I am fifty years old and I have always lived in freedom; let me end my life free; when I am dead let this be said of me: ‘He belonged to no school, to no church, to no institution, to no academy, least of all to any régime except the régime of liberty.’
On December 2, 1823, U.S. President James Monroe delivered a speech establishing American neutrality in future European conflicts. The policy became known as the Monroe Doctrine.
Though a much-discussed principle of American foreign policy, it was undermined by the Spanish-American War, and proved a dead letter as the U. S. entered World War I.
On December 1, 1824, with neither John Quincy Adams nor Andrew Jackson receiving a majority of the total electoral college votes in the election, the United States House of Representatives was given the task of deciding the winner in accordance with the Twelfth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
The House selected Adams. Jackson and his supporters felt deeply aggrieved, and immediately set about preparing for the next election, which Jackson won handily. Jacksonian supporters referred to the election of 1824 as “the Stolen Election,” in no small part because Jackson had received more popular votes.
All the public business in Congress now connects itself with intrigues, and there is great danger that the whole government will degenerate into a struggle of cabals.
Political necessities sometimes turn out to be political mistakes.
On November 30, 1804, the United States House of Representatives began impeachment hearings against Supreme Court Justice Samuel Chase. The House thought he was too partisan, too “Federalist.”
The Senate later acquitted Chase.
On 1835 on this date, Samuel Clemens was born, later to achieve world fame as author and humorist Mark Twain (pictured above). His most beloved books include The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and his masterpiece, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885). He died in 1910.
Irish-English medievalist, theologian, and novelist Clive Staples Lewis was born on November 29, 1898. Among his best known works are Out of the Silent Planet, The Problem of Pain, Miracles, and the “Narnia” fantasies for children. His retelling of the Psyche myth, Till We Have Faces, and political essays such as “The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment” and The Abolition of Man, will almost certainly stand the test of time.
If you want the present to be different from the past, study the past.
In 1894, on November 28, economics journalist Henry Hazlitt was born. Halitt went on to write Economics in One Lesson, Time Will Run Back, and several books criticizing Keynesianism. He was the main proponent of the work of Ludwig von Mises and F.A. Hayek in America during the 1940s and 1950s.
Exactly one year earlier, women voted in a national election for the first time . . . in New Zealand. On the same date in 1917, the Estonian Provincial Assembly declared itself the sovereign power of Estonia. November 28 also marks the independence of Mauritania from France (1960), and East Timor from Portugal.
I don’t deserve a share in governing a hen-roost, much less a nation. Nor do most people — all the people who believe advertisements, and think in catchwords and spread rumors. The real reason for democracy is just the reverse. Mankind is so fallen that no man can be trusted with unchecked power over his fellows. Aristotle said that some people were only fit to be slaves. I do not contradict him. But I reject slavery because I see no men fit to be masters.