union to your collective and individual happiness; that you should cherish a cordial, habitual, and immovable attachment to it; accustoming yourselves to think and speak of it as of the Palladium of your political safety and prosperity; watching for its preservation with jealous anxiety; discountenancing whatever may suggest even a suspicion, that it can in any event be abandoned; and indignantly frowning upon the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together the various parts.
For this you have every inducement of sympathy and interest. Citizens, by birth or choice, of a common country, that country has a right to concentrate your affections. The name of american, which belongs to you, in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of Patriotism, more than any appellation derived from local discriminations. With slight shades of difference, you have the same religion, manners, habits, and political principles. You have in a common cause fought and triumphed together; the Independence and Liberty you possess are the work of joint counsels, and joint efforts, of common dangers, sufferings, and successes.
But these considerations, however powerfully they address themselves to your sensibility, are greatly outweighed by those, which apply more immediately to your interest. Here every portion of our country finds the most commanding motives for carefully guarding and preserving the Union of the whole.
The North, in an unrestrained intercourse with the South, protected by the equal laws of a common government, finds, in the productions of the latter, great additional resources of maritime and commercial enterprise and precious materials of manufacturing industry. The South, in the same intercourse, benefiting by the agency of the North, sees its agriculture grow and its commerce expand. Turning partly into its own channels the seamen of the North, it finds its particular navigation invigorated; and, while it contributes, in different ways, to nourish and increase the general mass of the national navigation, it looks forward to the protection of a maritime strength, to which itself is unequally adapted. The East, in a like intercourse with the West, already finds, and in the progressive improvement of interior communications by land and water, will more and more find, a valuable vent for the commodities which it brings from abroad, or manufactures at home. The West derives from the East supplies requisite to its growth and comfort, and, what is perhaps of still greater consequence, it must of necessity owe the secure enjoyment of indispensable outlets for its own productions to the weight, influence, and the future maritime strength of the Atlantic side of the Union, directed by an indissoluble community of interest as one nation. Any other tenure by which the West can hold this essential advantage, whether derived from its own separate strength, or from an apostate and unnatural connexion with any foreign power, must be intrinsically precarious.
While, then, every part of our country thus feels an immediate and particular interest in Union, all the parts combined cannot fail to find in the united mass of means and efforts greater strength, greater resource, proportionably greater security from external danger, a less frequent interruption of their peace by foreign nations; and, what is of inestimable value, they must derive from Union an exemption from those broils and wars between themselves, which so frequently afflict neighbouring countries not tied together by the same governments, which their own rivalships alone would be sufficient to produce, but which opposite foreign alliances, attachments, and intrigues would stimulate and embitter. Hence, likewise, they will avoid the necessity of those overgrown military establishments, which, under any form of government, are inauspicious to liberty, and which are to be regarded as particularly hostile to Republican Liberty. In this sense it is, that your Union ought to be considered as a main prop of your liberty, and that the love of the one ought to endear to you the preservation of the other.
These considerations speak a persuasive language to every reflecting and virtuous mind, and exhibit the continuance of the union as a primary object of Patriotic desire. Is there a doubt, whether a common government can embrace so large a sphere? Let experience solve it. To listen to mere speculation in such a case were criminal. We are authorized to hope, that a proper organization of the whole, with the auxiliary agency of governments for the respective subdivisions, will afford a happy issue to the experiment. It is well worth a fair and full experiment. With such powerful and obvious motives to Union, affecting all parts of our country, while experience shall not have demonstrated its impracticability, there will always be reason to distrust the patriotism of those, who in any quarter may endeavour to weaken its bands.
In contemplating the causes, which may disturb our Union, it occurs as matter of serious concern, that any ground should have been furnished for characterizing parties by Geographical discriminations, Northern and Southern, Atlantic and Western; whence designing men may endeavour to excite a belief, that there is a real difference of local interests and views. One of the expedients of party to acquire influence, within particular districts, is to misrepresent the opinions and aims of other districts. You cannot shield yourselves too much against the jealousies and heart-burnings, which spring from these misrepresentations; they tend to render alien to each other those, who ought to be bound together by fraternal affection. The inhabitants of our western country have lately had a useful lesson on this head; they have seen, in the negotiation by the Executive, and in the unanimous ratification by the Senate, of the treaty with Spain, and in the universal satisfaction at that event, throughout the United States, a decisive proof how unfounded were the suspicions propagated among them of a policy in the General Government and in the Atlantic States unfriendly to their interests in regard to the Mississippi; they have been witnesses to the formation of two treaties, that with Great Britain, and that with Spain, which secure to them every thing they could desire, in respect to our foreign relations, towards confirming their prosperity. Will it not be their wisdom to rely for the preservation of these advantages on the union by which they were procured? Will they not henceforth be deaf to those advisers, if such there are, who would sever them from their brethren, and connect them with aliens?
To the efficacy and permanency of your Union, a Government for the whole is indispensable. No alliances, however strict, between the parts can be an adequate substitute; they must inevitably experience the infractions and interruptions, which all alliances in all times have experienced. Sensible of this momentous truth, you have improved upon your first essay, by the adoption of a Constitution of Government better calculated than your former for an intimate Union, and for the efficacious management of your common concerns. This Government, the offspring of our own choice, uninfluenced and unawed, adopted upon full investigation and mature deliberation, completely free in its principles, in the distribution of its powers, uniting security with energy, and containing within itself a provision for its own amendment, has a just claim to your confidence and your support. Respect for its authority, compliance with its laws, acquiescence in its measures, are duties enjoined by the fundamental maxims of true Liberty. The basis of our political systems is the right of the people to make and to alter their Constitutions of Government. But the Constitution which at any time exists, till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole people, is sacredly obligatory upon all. The very idea of the power and the right of the people to establish Government presupposes the duty of every individual to obey the established Government.

To be continued tomorrow . . .

Wednesday, February 7, 2024

The Vaiden Inn Controversy

For those unfamiliar with the ongoing controversy, the Vaiden Inn, a historic building in the village of New Kent Courthouse was delisted from the site Airbnb for its historical connects to slavery.

From WAVY TV Channel 10 in Norfolk

NEW KENT, Va. (WAVY) — Take a stroll down New Kent Highway and you’ll see the Vaiden Inn.

But take a scroll down Airbnb, and you won’t see it listed.

Airbnb removed the Vaiden Inn listing last June, and as of Monday, it removed the better-known New Kent Ordinary next door as well.

Vaiden Inn owner Jessica Angel had listed with Airbnb ever since she and her mother bought the place in 2017.

“(We listed) right off the bat, as soon as the doors were open,” Angel said in a recent interview.

And then the popular website called her last June.

Read the rest here  

The YouTube upload of the station's story


My thoughts?

While recognizing the sensitivity of people regarding this topic, we must realize that actions, especially punitive ones, have consequences. The actions of Airbnb as they stand now seem to incentivize the concealing and possibly even the destruction of historical records and structures. Airbnb fails to realize that there is a growing interest in the Black "historical" community in slave quarter, houses, and workplaces both in the urban and rural environment. A great effort is now being exerted to find, catalog, and preserve these structures. If property owners are penalized for the careful preservation and stewardship of these properties, it is a loss to everyone's history.



Thursday, January 25, 2024

Fort James

 A great post from the Facebook group Old Image of Richmond on the excavations of Fort James carries out by the College of William and Mary.


        
                https://www.facebook.com/groups/161854307875657/posts/1459511524776589/



Saturday, December 23, 2023

Bachelor Musings, Brandy, & Babies- Christmas 1916

 From the West Point News of December 22, 1916


ROXBURY

 I wonder who will think of me? This is the question uppermost in the minds of everyone as Christmas, the happiest of all days, draws near. I heartily agree with the editorial in the last issue of the News entitled “Christmas Gifts.” Who is going to remember in some small way the poor widows, orphans and the sick and afflicted in their neighborhood? This has been a prosperous year with Those who give cheerfully, [        ] be made happy. As to this writer in my little bungalow alone with little snookums, I will be happy with good health and plain food. To see  others happy, always makes me happy.

 Brother Peters* has played havoc with his prohibition law. Not [     ] that Baltimore quart can be de[    ] to the man unless he have a [                 ] like he was trying to force the bachelors to marry whether we wish to or not. Man can manage the quart, if not good, he can throw it away, but; when he is tied to the apron strings of a woman, he has to keep her; no one else will. He can’t throw away or trade her off for other live stock. So we bachelors stand between Hades and the deep blue sea. As for this scribe, I never tasted ardent spirits in my life. I would not know the taste of brandy from sauerkraut, yet it seems free America is at last unkind people. He says he is growing fat on fine oysters, ducks and other good things to eat from the kind people of Gloucester. Brother McNeil and family, I send through the columns of the News congratulations. God bless your labors in your new field. We sadly miss you but our loss is another’s gain. Brother McNeil, remember oysters do not grow up here so if you have more than you can manage, send some to your old friend, Truthful Jeems. 

 If one gossip is on straight in this neighborhood some of the pretty teachers have decided to remain permanently in New Kent and it is said they do not expect to live alone.  

The stork visited the home of Mr. and Mrs. D. A. Bailey Tuesday night and left a beautiful little baby boy with Mrs. Ida Carey as a Christmas present. Mr. and Mrs. Cary are being congratulated by their many friends.

 Mr. H. C. White and Roy Bailey were visitors at Wrights bungalow last Sunday.

 Young George Crump, who through mistake shot a deer for a rabbit, was tried by Justice Wright Friday and was fined $5.00 and costs which George paid with a smile. The deer was a three year old doe and weighed 105 pounds. On the market in season, the deer would have sold for $30. The strict game law has caused an abundance of all kinds of game.

TRUTHFUL JEEMS.



* I assume 'Brother Peters' is the first Commissioner of the Virginia Department of Prohibition, J. Sidney Peters. Statewide prohibition had been approved by a referendum of Virginia voters in September of 1914. 

'Justice Wright' and 'Truthful Jeems' were one and the same. 



Christmas in the South - 1870

 From the Christmas edition of Harper's Weekly 1870


Christmas in the South - Egg-Nog Party -12/31/1870


Friday, December 15, 2023

The Tidewater and Big Bend Foundation

 Here is a link to the website for the Tidewater and Big Bend Foundation which owns numerous historic properties in New Kent and Charles City. Whatever ones opinion of the purchases one has to admit it is a nice informative site.

A list of some of the historic properties in New Kent owned by the Foundation (though some of these are still held under the name of Criss Cross Properties.)

Cumberland

Cedar Hill

Cedar Lane

Moss Side

Shuttlewood

Spring Hill

Rose Garden

Scottsville

South Garden

Hampstead

Iden